NBC reporter fact-checks Trump at rally after ex-president 'cast shade on Abraham Lincoln'
Donald Trump on Saturday was fact-checked live by a NBC News reporter who was attending the former president's Iowa rally.
Trump said at his rally that the Civil War, and therefore the existence of slavery as an institution, should have been "negotiated," instead of erupting in bloodshed. He also said that no one would have ever heard of Abraham Lincoln had he simply negotiated the conflict between slave states and non-slave states.
Trump's comments were mocked by fellow conservatives, lawyers, and historians.
But right after Trump made the controversial comments, reporter Vaughn Hillyard was there to explain some context about what the former president left out.
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While not purporting to be "the best historian of the Civil War by any means," Hillyard reported live on MSNBC's Yasmin Vossoughian Reports that "some of the most serious early compromises were put forward in congress in the early years of the Civil War, would have kept slavery as an institution of the union."
Hillyard added in a hushed tone that it was "unclear what text he was reading" about negotiations.
"But for Donald Trump here, nine days before the Iowa caucus, recalling American history and one in which he cast shade on Abraham Lincoln, clearly for not having negotiated the Civil War, or else América would not know... he would not be the famous president, Abraham Lincoln, that we all know."