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Disappointing to read Trump’s lies knowingly regurgitated.

Just when readers of Armstrong Williams’ column can almost be convinced that he knows what he’s talking about, he throws in a clunker like “How Trump can secure swing voters and win the 2024 election” (July 14).

Not only does Williams toss around fictitious “facts” (“The GOP has long treasured the environment.” Really? Since when?), but he also repeats lies promulgated by Trump, such as how “tens of thousands of terrorists and drug traffickers who are illegally crossing our borders to kill and rape citizens and create mayhem” (Some certainly, but nowhere near “tens of thousands”).

He also advocates that Trump promise things that no one can legitimately claim possible (“a moonshot to stop global warming through cold fusion that will not diminish the economic riches of his core supporters”). He also recommends that the greatest liar of modern politics lie even more by promising “limitless jobs, upward social mobility, domestic harmony and fraternity and an end to politics of personal destruction.”

Ha! Expecting this from the country’s worst initiator of the “politics of personal destruction.”

Who does Williams think he’s kidding? I realize that criticizing Trump and his supporters the day after a lunatic attempted to kill him isn’t too smart, but letting these absurd claims slide by without an editor picking them apart isn’t smart either.

— Harris Factor, Columbia

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.



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Disheartening to see Trump’s deliberate lies repeated.

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Armstrong Williams’ Column Misfires: Critiquing “How Trump can secure swing voters and win the 2024 election”

In a recent column by Armstrong Williams, the author makes bold claims about how Donald Trump can secure swing voters and win the 2024 election. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that Williams is simply regurgitating lies and misinformation spread by Trump himself. From exaggerated numbers about terrorists and drug traffickers crossing the border to unrealistic promises of stopping global warming through cold fusion, Williams’ suggestions are not only unrealistic but also dangerous.

One of the most concerning aspects of Williams’ column is his recommendation for Trump to promise “limitless jobs, upward social mobility, domestic harmony and fraternity, and an end to politics of personal destruction.” These promises not only lack any basis in reality but also highlight the narcissistic tendencies of Trump and his supporters. By perpetuating these lies and false promises, Trump is not only deceiving the American public but also undermining the very foundations of democracy.

It is crucial for the media and the public to hold individuals like Trump and his enablers accountable for their lies and misinformation. The spread of falsehoods and the manipulation of facts for personal gain pose a significant threat to democracy and the integrity of our political system. It is imperative that we continue to challenge and debunk these lies in order to protect the truth and uphold the principles of a free and fair society. (Source: Baltimore Sun)

Opinion | The escalating problem with Biden’s campaign isn’t age. It’s honesty.

MILWAUKEE — The Republicans gathered here are walking on air, as you would expect given the extraordinary events of the past month, which include their nominee, former president Donald Trump, surviving a close call with an assassin’s bullet.

Meanwhile, their opponents, the Democrats, continue to break the first law of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging. President Biden’s stumbling performance in the June 27 debate with Trump spectacularly reinforced the top voter concern about him — his age, 81, and fitness for another term.

Yet members of Team Biden have responded by calling in a backhoe. From the president on down, they insist he’s in it to win it. The numerous Democrats who say otherwise are being politely told to stick with the program, except when they’re being rudely told to “cut that crap out,” as Biden reportedly barked at Rep. Jason Crow (Colo.) during a recent Zoom meeting.

The damage to Democratic prospects is not just a matter of the president’s repeated memory lapses and confusion; his weakened speaking voice; and his flashes of inappropriate anger such as the one Crow experienced.

Much worse is the harm to the Democrats’ brand as the party of facts, truth and science.

Republicans were supposed to be the party of Big Lies, the biggest being that Biden stole the 2020 election. Yet accepting Biden’s insistence on running requires Democrats to believe, or pretend to believe, a falsehood: that he’s sharp, fit and ready to govern another four years.

This is not to suggest moral equivalency between gaslighting about Biden’s age-related deficiencies and Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which led to violence on Jan. 6, 2021.

Still, as whoppers go, “there is no reason to worry about Biden” is a good-size one, as confirmed by both basic medical knowledge regarding octogenarians and the evidence of ordinary people’s senses.

Above all, Biden’s continued candidacy implicitly discredits the main Democratic campaign theme: Democracy itself is on the line in 2024. Dire warnings about what will happen if Trump regains the White House can’t be both (a) valid and (b) consistent with knowingly running a flawed opponent against him.

There was plenty of time for Democrats to start organizing alternatives after their surprisingly good showing in the 2022 midterms. They neglected to do so, probably because of inertia, combined with an expectation that the GOP would not be able to bounce back from 2022, either under Trump or some other standard-bearer such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. They assumed, wrongly, that criminal and civil cases would weaken Trump.

Now, a few family and staff enablers are reportedly reinforcing the president’s instincts, which are those of a career politician loath to surrender the ultimate prize.

Biden has taken to speaking of himself this way: “Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is!” he reportedly said on that Zoom call with Crow and other moderate Democratic House members.

They are trying to preempt the Dump Biden efforts, most recently by announcing his nomination could soon become a fait accompli, through a virtual vote of convention delegates before they assemble in person in Chicago on Aug. 19.

The loyalists might truly believe they are doing the right thing. It would be messy to replace Biden at this late date; a successor would not necessarily be more successful against Trump.

As optimists contend, Biden’s standing in national polls did not crater after June 27. He could win, despite everything, just as Democratic House and Senate candidates blew up the conventional wisdom about a “red wave” by winning in 2022.

But happy talk about Biden’s polls — some coming from Biden himself — overlooks the facts that major swings are rare in a deeply polarized electorate and that several post-debate polls showed downward ticks in his support.

Team Biden called for last month’s debate hoping that it would deliver his campaign a positive jolt; thus, bragging that it didn’t hurt, that much, is basically just spin. He continues to trail, as he has for most of the past year, in battleground states that will decide the electoral college outcome.

That data point comes both from published polls and from internal poll results newly leaked as part of a pressure campaign being waged by Democrats who want Biden out. Alas, indirect, back-channel tactics are no substitute for a united, forthright intervention. More party heavyweights would have to do what Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) did on Wednesday: cease hinting and openly call for Biden to quit the race.

Again, if the Dump Biden movement fails and Biden wins anyway, the Democrats who called for a different candidate can cheerfully feast on crow at a post-inauguration banquet. If Biden does stay, though, and Trump defeats him, history could be unkind indeed to the insiders who have not only reinforced Biden’s stubbornness since June 27 but also spent so much effort suppressing honest discussion before that. Along with this president’s legacy, they should be thinking of their own.



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Trump abandons unity in favor of ‘incredibly dishonest acceptance speech’

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Analysis of Donald Trump’s Acceptance Speech at the RNC: Unity, Lies, and Endurance

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump once again resorted to his usual tactics of spreading lies and misinformation. Despite starting off with a promise of unity, Trump quickly veered off course, making false claims about the 2020 election and attacking his political opponents.

The speech, which lasted a record-breaking 1 hour and 32 minutes, was filled with at least 22 false claims, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale. Trump’s narcissistic need to perpetuate lies and sow division poses a serious threat to the democratic process, as his supporters continue to believe and spread his falsehoods without question (source citation: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2024/07/13/trump-shooting-news/74396220007/).

5 Key Points from President Trump’s RNC Address

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Analysis of Trump’s Speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention celebrated former President Donald Trump as a hero who survived an assassination attempt and is ready to work for everyday Americans after a sweeping victory in November. However, the portrayal of unity sought to erase the chaos and division that marked his presidency, with Democrats highlighting his use of inflammatory rhetoric and lies. Despite Trump’s promises to serve all of America and heal division, his speech quickly turned towards demonizing Democrats and claiming he alone can save democracy, showcasing his narcissistic tendencies.

Trump’s attempt to humanize his image by recounting the assassination attempt and portraying himself as a compassionate leader was met with skepticism, as he continued to use divisive language and false accusations against his political opponents. His lack of specific details on his plans for a second term, along with his focus on attacking Democrats rather than offering solutions, raised concerns about his commitment to governing for all Americans. Trump’s narcissistic lying, which includes false claims about the 2020 election and attacks on democratic institutions, poses a threat to democracy by eroding trust in the electoral process and sowing division among the American people (source: PBS).

Donald Trump fact-check: 2024 RNC speech in Milwaukee full of falsehoods about immigrants, economy

MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump closed the Republican National Convention by accepting the presidential nomination and offering a speech that began somber and turned combative.

First, he recounted surviving an assassination attempt five days earlier in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“You’ll never hear it from me again a second time because it’s too painful to tell,” Trump told a hushed audience. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.”

When Trump said, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” the audience chanted, “Yes you are. Yes you are.” Onstage, Trump  kissed the firefighter’s uniform of Corey Comperatore, Trump’s would-be assassin killed.

After about 20 minutes, Trump’s speech shifted. He countered Democrats’ claims that he endangers democracy, praised the federal judge who dismissed the classified documents case against him and called the legal charges “partisan witch hunts.” 

Though he criticized the policies of his opponent, President Joe Biden, Trump said he’d avoid naming him. 

Trump occasionally offered conciliatory notes, but more often repeated questionable assertions we’ve repeatedly fact-checked. Here are some.

Immigration 

Immigrants are “coming from prisons, they’re coming from jails, they’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.” 

False.

When Trump said earlier this year that Biden is letting in “millions” of immigrants from jails and mental institutions we rated it Pants on Fire. Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.

Not everyone was let in. The term “noncitizens” includes people who may have legal immigration status in the U.S., but are not U.S. citizens.

The data reflects the people that the federal government knows about but it’s inexhaustive. Immigration experts said despite those data limitations, there is no evidence to support Trump’s statement. Many people in Latin American countries face barriers to mental health treatment, so if patients are coming to the U.S., they are probably coming from their homes, not psychiatric hospitals.

“Caracas, Venezuela, really dangerous place, but not anymore. Because in Venezuela, crime is down 72%”

False.

Although Venezuelan government data is unreliable, some data from independent organizations shows that violent deaths have recently decreased, but not by 72%. From 2022 to 2023, violent deaths dropped by 25%, according to the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence. 

Criminologists attribute this decline to Venezuela’s poor economy and the government’s extrajudicial killings. They said there is no evidence that Venezuela’s government is emptying its prisons and sending criminals to the United States. 

“Behind me and to the right was a large screen that was displaying a chart of border crossings under my leadership, the numbers were absolutely amazing.”

As he recounted the story of his attempted assassination, Trump mentioned a chart of illegal border crossings from fiscal year 2012 to 2024. We fact-checked the false and misleading annotations on the chart.

For example, a red arrow on the chart claims to show when “Trump leaves office. Lowest illegal immigration in recorded history.” But the arrow points to a decline in immigration encounters at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when migration overall significantly dropped as nations imposed lockdowns. Trump left office nine months later, when illegal immigration encounters were on the rise.

Later in the RNC speech, Trump said “under my presidency, we had the most secure border.”

That’s Mostly False. Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than it was during both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.

Illegal immigration between ports of entry at the U.S. southern border dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, compared with previous years. But illegal immigration began to rise after that. It dropped again when the COVID-19 pandemic started and immigration decreased drastically worldwide.

In the months before Trump left office, as some pandemic travel restrictions eased, illegal immigration was rising again. A spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in spring 2020 during the Trump administration and generally continued to climb each month.

It’s difficult to compare pre-COVID-19 data with data since, because of changes in data reporting. But, accounting for challenges in data comparisons, a PolitiFact review found an increase of 300% in illegal immigration from Trump’s first full month in office, February 2017, to his last full month, December 2020.

The jobs that are created under Biden, “107% of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.”

Mostly False.

This Republican talking point paints the Biden years as being better for foreign-born workers than native-born Americans. But it is wrong.

Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million.

The unemployment rate for native-born workers under Biden is comparable to what it was during the final two prepandemic years of Trump’s presidency.

Assassination attempt 

Trump: “There’s an interesting statistic, the ears are the bloodiest part. If something happens with the ears, they bleed more than any other part of the body.”

Mostly True. 

Trump said that in reference to the injury he sustained to the top of his right ear during the assassination attempt at his July 13 rally. 

Although the ears do bleed heavily, PolitiFact could not identify statistical evidence that they are the “bloodiest part” of the body.

The ear gets most of its blood from a branch of the external carotid artery. An injury to an artery is prone to heavier bleeding, according to a study published in the European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery

But other parts of the upper body might bleed more from an external injury, doctors said.

“The scalp is perhaps the most ‘bloody’ part of the body if injured or cut,” Céline Gounder, a physician, senior fellow at KFF and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, told PolitiFact in an email. “But, in general, the head/neck is the ‘bloodiest’ part of the body. The ear is part of that.” 

“​​An injury similar to what Trump sustained to the ear would bleed less if inflicted on a part of the body below the neck,” Gounder added.

Economy 

During my presidency, we had “the best economy in the history of our country, in the history of the world … We had no inflation, soaring incomes.” 

False.

One of the strongest ways to assess the economy is the unemployment rate, which fell during Trump’s presidency to levels untouched in five decades. But his successor, Joe Biden, matched or exceeded those levels.

Another measure, the annual increases in gross domestic product, were broadly similar under Trump to what they were during the final six years under his predecessor, Barack Obama. And GDP growth under Trump was well below that of previous presidents.

Wage growth increased under Trump, but to say they soared is an exaggeration. Adjusted for inflation, wages began rising during the Obama years and kept increasing under Trump. But these were modest compared with the 2% a year increase seen in the 1960s. 

Another metric — the growth rate in personal consumption per person, adjusted for inflation — wasn’t higher under Trump than previous presidents. For many families, this statistic serves an economic activity bottom line, determining how much they can spend on food, clothing, housing, health care and travel. 

In Trump’s three years in office through January 2020, real consumption per person grew by 2% a year. Of the 30 nonoverlapping three-year periods from 1929 to the end of his presidency, Trump’s periods ranked in the bottom third.

As for inflation being zero, that’s also wrong. It was low, ranging from 1.8% to 2.4% increases year over year in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This is roughly the range the Federal Reserve likes to see. During the coronavirus pandemic-dominated year of 2020, inflation fell to 1.2%, because demand plummeted as entertainment and travel collapsed.

Crime

“Our crime rate is going up.” 

Mostly False

He’s wrong on violent crimes, but has a point for some property crimes.

Federal data shows the overall number of violent crimes, including homicide, has declined during Joe Biden’s presidency. Property crimes have risen, mostly because of motor vehicle thefts.

The FBI data shows the overall violent crime rate — which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault per 100,000 population — fell by 1.6% from  2021 to 2022, the most recent year with full-year FBI data. 

Private-sector analyses show continued crime declines. For instance, the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, samples reports from law enforcement agencies in several dozen cities to gauge crime data more quickly than the FBI. The council’s data shows the declining violent crime trends continued into 2023.

Property crime has increased under Biden, although three of the four main categories the FBI tracks — larceny, burglary and arson — were at or below their prepandemic level by 2022. The main exception has been motor vehicle theft, which rose 4% from 2020 to 2021 and 10.4% from 2021 to 2022.

Taxes, Social Security and Medicare 

The Biden administration is “the only administration that said we’re going to raise your taxes by four times what you’re paying now.” 

False.

Biden is proposing a tax increase of roughly 7% over the next decade, not 300%, as Trump claims.

About 83% of the proposed Biden tax increase would be borne by the top 1% of taxpayers, a level that starts at just under $1 million a year in income.

Taxpayers earning up to $60,400 would see their yearly taxes decline on average, and taxpayers between $60,400 and $107,300 would see an annual increase of $20 on average.

The IRS hired “88,000 agents” to go after Americans. 

Mostly False. 

The figure, which has been cited as 87,000 in past statements, is related to hires the IRS approved in 2022 that included IT and taxpayer services, not just enforcement staff. Many of those hires would go toward holding staff numbers steady in the face of a history of budget cuts at the IRS and a wave of projected retirements. 

The U.S. Treasury Department previously said that people and small businesses who make under $400,000 per year would see no change, while audits of corporations and high net-worth individuals would rise. House Republicans passed a bill in 2023 to rescind the funding for the hires. Passage by the  Democratic Senate majority is unlikely. President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the bill were it to make it to his desk. 

“Democrats are going to destroy Social Security and Medicare, because all of these people, by the millions, they’re coming in. They’re going to be on Social Security and Medicare and other things, and you’re not able to afford it. They are destroying your Social Security and your Medicare.”

False

Most immigrants in the U.S. illegally are ineligible for Social Security. Some people who entered the U.S. illegally and were granted humanitarian parole — a temporary permission to stay in the country — for more than one year, may be eligible for Social Security for up to seven years, the Congressional Research Service said. 

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally also are generally ineligible to enroll in federally funded health care coverage such as Medicare and Medicaid. (Some states provide Medicaid coverage under state-funded programs regardless of immigration status. Immigrants are eligible for emergency Medicaid regardless of status.)

It’s also wrong to say that immigration will destroy Social Security. The program’s fiscal challenges stem from a shortage of workers compared with beneficiaries. Immigrants who are legally qualified can receive Social Security retirement benefits only after they’ve worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years. So, for at least 10 years, these immigrants will be paying into the system before they draw any benefits.

Immigration is far from a fiscal fix-all for Social Security’s challenges. But having more immigrants in the United States would increase the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, potentially for decades, thus extending the program’s solvency, economic experts say.

Electric vehicles 

Trump: “They spent $9 billion on eight chargers.”

False.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Biden signed in November 2021, allocated $7.5 billion to electric vehicle charging. Trump exaggerated the program and charger costs.

The Federal Highway Administration told PolitiFact that as of this April, the infrastructure funding has created seven open charging stations with 29 spots for electric vehicles to charge. They were installed across five states — Hawaii, Maine, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania — the administration said in a statement.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a May CBS interview that the Biden administration’s goal is to install 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. 

“And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. But again, that’s the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come,” Buttigieg said.

The cost for equipment and installation of high-speed EV chargers can range from $58,000 to $150,000 per charger, depending on wattage and other factors.

The federally funded EV charging program  started slowly. The Energy Department said initial state plans were approved in September 2022. Since April, federally funded charging stations have opened in Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont.

“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on Day 1.”

False.

There is no electric vehicle mandate to begin with.

The Biden administration has set a goal — not a mandate — to have electric vehicles comprise half of all new vehicle sales by 2030.

Later in his speech, Trump said: “I am all for electric …But if somebody wants to buy a gas-powered car… or a hybrid, they are going to be able to do it. And we’re going to make that change on day one. ” The Biden administration has introduced new regulations on gas-powered cars but those policies do not ban gas-powered cars. They can continue to be sold, even after 2030.

Energy

“Under the Trump administration, just three and a half years ago, we were energy independent.” 

Half True.

There are various definitions of “energy independence,” but during Trump’s presidency, the U.S. became a net energy exporter and began producing more energy than it consumed. Both milestones hadn’t been achieved in decades.

However, that achievement built on more than a decade of improvements in shale oil and gas production, as well as renewable energies. The U.S. also did not achieve net exporter status for crude oil, which produces the type of energy that voters hold politicians most accountable for: gasoline.

Even during a period of greater energy independence, the U.S. energy supply is still sensitive to global developments, experts told PolitiFact in 2023. Because many U.S. refineries are unable to process the type of crude oil produced in the U.S., they need to import a different type of oil from overseas to serve the domestic market. 

Election fraud claims 

“They used COVID to cheat.”

Pants on Fire!

During the pandemic, multiple states altered rules to ease mail-in voting for people concerned about contracting COVID-19 at indoor polling places. Changes included mailing ballots to all registered voters, removing excuse requirements to vote by mail and increasing the number of ballot drop boxes. State officials used legal methods to enact these changes, and the new rules applied to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. 

The 2020 election was certified by every state and confirmed by more than 60 court cases nationwide. 

Government 

During his presidency, we had “the biggest regulation cuts ever.” 

We tracked Trump’s progress on his campaign promise to “enact a temporary ban on new regulations” and rated that a Compromise.

Near the end of Trump’s presidency, an expert told us that overall the amount of federal regulations was roughly unchanged since Trump took office.

Foreign policy 

Russia’s war in Ukraine and Hamas’ attack on Israel “would have never happened if I were president.”

This is unsubstantiated and ignores the complexities of global conflict. There’s no way to assess whether Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine in February 2022 if Trump were still president, or if Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel in October 2023.

Experts told PolitiFact that there’s a limit to how much influence U.S. presidents have over whether a foreign conflict erupts into war. “American presidents have scant control over foreign decisions about war and peace unless they show their willingness to commit American power,” said Richard Betts, a Columbia University professor emeritus of war and peace studies and of international and public affairs.

During the Trump administration, there were no new major overseas wars or invasions. But during his presidency, there were still conflicts within Israel and between Russia and Ukraine. For example, Russia was intervening militarily in the Ukraine’s Donbas region throughout Trump’s administration.

Trump also supported weakening NATO, reducing expectations among allies that the U.S. would intervene militarily if they were attacked.

Although there’s no way to know how the war in Israel would have played out, experts said the prospect of the Abraham Accords — the peace effort between Israel and Arab nations led by the Trump administration — likely helped drive Hamas’ attack.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the prospect of the Abraham Accords being embraced by countries such as Saudi Arabia was one of the main causes of the Oct. 7 attack,” Ambassador Martin Kimani, the executive director of NYU’s Center on International Cooperation said.

When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, we “left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment.” 

False. 

This is an exaggeration. When the Taliban toppled Afghanistan’s civilian government in 2021, it inherited military hardware given to the government by the U.S. But it did not amount to $85 billion.

A 2022 independent inspector general report informed Congress that about $7 billion of U.S.-funded equipment remained in Afghanistan and in the Taliban’s hands. According to the report, “the U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout the drawdown period in 2021.”

We rated a similar claim False in 2021.

When he was president, “Iran was broke.”

Half True

Iran’s foreign currency reserves fell from $128 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2019, a dramatic drop in absolute dollars. The decline is widely believed to be a consequence of the tightened U.S. sanctions under Trump, and while Iran’s foreign currency reserves have grown since then, it’s nowhere near pre-2019 levels.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis pegged Iran’s foreign currency reserves in 2024 around $36 billion.

PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Maria Briceño, Madison Czopek, Marta Campabadal Graus, Ranjan Jindal, Mia Penner, Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero, Maria Ramirez Uribe and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story. 

Our convention fact-checks rely on both new and previously reported work. We link to past work whenever possible. In some cases, a fact-check rating may be different tonight than in past versions. In those cases, either details of what the candidate said, or how the candidate said it, differed enough that we evaluated it anew. 

RELATED: In Context: Trump recounts assassination attempt. Here’s what he said at the RNC

RELATED: A guide to Trump’s 2nd term promises: immigration, economy, foreign policy and more

RELATED: 2024 RNC fact-check: What Trump VP pick J.D. Vance got right, wrong in Milwaukee speech

 





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Trump gives speech after rally shooting, recounts assassination attempt

TL;DR: Tepid calls for unity, but otherwise it’s the same ol’ Trump

Trump had said he rewrote his speech to focus on calling for unity after his assassination attempt, but his remarks tonight were classic Trump. The speech was more than 90 minutes long, and he went off script again and again, greatly exaggerating or lying about his administration’s accomplishments in his first term.

Trump made brief, sweeping attempts to appeal to a diverse group of voters, but his overall talking points on immigration, foreign policy, the economy and violent crime remained as grim as ever. The dissonance between his call for the country to heal from “discord and division” while having played a major part in sowing such conflict — including criticizing Biden, Democrats and “crazy Nancy Pelosi” tonight — was unmissable.

Trump steers clear of abortion

The lack of any abortion talk in Trump’s speech is notable, and it mirrors the other convention speakers’ deafening silence on the issue this week. Abortion rights is a losing issue for Republicans at the ballot box and one that the party remains divided on. The GOP platform this year — parts of which The New York Times reported Trump had dictated personally — had no mention of a national abortion ban for the first time in 40 years.

Trump’s cringeworthy Orbán ‘endorsement’

Trump criticizes Biden’s cancer moonshot

Trump took a veiled shot at Biden’s “cancer moonshot” in a part of the speech that was not in the prepared remarks.

In the middle of boasting about how American technology will “soon be on the verge of finding the cures to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and many other diseases,” Trump took a swipe at his opponent. “You remember this gentleman that I don’t want to mention other than one time I had to,” he said, referring to Biden. “This man said, we’re going to find the cure to cancer. Nothing happened.”

In 2016, then-Vice President Biden launched a project often called the “cancer moonshot” after losing his son Beau to brain cancer, and he relaunched in 2022 after he was elected president.

Trump’s rambling speech nears the 90-minute mark

Trump has gone way off script, making this a very rambling speech that feels relatively low energy for a politician known for riling up his crowds. His remarks were supposed to be just over an hour but we’re nearing the 90-minute mark at this point.

HuffPost’s Igor Bobic reported that “lots of delegates [are] on their phones” at this point of the speech.

Trump encourages other countries to get nuclear weapons

In the middle of a diatribe about how much North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un likes him, Trump mocked people who asked how he could possibly get along with someone like Kim.

“It’s nice to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons,” Trump deadpanned to the audience.

He may have said it like a joke, but it speaks to why rogue countries like North Korea sought out nuclear weapons in the first place. It undermines the entire concept of nuclear nonproliferation, showcasing how even the mighty United States will be forced to listen if you only get a few nukes to guard your back.

Trump slams ‘wokeness’ in U.S. military

Trump has railed against a “woke military” before, but tonight he distinguished between service members and the “fools” in higher positions in the military. He made a brief mention of it, saying: “We have a great military. Our military is not woke, it’s just some of the fools on top that are woke.”

Trump has said something to this effect before. Last month, asked by Fox & Friends Weekend if he would fire “the woke generals on top,” Trump said, “I would fire them. You can’t have woke military.” Read more from my colleague Steve Benen on Trump’s vow to remove military leaders who don’t align with his ideology.

Trump lies about crime

“Our crime rate is going up,” claims Donald Trump, “while crime statistics all over the world are going down.” But it’s not true. As NBC News reported last month, “the rate of violent and property crimes dropped precipitously in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to quarterly statistics released Monday by the FBI.” Overall, violent crime was down 15.2%, with murders down more than 26%. That’s on top of a significant decline in 2023 as well according to the same FBI data.

Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ talking point may be too good to be true

Trump’s “no tax on tips” proposal has become a catchy rallying cry on the campaign trail lately, and not surprisingly also got a reference during his RNC speech. But experts do not agree that this plan is the best way to substantially help all — or even many — tipped workers in America.

As Sharon Block, a professor of practice at Harvard Law School and the executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy wrote for MSNBC back in June: “The first element of a pro-tipped worker agenda would be to end the tipped minimum wage… The next element of a pro-tipped-worker agenda would be to raise the minimum wage.”

Read more below:

Trump lies about inflation



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The Trump speech at the RNC must effectively convey this message

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Insights from the 2024 Republican National Convention: A Look at the Changing GOP Landscape

The 2024 Republican National Convention has showcased a diverse array of speakers, including former Democrats and unconventional figures like rapper Amber Rose. This shift in the GOP’s messaging reflects a move towards right-wing populism, leaving some conservatives disappointed with the party’s departure from traditional conservative values.

However, the focus on unity and inclusivity at the convention has raised concerns among some Republicans about the direction of the party. The absence of key figures like Melania and Ivanka Trump, coupled with the embrace of figures like Hulk Hogan, highlights the evolving landscape of the GOP.

Donald Trump’s continued promotion of lies and misinformation, coupled with his narcissistic tendencies, poses a significant threat to democracy and the integrity of the political process. It is crucial for voters to remain vigilant and hold leaders accountable for their actions and statements. [Source: [USA Today](https://www.usatoday.com/)]

Fact-checking what Biden said in his NBC interview as the RNC began

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact.

As Republicans railed against him at their convention in Milwaukee, President Joe Biden sat for a counterprogramming interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. Biden criticized his 2024 opponent, former President Donald Trump, and Trump’s choice of running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, whose nomination was announced on the Republican National Convention’s first day.

When asked for his reaction to the attempted assassination of Trump, Biden called out incendiary political rhetoric, saying, “There’s no place at all for violence in politics in America.”

When Holt pressed Biden about his comment to donors a week ago that “it’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye,” Biden said that using that word was a “mistake” but he wanted to turn the focus to Trump’s statements and policies.

PBS News’ Deema Zein sat down with Katie Sanders, the editor-in-chief of PolitiFact, to look at what we know about a Trump-Vance ticket and what we heard from the main stage on night one.

Biden’s candidacy has been questioned by some Democratic colleagues and donors since his widely panned June 27 debate performance. Biden told Holt he “screwed up” at the debate, but felt debate host CNN should have focused on Trump’s falsehoods. (PolitiFact fact-checked statements by both candidates during the debate.)

Biden also responded to the surprise termination of one of Trump’s criminal indictments. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the case about Trump’s handling of classified documents, saying the appointment of a special counsel violated the U.S. Constitution.

We fact-checked four of Biden’s statements from the July 15 NBC interview.

“J.D. Vance has adopted the same policies, no exceptions on abortion … he signed on to the Trump agenda.”

This is a misleading framing of Trump’s abortion views. Trump has said he supports some abortion exceptions for rape, incest and the pregnant woman’s life; Vance was inconsistent or vague before moving closer to Trump’s views this year.

When Vance, then a Senate candidate, was asked in a 2021 interview with Spectrum News whether laws should allow women to get abortions if they were victims of rape or incest, he said that society shouldn’t view a pregnancy or birth resulting from rape or incest as “inconvenient” — making it sound as if he didn’t support rape or incest exceptions.

Vance was also asked whether anti-abortion laws should include rape and incest exceptions. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said in response. “At the end of day, we are talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?”

​When asked again about the exceptions, Vance criticized the question: “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.” (The Biden campaign highlighted those remarks on the RNC’s first night of the RNC and a Biden campaign spokesperson pointed partly to Vance’s comments in the 2021 interview.)

During a 2022 U.S. Senate debate, Vance said, “I’ve always believed in reasonable exceptions,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Vance said the 10-year-old girl who traveled to Indiana for an abortion after she was raped should have been able to get an abortion in Ohio. But the Plain Dealer wrote that “Vance never elaborated on what other ‘reasonable’ exemptions he may support. That’s because there aren’t any. His campaign has said the only exemption he supports in abortion is to protect the life of the mother.”

As a senator, Vance lobbied to defeat Ohio’s 2023 constitutional amendment that enshrined access to abortion. But Vance also wrote on X that “as Donald Trump has said, ‘you’ve got to have the exceptions.”

Vance moved closest to Trump’s known position in a May 19, 2024, interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Vance said, “What I’ve said consistently is the gross majority of policy here is gonna be set by the states. I am pro-life. I wanna save as many babies as possible. And sure, I think it’s totally reasonable to say that late-term abortions should not happen with reasonable exceptions. But I think Trump’s approach here is trying to settle a very tough issue and actually empower the American people to decide it for themselves.”

Vance echoed that point about state policies and “reasonable exceptions” in a July 15 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired at the same time as Biden’s Holt interview.

Vance “says there’s no climate change that’s happening.”

Vance has grown more dubious of climate change in recent years, The New York Times found.

In 2020, Vance said in a speech at Ohio State University, “We have a climate problem in our society.”

But in 2022, he told the American Leadership Forum, “I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man.”

Vance acknowledged that the climate was changing but said that humans had no role. “It’s been changing, as others pointed out, it’s been changing for millennia,” Vance said.

When asked about Vance’s stance on climate change, the Biden campaign cited two statements he made in 2022.

In an interview with “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” Vance sounded dismissive about climate change. “And even if there was a climate crisis, I don’t know how the way to solve it is to buy more Chinese manufactured electric vehicles. The whole EV (electric vehicle) thing is a scam.”

Later that year, Vance said he had “become persuaded that climate change is certainly happening,” but that “some of the alarmism is a little overstated.”

The League of Conservation Voters gave Vance a “zero” on its 2023 scorecard based on his Senate votes.

In the classified documents investigation, “they looked at me and concluded I didn’t do a damn thing wrong.”

That’s misleading.

A special counsel investigation of Biden’s classified documents handling concluded that no criminal charges were warranted. However, Robert Hur’s report criticized Biden’s practices in handling sensitive documents, saying he had found evidence that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen after he served as vice president.

Hur found evidence that Biden willfully retained classified documents about Afghanistan and notebooks containing Biden’s handwritten notes about security and foreign policy. The report detailed some of Biden’s haphazard storage practices, saying some of the Afghanistan documents were “found in Mr. Biden’s Delaware home: in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood.”

In a 388-page report, the special counsel also dwelled on Biden’s memory lapses, writing that “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur concluded that despite the investigators’ concerns about how Biden had handled certain materials, a jury would be unlikely to find Biden guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trump “talks about there’d be a bloodbath if he loses.”

This is missing context.

Trump’s remarks during a March speech in Ohio came in the context of speaking about Biden’s plans for electric vehicles, which Trump said would harm the U.S. auto industry.

Trump’s remarks started with a critique of the United Auto Workers union, which endorsed Biden in January. Trump said that “they want to do this all-electric nonsense where the cars don’t go far” and said the cars “cost too much” and are made overseas.

“Let me tell you something to China,” Trump said. “If you’re listening, President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal, those big, monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars.”

“If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole, that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not gonna sell those cars.”



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RNC minimizes Jan. 6 events and Trump’s false election fraud claims

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Republican National Committee Convention Highlights: Peter Navarro’s Fiery Speech and Trump’s Election Lies

The Republican National Committee convention has been marked by the presence of Peter Navarro, a former Trump adviser who recently served time in federal prison for defying a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee. Navarro, known for his role in urging Trump to pressure Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes, continues to perpetuate the lies surrounding the 2020 election and the Capitol attack.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump and his allies persist in claiming that widespread voter fraud cost him the election. This dangerous rhetoric has been a central theme of the Republican Party, with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and others continuing to push the false narrative. The party has even gone as far as filing a wave of election lawsuits and hiring individuals with controversial backgrounds to oversee election integrity efforts.

Trump’s refusal to accept the truth and his insistence on spreading lies about the election pose a significant threat to democracy. By undermining the legitimacy of the electoral process and sowing doubt in the minds of voters, Trump is eroding the foundation of our democratic system. It is imperative that we hold our leaders accountable for their words and actions, and reject the dangerous path of deception and manipulation. (Source: [AP News](https://apnews.com/))