WaPo gives Eric Trump 4 Pinocchios after ObamaCare website claim

The Washington Post fact-checker on Monday gave Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, four “Pinocchios” for a recent Instagram post in which Trump shared a quote saying President Trump’s border “wall costs less than the Obamacare website.”

The Post said that the quote, attributed by Eric Trump to actor Tim Allen, was “inaccurate” and “falsely attributed.”

The newspaper urged Trump to delete the post. 

{mosads}Trump made the post on Instagram last week. It included a picture of Allen and the quote, “President Trump’s Wall costs less than the Obamacare website. Let that sink in, America.”

The ObamaCare website’s cost has not been pinned down to an exact number, according to the Post, but even in the highest estimation of around $2 billion, it would be more than $6 billion below the estimated cost for President Trump’s border wall. 

The newspaper found that the most recent government estimate of the website provided in 2014 was about $834 million, based on a confirmation hearing for former Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

Bloomberg News in 2014 reported that the costs actually exceeded $2 billion. 

Congress has appropriated $1.6 billion for the president’s border barrier, and Trump has used an additional $6.1 billion from previously approved military construction projects under an emergency authority. He is seeking an additional $8.6 billion in funds in the next budget. 

If completed costs could be $20 billion or higher, according to the Post. 

The Post also noted that Allen’s spokesperson says he was not the man who said the statement attributed to him in the Instagram post. 

It appears that a man named Tim Allen, not the actor, may have made a post on Facebook that included the line. The Tim Allen Facebook post included almost the same writing as a statement circulated in March by singer Ted Nugent, according to the Post.

The publicist for the actor, Marleah Leslie, confirmed to FactChek.org that the actor did not write the post.