When former President Donald Trump Republican presidential nomination On Thursday, he laid out his vision for running the country, painting a bleak picture of the state of the United States and outlining a series of actions he planned to take. But his remarks were marked by a wealth of false and misleading information that distorted the facts about immigration, the U.S. economy and his past performance.
These are the facts.
TRUMP: “The greatest invasion in history is happening right here in our country — they’re coming from every corner of the earth, not just South America, but Africa, Asia, the Middle East — they’re coming from everywhere, and this administration is doing nothing to stop them. They’re coming from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums, and terrorists at a level we’ve never seen before.”
THE FACTS: Trump spent much of his speech discussing immigration and the massive influx of migrants into the U.S., repetitive several false and misleading claims, including that it has caused an increase in crime. He cited recent notable and gruesome crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally, as evidence.
But the suggestion that there’s been a spike in violent crime nationally as a result of the influx isn’t supported by the facts. FBI statistics don’t separate crimes based on the immigration status of the attacker, and there’s no evidence of a spike in crime committed by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities with the largest influx of migrants, like New York. In fact, national statistics show that violent crime is on the decline.
Research has shown that people living in the country illegally are less likely to be arrested for violent, drug, and property crimes than native-born Americans. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “significantly lower felony arrest rates” among people living in the United States illegally than among legal immigrants or U.S.-born citizens.
There is also no evidence that other countries send their murderers, drug dealers and other criminals to the US.
TRUMP: “We had the greatest economy in the history of the world.”
THE FACTS: That’s far from accurate. The pandemic caused 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 took office.
But even stripping out the problems 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% that averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger under Biden than it has under Trump so far.
Trump had lowered the unemployment rate to 3.5% before the pandemic, but the labor force participation rate for people ages 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. workforce — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate was also higher under Biden than it was under Trump.
TRUMP, on US troops out of Afghanistan: “We also left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment.”
THE FACTS: Those numbers are significantly inflatedaccording to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees U.S. taxpayer money spent on the conflict.
The $85 billion figure resembles a figure from a July 30 report. quarterly report from SIGAR, which indicated that the US has invested approximately $83 billion in building, training and equipping Afghan security forces since 2001.
Yet that funding also included paying for troops, training, operations and infrastructure, along with equipment and transportation for two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.
“We’ve spent over $80 billion in aid to Afghan security forces,” Grazier told the AP in August 2021. “But that’s not all equipment.”
In fact, only about $18 billion of that amount went to equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, according to a June 2019 SIGAR report. report showed.
Another estimation A 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that about 29 percent of the dollars spent on Afghan security forces between 2005 and 2016 went to funding equipment and transportation. Transportation funding included equipment and contracted pilots and aircraft to transport officials to meetings.
If that rate were to hold for the entire two-decade period, it would mean the U.S. has spent approximately $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, Grazier said. Moreover, U.S. troops have previously discarded unwanted equipment and before the withdrawal, handicapped dozens of Humvees and aircraft, rendering them unusable, said Maj. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.
While no one knows the exact value of the U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment the Taliban has secured, defense officials have confirmed it is telling.
MIKE POMPEO, Trump’s Secretary of State, on Americans held hostage by Hamas in Gaza: “President Biden doesn’t even want to talk about the fact that Americans are still being held there by the Iranian regime.”
THE FACTS: President Joe Biden has spoken several times about the Americans who were among the 240 people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Eight Americans are reported to be still in captivityincluding three deaths.
For example, three days after the attack that started the War between Israel and HamasBiden said: “We now know that among those held by Hamas are American citizens.”
Soon after, on Oct 20, 2023“As I have told the families of the Americans held captive by Hamas, we are doing everything we can to bring their loved ones home.”
Biden released a statement on Jan 14, 2024who 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 being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.”
More recently, on April 27he wrote in a post on his official Facebook page: “I will not rest until every hostage, like Abigail, who was torn 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.”
___ Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.