{"id":395338,"date":"2026-04-16T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/395338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:31:09","slug":"trump-claims-he-was-responsible-for-the-artemis-ii-program-in-blatant-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/395338\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump claims he was responsible for the Artemis II program in ‘blatant lie’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has left people baffled after claiming that he started the Artemis II<\/a> programme that saw NASA astronauts take a historic journey around the Moon.<\/p>\n

The four astronauts involved in the Artemis II captured the hearts of America and beyond when they travelled further from the Earth than any humans have in history.<\/p>\n

But, it seems one person in particular is keen on claiming some of that success for themselves \u2013 none other than US president Trump.<\/p>\n

In a bizarre interview with Fox News<\/a>, Trump appeared to suggest that it was him who was responsible for the programme, despite that being demonstrably false.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were great. I spoke to them as they were circling, right, just after they came out of the dark, that dark cavity. Great, they\u2019re great. I\u2019m the one that started that programme. NASA was closed, it\u2019s totally closed. There was grass growing on the runways,\u201d Trump claimed.<\/p>\n

CNN<\/a> fact-checked Trump\u2019s misinformation-laden interview, explaining: \u201cNASA has been in continuous existence since its founding in 1958, and major NASA initiatives began during the pre-Trump presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, the space launch system (SLS) used in the recent Artemis II lunar flyby was developed under Obama beginning in 2011, while the Orion spacecraft used in Artemis II also predates Trump\u2019s time in office.\u201d<\/p>\n

On social media, people began sharing an image of the very same Artemis II crew with Joe Biden<\/a>, taken in the Oval Office years prior, in response to Trump\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I started that program\u2026.NASA was closed\u2019\u2026..umm ok\u2026..here\u2019s Biden with the crew of Artemis II at the White House in 2023,\u201d someone pointed out.<\/p>\n

Another claimed: \u201cHe lies so easily, and his cult believes him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former NASA Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, commented: \u201cUnbelievable falsity. Presidents of both parties have crafted policies and proposed budgets to advance NASA and it has never been \u2018closed\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone else mocked: \u201cA year from now the orange clown will claim to have been one of the astronauts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother f\u2019ing blatant lie,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Why not read\u2026<\/p>\n

Sign up<\/a> to our free indy100 weekly newsletter<\/p>\n

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has left people baffled after claiming that he started the Artemis II programme that saw NASA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111460,54,828,85,46,8245,3442,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-395338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-fox-news","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-moon","14":"tag-nasa","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}