Statement: Says that in the Philippines more than a century ago, Gen. John Pershing "took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs' blood," and shot 49 Muslim rebels. "The 50th person, he said, 'You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened.' And for 25 years, there wasn't a problem.
Speaker: donald trump
About the speaker: Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016.  He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024.
Date: February 19, 2016
Location: national
Topics: corrections and updates;history;military;religion;terrorism
Context: North Charleston, S.C
Fact-check justification: Of the eight historians we checked with, all were at least skeptical that what Trump said actually happened, and some expressed disbelief even more forcefully than that. The only  of something approximating what Trump said stems from one letter documenting a different scenario written by a veteran more than a half century after the fact. Perhaps more important, the historians took issue with Trump’s suggestion that the tactic -- if it was even used at all -- actually worked to end tensions, noting that unrest persisted for years. In all, Trump’s  is , so we rate it . UPDATE, Feb. 29, 2016: After we published this story, a reader pointed us to a memoir by Pershing titled My Life Before the World War, 1860-1917 , which was republished in 2013 by the University Press of Kentucky. In the memoir, Pershing writes that another commanding officer in the Philippines, Col. Frank West, had in at least one case seen to it that bodies of Muslim insurgents "were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig. It was not pleasant to have to take such measures, but the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven sometimes deterred the would-be assassins." In a footnote, the editor of the 2013 edition, John T. Greenwood, cited a letter about the incident from Maj. Gen. J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Philippines Division, to Pershing: "Of course there is nothing to be done, but I understand it has long been a custom to bury (insurgents) with pigs when they kill Americans. I think this a good plan, for if anything will discourage the (insurgents) it is the prospect of going to hell instead of to heaven. You can rely on me to stand by you in maintaining this custom. It is the only possible thing we can do to discourage crazy fanatics." While these writings do provide strong  that United States forces used pigs as a tactic against Muslim insurgents, they do not support the  Trump made. There is no  that Pershing himself committed these acts, there is nothing said about the use of 50 bullets dipped in pig’s blood, and most important, there is no  to support Trump’s  that this tactic was effective in stopping violence -- or that it would provide a useful policy today. When we ran this additional information by three of the historians we checked with for our original story -- Silbey, Linn and Janda -- they told us they agreed with our conclusion. Our rating remains .