Fact-checking RNC speeches reveals falsehoods and unproven statements from Trump and others

During the four nights of the Republican National Convention, which wrapped up on Thursday, numerous speakers filled the hours with commentary, bombast, and an expansive range of falsehoods.

Misinformation flowed in speeches about the economy, immigration, crime, and the southern border, as well as President Joe Biden’s domestic and foreign policies, and the accomplishments of former President Donald Trump.

“There was so much misinformation in Trump’s speech Thursday,” said Stephen Medvic, the director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “And members of his party are now mimicking his hyperbolic style of exaggeration, exhibiting a complete disregard of the truth throughout the convention.”

The catalog of errors and exaggerations that follows was compiled by fact-checkers and reporters from the AP, USA Today, PBS, CNN, The Inquirer, and other sources.

In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president Thursday night, Trump made erroneous statements about the economy:

“We had the greatest economy in the history of the world.”

Economic growth averaged 2.67% under Trump, but it averaged 4% during President Bill Clinton’s two terms, 1993 to 2001 — not to mention 5.2% under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In his first three years in office, Biden averaged 3.5% growth compared to Trump’s 2.7%.

“We had no inflation.”

Inflation was 2.9% under Trump in June and July of 2018, the highest in a six-year period.

Biden has struggled with inflation throughout his presidency with the Consumer Price Index hitting 9.1% in June of 2022, the highest rate since 1981, but it has since fallen to 3%.

“We gave you the largest tax cut.”

Trump’s $5.5 trillion cut was the eighth-largest as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 1918 and the fourth-largest in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Trump said grocery prices under Biden have risen 57%.

While it’s true that prices have gone up, the increase has been closer to 25%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

On Thursday night, Trump made now-familiar, unsubstantiated remarks about the U.S.-Mexico border:

“The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country — they are coming in from every corner of the Earth, not just from South America, but from Africa, Asia and the Middle East — they’re coming from everywhere, and this administration does nothing to stop them,” Trump said. “They are coming from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums, and terrorists at levels never seen before.”

The Biden administration has struggled to manage a major influx of migrants, including record numbers of parents traveling with children, according to reports. But experts have disputed Trump’s use of the “dehumanizing” term “invasion.” They point out that most immigrants are fleeing persecution or poverty and seeking humanitarian protection. And there’s no proof about people coming from prisons, and asylums, or that they’re terrorists arriving in unprecedented numbers.

“I will end the illegal immigration crisis by closing the border and finishing the wall, most of which I’ve already built.”

Just 458 miles of barriers were built, mostly reinforcing existing structures. That’s a fraction of the 1,933-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

Other speakers at the RNC harped on similar border themes:

“Just last week, Ruben Gallego [Arizona Democratic Senate candidate] voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election,” Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake said on Tuesday night.

This didn’t happen. U.S. law already bans noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Attacking the Biden administration for being soft on crime is a familiar Republican theme.

“Our crime rate is going up while crime statistics all over the world are going down,” Trump said on Thursday night.

That narrative is part of a “misinformation campaign, pure and simple,” said Matt Jordan, director of the Pennsylvania State University News Literacy Initiative, and a misinformation expert.

“It’s all about cultivating the perception that American cities are ‘crime-ridden,’” Jordan said in an interview, “and that the GOP is about restoring law and order to cities, such as Philadelphia.”

Between 2022 and 2023, FBI data show declines throughout the U.S. in murder (13.2%), violent crime (5.7%), and property crime (4.3%), according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Trump advocates speaking at the RNC were vociferous — and sometimes inaccurate — in their support of the candidate:

“Under Donald Trump, we weren’t at war,” Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) said on Tuesday night.

The United States was at war in Afghanistan throughout Trump’s presidency. There were about 2,500 service members left in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, at the end of his term in January 2021. At least 65 active-duty troops were killed in hostile action during Trump’s presidency.

Biden withdrew from Afghanistan during the first year of his presidency.

Biden is “focused on building electric tanks,” Florida Republican Rep. Mike Waltz said on Wednesday night.

In 2022, the Army released a climate strategy that called for changeovers to various kinds of electric vehicles. It didn’t include tanks. It’s not clear that Biden has ever discussed electric tanks.

In addition to the false claims about the military under Biden, Trump attorney Alina Habba also misrepresented the nature of the legal cases against the former president, who made history this year as the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

“The only crime President Trump has committed is loving America,” Habba said on Thursday night.

On May 30, Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actress. New York prosecutors said it was an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election.