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Did Kuwait follow President Donald Trump's lead in instituting a visa ban affecting certain Muslim-majority countries?

President Donald Trump's favorite social media tool is Twitter. But Trump turned to Facebook recently to defend his executive order on visas and travel from seven countries.

Trumps Facebook postseemed to rally supporters around the wisdom of his executive order, which suspended entry for most foreign travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen for 120 days.

He commented, "Smart! 'Kuwait issues its own Trump-esque visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries. " The post linked to an article published on the English-language version of the Arabic-language website Al Bawaba on Feb. 1 that featured the headline Trump quoted in his post:

But the government of Kuwait -- a small, Arab monarchy wedged between Iraq and Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf -- publicly rejected the notion that it had followed Trumps lead by banning travel by Muslims.

Kuwait "categorically denied media reports that it planned to stop issuing entry visas for some nationalities," read a statement from Sami Al-Hamad, Kuwaits assistant foreign minister for consular affairs. He added that "citizens of those countries mentioned by social media visited Kuwait regularly through direct commercial flights."

Other diplomats, including the Pakistani envoy in Kuwait and Kuwaits charge daffaires in Iran, backed up Kuwaits statement.

Kuwaits denial was picked up by such mainstream media outlets as Reuters. But as of the afternoon of Feb. 7, Trumps post remained up and uncorrected, as did the Al Bawaba article he had linked to.

So whats going on here? The short answer is that Trumps Facebook post was wrong. The longer answer, however, needs to fill in some important background. (The White House did not provide PolitiFact with any backup material. Attempts to reach the Kuwaiti embassy in Washington were unsuccessful.)

Travel restrictions for Kuwait happened years ago

We found several news accounts from years ago that generally said Kuwait had banned visas for several Muslim countries in 2011 before easing the rules a bit in 2013.

A Gulf News article dated May 22, 2011, said that "Kuwait has banned nationals from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan from entering the country, local media reported. The ban includes suspending all tourism, visit and trade visas as well as visas sponsored by spouses, immigration sources said, quoted by Kuwaiti media yesterday."

The article cited unnamed sources saying that the "visa ban," which was described as "temporary," stemmed from the "difficult security conditions in the five countries" and to "the remarkably increasing tendency of nationals from the five countries to apply for visas to bring in relatives who faced or could face arrest by the local authorities to Kuwait."

Another Gulf News article dated July 8, 2013, noted that Yemen was later added to the visa-ban list.

The 2013 article noted that in January of that year, Kuwait "eased" the ban from those six countries by allowing public-sector workers to bring their wives and children with them, and by allowing private-sector workers to bring their sons if they were under 15 years old and their daughters if they were under 18.

Finally, in 2014, Kuwait eased its visa rules -- but excluded Iran, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan from those expanded rules.

So, while Trump was wrong to say in his Facebook post that Kuwait had followed his lead, Kuwait did have restrictions in previous years.

"Historically, Kuwait has issued travel bans on certain nationalities due to specific events," said Edward W. Gnehm Jr., who studies the Gulf region at George Washington Universitys Elliott School of International Affairs. He noted that Kuwait banned entry by Palestinians, Yemenis and Iraqis after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 since it considered those countries or their people to have been supportive of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

That said, Kuwait has some practical restrictions on how firmly it can crack down on travel from these countries, said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

"There are lots of Syrians living in Kuwait, and they certainly havent been evicted," Diwan said. "It also would have been very unpopular with Kuwaitis who had enormous sympathy for Syrians and the uprising, especially in the early part of the war."

Diwan added that Kuwait "has lots of business with both Iraq and Iran," making a total ban difficult. In fact, she said, the Kuwaiti Emir recently visited Iran to explore the potential for de-escalation on behalf of Kuwait and its neighbors.

Another key point is that the immigration systems of the United States and Kuwait are akin to "apples and oranges," said David Andrew Weinberg, a Gulf specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Kuwait, unlike the United States, is not a multiethnic democracy," Weinberg said. "It is a family-ruled monarchy and ethnically-based nation that does not offer a route to citizenship to immigrants. In fact, Kuwait doesnt even grant citizenship to enormous numbers of bedoon individuals who have been there for generations but arent recognized as Kuwaiti by the state."

Estimates put the number of expatriates in Kuwait at more than 2 million, accounting for about two-thirds of the countrys population and much of its workforce.

In other words, Weinberg said, Kuwait, unlike the United States, doesnt have an immigration system for people to come and stay and become citizens. So any movement toward a stricter immigration policy would have much bigger consequences in the United States than in Kuwait.

If you click through the Al Bawaba story that Trump linked to, that article sources its information to another article, from a London-based website called The New Arab. That article now includes a note at the bottom stating in part, "This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the ban came into force, unofficially, in 2011, and was not a reaction to Donald Trump's recent executive order."

So the original media source that Trumps post is based on doesnt even stand by the message of its original headline.

Our ruling

On Facebook, Trump said, "Smart! 'Kuwait issues its own Trump-esque visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries.'"

Thats wrong -- news coverage suggests that Kuwait implemented a visa ban on a half-dozen predominantly Muslim nations in 2011, six years before Trump took office.

Meanwhile, any argument that Kuwaits past actions indicate a like-minded approach between Trump and Kuwait sidesteps the reality that pursuing such a policy in the United States inevitably has a much bigger impact because the U.S., unlike Kuwait, allows a path to citizenship for legal immigrants. We rate the statement Mostly False.

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Donald Trump wrong to say Kuwait followed his lead on visa ban - PolitiFact

Donald Trump.

In just over two weeks as president, the former billionaire real estate mogul and reality star has seized control of the American zeitgeist. He's permeated almost every area of national life, thriving in a sea of publicity, controversy and conflict.

Plenty of past presidents, including Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy, quickly captured the national conversation after assuming office. But Trump's ubiquity is especially notable since it stems from his gargantuan, antagonistic personality and a governing philosophy that often exacerbates political and cultural fault lines.

Trump's swift capture of the national debate is testimony to the huge cultural power of the presidency and its capacity to shape the spirit of the United States and the world. But his constant in-your-face style also represents a risky experiment. He has yet to prove his constant presence -- for good and bad -- can foster a successful presidency. And he's opening a new front in the cultural backlash coalescing among elites in the coastal entertainment, media and advertising hubs.

Cue an instant torrent of Internet-breaking social media posts showing a younger Trump lounging on a bed in a crisp white bathrobe.

It's just another way the intense emotional experience of the Trump presidency is careening through business, politics, the arts, and popular culture.

Sometimes the Trump effect is being manifested in unusual ways.

But in Orwell's dystopian vision, Big Brother was watching you. In Trump's America, everyone is watching him.

For now, Trump seems to be happy just dominating the conversation. His omnipresence is such that even events that have little to do with the new President suddenly seem to take on new significance because of him.

Take the Super Bowl -- one of the few unifying events left in American life.

Going into Sunday's big game, one of the big questions was whether Lady Gaga's half-time show would be an overtly political denunciation of Trump. After all, it's now almost obligatory for Hollywood awards galas to feature anti-Trump screeds and for pop stars like Madonna and Bruce Springsteen to jab the President from onstage.

But there was an undeniable political undercurrent in Super Bowl ads, which usually avoid political edginess.

Several spots appeared to contain anti-Trump themes.

Given Trump's repeated vows to build a border wall, it was hard to view the ad as anything but a criticism of the President. 84 Lumber, a building-supply company, said the ad was initially rejected for being too "controversial" so it cut the wall out of TV version.

Budweiser, known for its tear-jerking ads with galloping draft horses, also took a political turn, highlighting the tough immigrant journey of one of its founders Adolphus Busch, to pursue his American dream.

"Go back home," Busch is told in one shot. Though the ad pre-dated Trump's temporary entry ban on the nationals of seven mostly Muslim nations, the message's spot seemed more powerful with that in mind.

That such a viewpoint is even possible reflects a sudden awakening triggered by Trump in a nation which now appears more politically on edge -- but also more attuned to dissent and debate -- than it has been for years.

For liberals, the crusade is being reflected in the arts.

The most notable case is "Saturday Night Live's" abrasive, sometimes sinister portrayal of Trump (by Alec Baldwin) and his advisers. This week, White House adviser Steve Bannon was played as the "Angel of Death."

The President hasn't taken the lampooning well, frequently firing off on Twitter about the show.

But maybe he protests too much.

"Trump takes himself so seriously. Being parodied on SNL is like a right of passage. It's like 'Oh my God' that are writing about me, I am in the Zeitgeist," Judy Gold, an Emmy Award-winning writer and comedienne, told CNN's Brooke Baldwin Monday.

Trump may also be angry like a fox.

His feuds with Hollywood, his refusal to play along with SNL and his jousts with the media and the Silicon Valley tech titans amount to more than a rejection of the pop culture that made him.

He's aligning himself exactly with the views of many of his supporters who disdain what they see as the elite's political correctness and smugness.

Even people who have worked for Trump admit he makes an odd blue collar hero, given his eponymous Manhattan tower dripping with gold leaf and his life once lived in the pages of New York gossip columns and his obsession with one particular spoil of pop culture -- the cover of Time magazine.

"He is the unlikeliest of populist leaders," said one senior administration official who requested anonymity to talk about the President.

This person theorized that Trump already had a common touch before entering politics but that he refined his blue-collar instincts by showing deep curiosity about the lives of his voters on the campaign trail, then thinking about their lives and problems.

"That allows him to see what people are like throughout the rest of the country," the official said.

Perhaps that knowledge is one reason why Trump could not care less that he's now apparently despised by the popular culture he once strove to join.

If everyone is obsessed with him, his work might already be part done.

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The name on everyone's lips: Donald Trump - CNN

From left: Courtesy of NBC; by Michael Bezjian/Getty Images; courtesy of The Washington Post/Getty Images

When Kristen Stewart and Alec Baldwin each took their shots at Donald Trump last Saturday night, a certain segment of the population waited for the president to explode on Twitter the next morning. Every Sunday morning is a countdown until Trump tweets about SNL, comedian Kumail Nanjiani joked. But Trump kept mum on that subject, restricting his messages to the Super Bowl and undermining the U.S. judicial system. In the end, however, it wasnt Baldwin or Stewart who reportedly got under Trumps skin: it was Melissa McCarthys brilliant and enormously popular take on Sean Spicer. And now Trumps decade-long foe, Rosie ODonnell, is offering to help finish the job.

Press Secretary Spicer is already on record as being casually displeased with McCarthys bullish, bombastic impression of him. He told Extra that McCarthy needs to slow down on the gum chewing; way too many pieces in there but generously called the show really funny. But according to Politico, it wasnt the gum chewing that displeased Trump. More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, a source close to Trump told the website, it was Spicers portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the presidents eyes. Even worse, the potentially emasculating portrayal is allegedly not considered helpful for Spicers longevity in the grueling, high-profile job in which he has struggled to strike the right balance between representing an administration that considers the media the opposition party, and developing a functional relationship with the press.

Throughout his campaign, Trump had made it clear that he has certain expectations when it comes to gender. He memorably kicked off a feud with former Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly when she asked him about his attitude toward women during a primary debate. Kellys perceived aggression prompted Trump to claim she had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever, and refer to her as a lightweight on Twitter.

But the nastiest, gendered feud of Trumps career (if you dont count the 2016 election) is the public battle hes fought with Rosie ODonnell. Starting in 2006 (when ODonnell made disparaging remarks about the future president on The View), Trump told People, Rosie's a loser. A real loser. I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice fat little Rosie. Like his odd fixation with Kristen Stewart, Trumps public bullying of ODonnell went on for surprisingly long period of timea decade and countingand he took every occasion to take a shot at her. The president sometimes bent over backwards to include an ODonnell insult in completely unrelated conversations. . .

. . .or even nationally-televised debates. Probably the Trump stuff was the most bullying I ever experienced in my life, including as a child, O'Donnell told People in 2016. It was national, and it was sanctioned societally. Whether I deserved it is up to your own interpretation.

Given their combative history, it should come as no surprise that ODonnell would want to help S.N.L. pile on to its increasingly confrontational portrayal of the president and his close circle. When news circulated late Monday night that Trumps biggest issue with S.N.L.s Spicer sketch was McCarthys gender, someone floated the idea that perhaps his old nemesis, Rosie ODonnell, should play Trumps top advisor: Steve Bannon. And as that idea picked up steam on Twitter, it made its way to ODonnell herself who was immediately game.

The person currently portraying Bannon on Saturday nights is new cast member Mikey Day whoin full Grim Reaper dragwhispers demonically bad ideas into Baldwins Trumps ear and forces the president to sit at a miniature desk while he takes the seat of power in the Oval Office. But as TV critic Alan Sepinwall notes, Trump might actually view this depiction of Bannon as a twisted compliment:

Portraying Bannon as the Grim Reaper doesnt seem to have gotten Bannon into the same hot water the Politico article suggests Spicer is now in. Being told that your top adviser is evil is an easy joke, and maybe even something to be taken as a point of pride, given how much Trump and Bannon both like to brag about crushing their enemies. But portray Bannon at his biggest and sloppiest while still forcing the classy POTUS himself to sit at the little desk and thats something that might actually make Trump question his trust in the man.

Mikey Days version of Bannonthough demonically evilis powerful. But on the subject of McCarthy as Spicer, a top Trump donor observed to Politico: Trump doesnt like his people to look weak.

Trump has time and again betrayed a curious obsession with body image. The Washington Post has a fairly exhaustive rundown of Trumps many targets which have included Jennifer Lopez, Chris Christie, Kim Kardashian, former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, and, of course, ODonnell herself. One suspects this evident preoccupation may also play a role in Trumps allegedly negative reaction to McCarthy who launched a successful plus-sized clothing line in 2015 and often wears her own designs on the red carpet. So holding up ODonnellwhom Trump has cruelly called a fat pig, etc.as a mirror to Bannon does seem like a perfectly-crafted blow.

It seems unlikely that S.N.L. will tap ODonnell for the part. The show doesnt often cast its roles by committee. But for ODonnella plus-sized, gay womanto step into the role of the power behind Trumps throne might just be the thing to send the president over the edge. (If thats their goal.) Given the presidents recent reaction to allegations of Bannons power over him (I call my own shots he tweeted Monday morning in response to a New York Times article detailing Bannons sway), Trump may already be teetering on the brink.

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Rosie O'Donnell Offers to Help SNL Drive Donald Trump Over the Edge - Vanity Fair

It has long been known that Trump is a cable-news addict. Lately, trying to trace his angry tweets back to a particular news segment has turned into something of a parlor game.CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / GETTY

President Trump was up early on Monday morning, and, as usual, he was watching MSNBCs Morning Joe. How do we know this? Between six and seven A.M., Joe Scarborough, the shows co-host, discussed the reports that Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, is the one directing policy in the White House. Scarborough showed the cover of this weeks Time magazine, which features Bannon along with the headline The Great Manipulator. Scarborough also showed a clip from Saturday Night Live, in which Bannon, presented as a skeleton in a black cloak, instructedTrump in the Oval Office before taking over his desk and consigning him to a smaller one.I dont know. Maybe Bannon is calling all the shots, Scarborough said. I still dont think he is.

We cant be sure that Trump was watching. But at 7:09 he tweeted this message: I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! As Bradd Jaffy, a news editor at NBC News, pointed out, also on Twitter, it certainly looked like the Morning Joe segment may have prompted this Presidential outburst. It has long been known that Trump is a cable-news addict. Lately, in media circles, trying to trace his angry tweets back to a particular news segment has turned into something of a parlor game.

In a juicy piece in Mondays Times, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush reported that Trumps cable-news viewing extends well beyond his breakfast hours. He recently upgraded the flat-screen TV in his private dining room so he can watch the news while eating lunch, the Times duo reported. Evidently, Trump also does a lot of viewing at night, when hes alone in the White Houses living quarters. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller, the Times report said. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

By any standard, this is a bit bizarre. Usually presidents are into their 2nd term before major papers depict them as a forlorn wraith skulking through the empty White House, the writer John Lingan tweeted. Later in the day, Trump would complain about how the Times covers him. But its portrayal of him as a President consumed by his own media coverage certainly rings true. Indeed, it helps explain the unnerving fusillade of tweets, declamations, and policy announcements that weve seen over the past couple of weeks.

Before Trump was inaugurated, it was sometimes said, based upon his old starring role on The Apprentice, that he would be a reality-TV President. In actuality, hes turned out to be a TV-reality Presidentan Oval Office occupant trapped in the world of cable news, where every minute brings breaking news, every issue is momentous, every hiccup is a crisis, and every criticism of the President is, in his own mind, a calumny. Rather than settling on a few policy themes and methodically going about the tricky business of advancing them through a political system in which the Presidents power is often limited, he has engaged in the TV pundits game of instant response and instant outrage. To try to shape the next days coverage, he also engages in instant policymaking.The result is chaoschaos that every day diminishes the aura of his Presidency and further enrages him.

Most politiciansthose who wish to retain their sanity, anywayfilter out much of the random noise that makes up the daily news cycle. President Obama used to tell people he didnt watch cable, except for ESPN. Going back further, Ronald and Nancy Reagan would sit through the evening news and then switch to an old movie.Margaret Thatcher took things to an extreme: she refused to watch the news or read the newspapers, which she held in disdain. To keep her up to date, her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, produced a daily digest of press clips, but he had to sit beside his boss to make sure she read at least some of them.

When theyre making policy decisions, many leadersObama and Thatcher includedget much of the information they rely on from personal briefings and briefing books. Trump, famously, said during his transition that he didnt need daily intelligence briefings. He also seems to beaverse to reading briefing books, or even the executive orders that he signs. In their latest Times piece, Haberman and Thrush strongly imply that Trump didnt realize he had appointed Bannon to a permanent spot on the National Security Councilan appointment that was subsequently criticized by a number of former national-security officials, who say Bannons presence risks politicizing the advice the council gives the President.

Evidently, Trump does read the Times sometimes,marking up articles with a black Sharpie and passing them on to aides with demands for a response. But much of his world view is shaped by what he sees on cable news.For anything but the vanity of the cable anchors, this cant be good.

It certainly isnt good for Trump himself, who seems to be getting more unhinged by the day. His Twitterrant over the weekend at a federal judgewho placed a temporary block on his anti-Muslim travel ban wasnt the considered behavior of someone acting in his own best interest. If anything, it seemed likely to persuade the members of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where the Trump Administration is seeking relief, to rally behind Judge James Robart, the George W. Bush appointee whom Trump described as a so-called judge.

Watching Trumps latest outbursts, I was reminded of something that Howard Stern, the shock jock who is a longtime friend of his, said last week, as the criticism of the President was mounting. Recalling that he hadnt wanted Trump to run for President, Stern said, This is something that is going to be very detrimental to his mental health . . . because he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved, he wants people to cheer for him. I dont think this is going to be a healthy experience for him.

If Stern is rightand other Trump associates have said similar thingsthe President needs to reverse, or at least modify, some of his divisive policies, particularly the travel ban, which, according to a new CNN poll, a majority of Americans disapprove of and regard as an effort to keep Muslims out of the United States. He also ought to cut down on his cable-news consumption, read some briefing books, and, rather than simply relying on Bannon, bring in some experts to walk him through issues and policies.But, of course, he is unlikely to do any of these things.

Even when Trump is down in Palm Beach, as he was this weekend, supposedly for a break, he will keep watching the box and railing about what he sees. On Monday morning, it seems, another thing that infuriated him was coverage of the unfavorable reaction to his travel ban. Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election, he tweeted. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting. By later in the morning, evidently, Trump had also caught up on the article by Haberman and Thrush, although whether he had read it or had simply seen it being discussed on TV wasnt clear. The failing @nytimes writestotal fiction concerning me, he complained. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!

And so it goes on.

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Donald Trump Is the TV Reality President - The New Yorker

MANDEL NGAN

InfoWars' Alex Jones believes that the government was behind September 11th and Sandy Hook. Now, he has the ear of the leader of the free world.

White House counselor and serial liar Kellyanne Conway had a hell of a weekend, frantically walking back her comments about the "Bowling Green massacre," a terrorist attack on American soil that might have helped to justify President Trump's Muslim ban... except for the tiny detail that no such incident ever occurred. Although the Internet had great fun at Conway's expense, the line of argument she deployed in her statement was legitimately alarming. Here's how she put it:

There was very little coverageI bet it's brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country and were radicalizedand then they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. I mean, most people don't know that, because it didn't get covered.

Conway now claims that she meant to refer to the "Bowling Green terrorists," two men arrested in Kentucky in 2011 for providing material support to Iraqi militantsmeaning the incident she cited still did not involve attacks on U.S. soil, but whatever. Because all serial liars have one another's backs, President Trump doubled down on Conway's comments in a speech delivered on Monday, making the breathtaking assertion that terrorist attacks have become so commonplace all over the world that the media isn't even reporting them anymore.

Radical Islamic terrorists are determined to strike our homeland as they did on 9/11, as they did from Boston to Orlando to San Bernadino, and all across Europe. Youve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, its happening. Its gotten to a point where its not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesnt want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.

First of all, the idea that the media is reluctant to talk about these attacks should strike anyone who regularly watches cable news as absurd, since Fox News loves nothing more than throwing up a hysterical, all-caps terror-related chyron and shouting about it for what feels like eight uninterrupted hours. More troubling, though, is the source from which President Trump appears to be copying his homework. As Aaron Blake of the Washington Post astutely points out, the loudest drum-banger for the idea that the media "covers up" terror attacks is InfoWars, the tinfoil-hat-adorned Angelfire-looking site helmed by Alex Jones, the Loose Change producer who thinks the government was behind Sandy Hook.

President Trump's tendency to parrot his media outlets of choice is well-documented, and this isn't the first time he has fawned over Jones in particular. But the reason this talking point is so dangerous is because it purports to tidily account for the gaping holes in the lies the President tells in support of his agenda. The falsehood that the media doesn't report terrorist events is literally impossible for most Americans, whose source of information on terrorist attacks is the media, to verify. So when Trump argues that America needs to ban Muslims or reject refugees or do God knows what else, and cites vague "terrorist attacks" as justification, he can dismiss the lack of corresponding evidence as attributable to reporting, not to reality.

The press' role in a democracy is to report the facts so that the public can form their own opinions about their leaders' actions. And if Trump's assertion that the press is withholding this information is pretty scary, his willingness to fill in those gaps with the dystopian fever dreams of Alex Jones is off-the-charts terrifying.

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Donald Trump Is Getting His Information From America's Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theorist - GQ Magazine