As former President Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday he laid out his vision for running the country. He painted a dire picture of the state of the U.S. and outlined a range of actions he planned to take. But his comments were marked with a myriad of false and misleading information that distorted the facts around immigration, the U.S. economy and his previous accomplishments.
Here are the facts.
IMMIGRATION
TRUMP: “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. They are coming from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums, and terrorists at levels never seen before.”
THE FACTS: Trump spent much of his address discussing immigration and the mass influx of migrants into the U.S., repeating several false and misleading claims, including that it has caused a crime surge. He cited recent high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally as proof.
But the suggestion there has been a spike in violent crime nationally as a result of the influx is not supported by facts. FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. In fact, national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.
Studies have found that people living in the country illegally are less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “considerably lower felony arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than legal immigrants or native-born citizens.
There is also no evidence to support that other countries are sending their murderers, drug dealers and other criminals to the U.S.
ECONOMY
TRUMP: “We had the greatest economy in the history of the world.”
THE FACTS: That’s far from accurate. The pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy and Trump left the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered.
But even if you take out issues caused by the pandemic, economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump’s first three years, which is pretty solid. But it’s nowhere near the 4% averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger so far under Biden than under Trump.
Trump did have the unemployment rate get as low as 3.5% before the pandemic, but the labor force participation rate for people 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. working population — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate has also been higher under Biden than Trump.
AFGHANISTAN
TRUMP, on the U.S. troops from Afghanistan: “We also left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment.”
THE FACTS: Those numbers are significantly inflated, according to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees American taxpayer money spent on the conflict.
The $85 billion figure resembles a number from a July 30 quarterly report from SIGAR, which outlined that the U.S. has invested about $83 billion to build, train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001.
Yet that funding included troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure along with equipment and transportation over two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.
“We did spend well over $80 billion in assistance to the Afghan security forces,” Grazier told the AP in August 2021. “But that’s not all equipment costs.”
In fact, only about $18 billion of that sum went toward equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, a June 2019 SIGAR report showed.
Another estimate from a 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that about 29% of dollars spent on Afghan security forces between 2005 and 2016 funded equipment and transportation. The transportation funding included gear as well as contracted pilots and airplanes for transporting officials to meetings.
If that percentage held for the entire two-decade period, it would mean the U.S. has spent about $24 billion on equipment and transportation for Afghan forces since 2001.
But even if that were true, much of the military equipment would be obsolete after years of use, according to Grazier. Plus, American troops have previously scrapped unwanted gear and, prior to the withdrawal, disabled dozens of Humvees and aircraft so they couldn’t be used again, according to Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.
Though no one knows the exact value of the U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment the Taliban have secured, defense officials have confirmed it is significant.
HAMAS
MIKE POMPEO, secretary of state under Trump, on Americans held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas: “President Biden won’t even talk about the fact that Americans are still being held there by the Iranian regime.”
THE FACTS: President Joe Biden has spoken multiple times about the Americans who were among the 240 people taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Eight Americans are reportedly still in captivity, including three who were killed.
For example, three days after the attack that started the Israel-Hamas war, Biden said, “we now know that American citizens are among those being held by Hamas.”
Soon after, on Oct. 20, 2023, he said, “as I told the families of Americans being held captive by Hamas, we’re pursuing every avenue to bring their loved ones home.”
Biden released a statement on Jan. 14, 2024, that described the day as “a devastating and tragic milestone — 100 days of captivity for the more than 100 innocent people, including as many as 6 Americans, who are still held being hostage by Hamas in Gaza.”
More recently, on April 27, he wrote in a post on his official Facebook page: “I will not rest until every hostage, like Abigail, ripped from their families and held by Hamas is back in the arms of their loved ones. They have my word. Their families have my word.”
