We were asked by a reader, citing the Palmer Report, to fact check whether Donald Trump owns stock in the company that produces the Tomahawk missiles used in the Syrian bombing.
On April 6th, 2017 Donald Trump ordered the bombing of a Syrian airbase that was supposedly connected to a gas attack carried out by Bashar al-Assad, just days earlier. In the bombing, the USA launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a cost of approximately 60 million dollars. The manufacturer of the Tomahawk missiles is a company called Raytheon, which according to Business Insider, Trump owned stock in before the election. According to President Trump’s 2016 FEC Disclosure he owns/owned, $1,001 – $15,000 of Raytheon stock with an annual income of $1,001 – $2,500. Therefore, as of May 2016, Donald Trump did own stock in this company. Unfortunately, it is not known if Trump owns this stock today.
Source: Snopes
Outside of the misleading headline on the Palmer Report where they claim “Donald Trump owns stock in the Tomahawk missiles he used in Syria”, they do cite factual information within the body of the report. In this opinion piece, the author Bill Palmer states “Donald Trump owned stock in Raytheon up through at least the start of the presidential election cycle. There is no record that he subsequently sold that stock.” This claim is factually accurate because there isn’t a record that he sold it, however there also isn’t any record that he didn’t sell it. Without this information we rate this Unverified until more information is available.
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You have cited the date of the missile strike order incorrectly. You wrote, August 6, 2017″ instead of April 6, 2017.
Thank you!
I think my 401k has that stock along with anyone else who has a 401k. So
That is true Wayne. For example, I remember doing a fact check during the primaries to see if it was true that Bernie Sanders owned Fossil Fuel company stocks. Indeed he did as part of a mutual fund. It is almost certain he had no idea what companies were bundled in that fund.