Only You Can Make America Great Again
AP FACT CHECK: Is Trump'south America swell again or hellscape?
At their national convention, Republicans portrayed the U.S. as a land fabricated neat once more by President Donald Trump
WASHINGTON -- The Republican National Convention begged this question: Why are President Donald Trump's nigh fervent supporters describing the country of his wedlock every bit a hellscape?
It was perhaps the cardinal paradox for voters wondering what to believe in the rhetoric, because it defied logic to believe it all. Are Americans living in a dystopia or in an America made great again by Trump?
Four years ago, candidate Trump promised that if he won, "The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will shortly come up to an end. Outset on January 20th, 2017, safety will exist restored."
Now? "I've never seen our streets go this bad so quickly," Pat Lynch, representing tens of thousands of New York police officers, told the GOP proceedings. "We are staring down the barrel of a public safety disaster." He said this in remarks singing Trump's praises.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer and a sometime New York mayor, spoke of years of "carnage" and violence rising now, and implored, "Mr. President, brand our nation safety again."
All of the convention'southward apocalyptic rhetoric was in service of bashing Trump challenger Joe Biden, Autonomous mayors and national Democrats both in and out of role as being soft on violence and anarchy. Yet the mural of lawlessness they described is Trump's America now.
Hyperbole suffused the proceedings, both when Trump and his supporters hailed his record and when they denounced the other side. Outright falsehoods were heard every night on the social justice protests, the coronavirus, the economy and Biden'due south agenda.
A selection from the week:
PROTESTS
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, expressing support for people in compatible: "People similar Dave Patrick Underwood, an officeholder in Homeland Security'southward Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California." — Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Pence is blurring what happened, leaving the impression that Underwood was a victim of rioters. Underwood was not killed past demonstrators in Oakland who were protesting for racial justice.
Federal authorities say Underwood was fatally shot past Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant they say has ties to a far-right, anti-government movement, while Underwood was guarding a federal courthouse during protests in May. Officials believe Carrillo used the protests every bit a cover for the slaying and his subsequent escape.
Carrillo, 32, hatched a plot to target officers with at to the lowest degree one other accomplice online, federal authorities allege. Over an 8-day bridge before his capture, they say, Carrillo fatally shot Underwood and wounded his partner, and then killed a California sheriff's deputy and injured four others.
Of the two law enforcement officers killed, Pence only mentioned the one who was in the vicinity of the protestation. The other is Santa Cruz Canton Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, who authorities say was killed by Carrillo while pursuing him in June.
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RACIAL INEQUALITY
KENTUCKY Chaser GENERAL DANIEL CAMERON: "On the economy: Joe Biden couldn't do it, but President Trump did build an economic system that worked for anybody, especially minorities." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not authentic.
Republicans tin can talk successfully about the decline in unemployment rates for Black and Hispanic workers. Merely that's just one estimate; enough of economic troubles and inequalities grow for minorities. Minority groups all the same lagged behind white people with regard to incomes, wealth and home ownership before the pandemic. Simply when the affliction struck, it became clear that the economic system did non work well for everybody as the job losses and infections unduly hitting minorities.
Black unemployment at present stands at 14.6%. Hispanic unemployment is 12.9%. The white unemployment rate is 9.2%. For every dollar of full wealth held past white households, Blacks have just 5 cents, according to the Federal Reserve. It's 4 cents for Hispanics. That is not evidence of an economy working "especially" for minorities.
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Law
ERIC TRUMP: "Biden has pledged to defund the constabulary." — Wed.
REP. STEVE SCALISE of Louisiana: "Joe Biden has embraced the left's insane mission to defund them."
THE FACTS: No, Biden has explicitly rejected the call by some on the left to defund the law. He has proposed more money for police, conditioned on improvements in their practices.
Biden's criminal justice agenda, released long before the protests over racial injustice, proposes more than federal coin for "preparation that is needed to avoid tragic, unjustifiable deaths" and hiring more than officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically cogitating of the populations they serve.
Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into federal customs policing grant programs. That's more coin, not less.
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BLACK LIVES MATTER
GIULIANI: "Black Lives Matter and antifa sprang into action and, in a flash, they hijacked the peaceful protest into vicious, brutal riots." — Th.
THE FACTS: That's a hollow claim.
There'due south no prove that Black Lives Matter or antifa, or any political grouping for that matter, is infiltrating racial injustice protests and injecting violence.
In June, The Associated Press analyzed court records, employment histories and social media posts for 217 people arrested in Minneapolis and the Commune of Columbia, cities at the center of the protests earlier this year.
More 85 percent of the people arrested were local residents, and few had amalgamation with any organized groups. Social media posts for a few of those arrested indicated they were involved in left-leaning activities while others expressed support for the political correct and Trump himself.
Local police departments were forced to knock downwards widespread social media rumors that busloads of "antifa," a term for leftist militants, were coming to violently disrupt cities and towns during nationwide racial justice protests. In June, Twitter and Facebook disrepair accounts linked to white supremacy groups that were promoting some of those falsehoods online.
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COVID-19
TRUMP: "The U.s. has among the lowest case fatality rates of whatever major country anywhere in the world." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: Not true. Not if y'all consider Russian federation, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and India to be major countries.
The U.S. sits right in the middle when it comes to COVID-19 mortality rates in the 20 nations nearly impacted past the pandemic, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Eye.
Of the 20, Mexico has the highest bloodshed rate at 10.8 deaths for every 100 confirmed COVID cases, followed by Republic of ecuador at 5.8. Saudi arabia had the lowest rate of the 20 nations at one.2, followed past Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russian federation, Kingdom of morocco, Republic of india, Argentine republic, Southward Africa and Chile.
The U.S. had the 10th everyman of the 20 nations, with a mortality rate of three.1.
When the eye looked at the information in some other way, analyzing the COVID decease rate for every 100,000 residents, the U.Due south. fares even worse. Merely iii nations — Brazil, Republic of chile and Peru — posted college death rates.
Understanding deaths as a percent of the population or every bit a percentage of known infections is problematic considering countries rail and report COVID-19 deaths and cases differently. Many other factors are in play in shaping a decease price also how well a country responded to the pandemic, such as the overall health or youth of national populations.
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TRUMP: "Instead of following the scientific discipline, Joe Biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the unabridged country. His shutdown would inflict unthinkable and lasting harm on our nation'south children, families, and citizens of all backgrounds." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That's false. Biden has publicly said he would close down the nation's economy only if scientists and public health advisers recommended he do so to stem the COVID-19 threat. In other words, he said he would follow the science, not disregard it.
Speaking Sun in an ABC interview, Biden said he "will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives" when he was asked if he would exist willing to shut the land once more.
"So if the scientists say shut it downwardly?" asked ABC'southward David Muir.
"I would close it down," Biden responded. "I would listen to the scientists." The former vice president has said repeatedly that no one knows what Jan would look like.
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DONALD TRUMP JR. on the coronavirus response: "The president rapidly took activeness and shut down travel from Cathay." — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, he didn't shut down travel from China. He restricted information technology. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the aforementioned fourth dimension the U.S. did.
The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from Cathay's Hong Kong and Macao territories over the by five months. The Associated Press reported that more than than viii,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the get-go three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.
Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland Cathay in the beginning calendar month afterwards the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost rail of more 1,600 of them who were supposed to exist monitored for virus exposure.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Command and Prevention, likewise told the AP that the federal government was slow to understand how much the coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped drive the dispatch of outbreaks across the U.S. in late February. Trump didn't announce travel restrictions for many European countries until mid-March.
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Educational activity
TRUMP: "Biden also vowed to oppose school option and oppose all charter schools." — Th.
THE FACTS: That's imitation. Biden doesn't oppose charter schools. He opposes federal coin going to for-turn a profit charter companies.
Such companies are only a piece of the lease school market, meaning Biden's position wouldn't substantially modify the charter landscape that is dominated by nonprofit organizations.
Biden does oppose federal money for tuition vouchers.
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Health CARE
TRUMP: "We protected your preexisting conditions. Very strongly protected preexisting ... and you don't hear that." — Monday.
THE FACTS: You don't hear it because it's non true.
People with such medical problems accept health insurance protections considering of President Barack Obama'southward wellness care law, which Trump is trying to dismantle.
One of Trump'south alternatives to Obama'south law — short-term wellness insurance, already in place — doesn't have to cover preexisting conditions. Another culling is association wellness plans, which are oriented to small businesses and sole proprietors and do cover those atmospheric condition.
Neither of the 2 alternatives appears to have made much difference in the market.
Meanwhile, Trump'south administration is pressing the Supreme Court for total repeal of the Obama-era law, including provisions that protect people with preexisting weather from health insurance discrimination.
With "Obamacare" still in identify, preexisting conditions continue to be covered past regular individual wellness insurance plans.
Insurers must take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and accuse the aforementioned standard premiums to healthy people and those who are in poor wellness, or take a history of medical issues.
Before the Affordable Care Act, whatsoever insurer could deny coverage — or charge more — to anyone with a preexisting status who was seeking to buy an private policy.
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BIDEN'S AGENDA
NIKKI HALEY, quondam ambassador to the United Nations, on the Democrats: "They want a government takeover of health care. They want to ban fracking and kill millions of jobs." — Mon.
REP. JIM Hashemite kingdom of jordan of Ohio: "Defund the police, defund border patrol and defund our military." — Monday.
RONNA McDANIEL, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee: "You lot deserve to know that they would ban fracking and eliminate fossil fuels, which would kill millions of expert-paying jobs and raise the cost of driving our cars and heating our homes. Yous deserve to know that they want a complete government takeover of our wellness intendance system, and so moms like me won't exist able to take our kids to the aforementioned pediatrician they've been seeing for years." — Monday.
THE FACTS: Those aren't Biden's positions. A number of Republican speakers seized on proposals of the Democratic left, in some cases distorting those positions, and assigned them to Biden, who doesn't share those views.
He does not favor a authorities takeover of wellness care; instead he proposes edifice on Obama'due south law, which preserves the private insurance market while expanding Medicaid.
Biden also did not endorse proposals to terminate border enforcement or even to decriminalize illegal crossings.
Biden supports banning only new oil and gas permits, fracking included, on federal land. But virtually U.Southward. production is on private land. The government says production on federal land accounted for less than ten% of oil and gas in 2018.
In a March 15 primary debate, Biden misstated his energy policy, suggesting he would let no new fracking. His entrada quickly corrected the tape. Biden has otherwise been consistent on his center-of-the-road position, going so far as to tell an anti-fracking activist that he "ought to vote for somebody else" if he wanted an immediate fracking ban.
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VIRUS TESTING
IVANKA TRUMP: "Our president rapidly mobilized the full force of government and the private sector ... to build the most robust testing organization in the globe." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: Her assertion of superior U.S. testing for COVID-xix is dubious. The U.S. repeatedly stumbled with testing in the early weeks of the outbreak, allowing the virus to speedily spread in the U.Southward. The president'due south ain experts say the U.S. is nowhere most the level of testing needed to control the virus.
The U.S. currently is conducting well-nigh 750,000 tests a day, far short of what many public health experts say the U.S. should be testing to control the spread of the virus. Looking to the fall, some experts accept called for 4 million or more than tests daily, while a grouping assembled by Harvard Academy estimated that 20 meg a day would exist needed to continue the virus in check.
Public-wellness government acknowledge testing was a critical failure in the crucial early months. The number of tests being washed has since surged but remains inadequate. Many who do get tested have unduly long waits for results, during which time they tin be spreading the virus to others.
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Iran
SEN. TOM COTTON of Arkansas: "Joe Biden sent pallets of greenbacks to the ayatollahs." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: This is a distorted tale Trump and Republicans honey to tell. Yep, the U.S. flew greenbacks to Iran in the Obama years, but it was money the The states owed to that country.
Cotton wool too played into the convention's pattern of attributing every questionable activeness of Obama's administration to Biden personally.
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ECONOMY
PENCE: "Four years ago nosotros inherited ... an economic system struggling to pause out of the slowest recovery since the Dandy Low. ... In our first 3 years we congenital the greatest economy in the world." — Wednesday.
LARRY KUDLOW, Trump economic adviser: Trump was "inheriting a stagnant economy on the forepart terminate of recession," and under the president, "the economic system was rebuilt in three years." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This is false. The economy was healthy when Trump arrived at the White Business firm.
Even if the recovery from the 2008 financial crunch was ho-hum, Trump took office with unemployment at a low four.7%, steady job growth and a falling federal budget arrears. The longest expansion in U.S. history began in the centre of 2009 and continued until the commencement of the year, spanning both the Obama and Trump presidencies.
The U.Due south. economy did benefit from Trump's 2022 tax cuts with a jump in growth in 2018, just the budget deficit began to climb as a result of the tax breaks that favored companies and the wealthy in hopes of permanently expanding the economy.
Almanac growth during Obama's second term averaged well-nigh ii.iii%. Trump notched a slightly better 2.five% during his first 3 years, merely the country swung into recession this year considering of the coronavirus and volition probably get out Trump with an inferior track tape to his predecessor over four years.
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WAR
SEN. RAND PAUL: "Joe Biden voted for the Republic of iraq war, which President Trump has long chosen the worst geopolitical fault of our generation." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Trump had no more than foresight on this affair than Biden. Neither was against it when information technology started.
When asked during a Sept. 11, 2002, radio interview if he would support an Republic of iraq invasion, Trump responded, "Yeah, I guess so." The side by side calendar month, Biden every bit a senator voted to authorize George West. Bush to use strength in Republic of iraq.
The side by side March, just days afterwards the U.S. launched its invasion, Trump said it "looks like a tremendous success from a military machine standpoint."
It wasn't until September 2003 that Trump first publicly raised doubts near the invasion, saying "a lot of people (are) questioning the whole concept of going in in the commencement place." In Nov 2005, Biden called his Senate vote to authorize force a mistake.
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TAXES
ERIC TRUMP: The president slashed taxes and "wages went through the roof." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Non quite. Wage growth did improve, but there is clearly even so a roof on workers' incomes.
The 2022 tax cuts announced unlikely to deliver on their promised pay increases. White House economists argued that incomes would surge by at least $four,000 because of the lower corporate revenue enhancement rate. That has even so to occur and seems unlikely given the current recession.
But average hourly wages did improve to a 3.5% annual gain past February 2019, much better than the 2.7% annual gain in December 2022 before Trump became president. The problem was that wage growth and then began to slip through the end of last yr despite the steady hiring. Wage gains but accelerated again with the pandemic and layoffs of millions of poor workers that artificially raised boilerplate wages.
What workers have still to see is a meaningful change in the distribution of income. More than one-half of total household income goes to the top twenty% of earners, according to the Demography Agency. Their share has increased slightly under Trump with data that is electric current through 2018. The bottom twenty% of earners get only iii.1% of total income, but as they did earlier Trump's presidency.
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FARMING
CRIS PETERSON, from a Wisconsin dairy family: "Our unabridged economy and dairy farming are once again roaring dorsum. One person deserves the credit and our vote, President Donald J. Trump." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not everyone in the dairy industry views information technology every bit booming, peculiarly as larger operations are putting smaller family farms out of business organization.
The Agronomics Section reported this summer that "dairy herds savage by more than half between 2002 and 2019, with an accelerating rate of refuse in 2022 and 2019, fifty-fifty equally milk production connected to grow."
Part of the problem is that smaller farms face higher product costs. Farms with more than 2,000 cattle are more likely for their sales to exceed their total costs, while smaller farms are more likely to operate at a loss by this metric, according to regime figures.
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SUBURBS
PATRICIA McCLOSKEY on Democrats: "They desire to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family unit home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and depression-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this authorities overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back." — Monday.
THE FACTS: That's a simulated account of what Biden supports. In 2015, during the Obama administration, a regulation took outcome intended to ensure that communities confront racial segregation in housing.
The rule required more than 1,200 jurisdictions receiving federal Housing and Urban Development block grants and housing aid to analyze their housing stock and come up with plans to gainsay patterns of segregation and bigotry. Information technology did not eliminate zoning for single-family homes in the suburbs.
Trump revoked the rule; Biden supports it. Only Biden does not support requiring municipalities to refrain from building single-family homes as a condition for getting money from HUD.
McClosky and her husband take been charged with a felony for brandishing guns outside their St. Louis home as racial justice protesters passed.
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VOTING FRAUD
TRUMP, on postal service-in voting: "Absentee — like in Florida — absentee is good. Just other than that, they're very, very bad." — Mon.
THE FACTS: He's making a false stardom. Mail-in ballots are bandage in the same fashion as absentee mail ballots, with the aforementioned level of scrutiny such as signature verification in many states.
In more than thirty states and the Commune of Columbia, voters take a right to "no excuse" absentee voting. That means they tin can use mail-in ballots for any reason, regardless of whether a person is out of town or working.
In Florida, the Legislature in 2022 voted to change the diction of such balloting from "absentee" to "vote-by-mail service" to make clear a voter can cast such ballots if they wish. So there is no "absentee" voting in that state, as Trump alludes to.
More broadly, voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice in 2022 ranked the risk of election fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
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TRUMP, on the November vote count and Democrats: "We have to exist very, very careful and this time they are trying to do it with the whole post office scam. They will blame information technology on the post office. Y'all can come across them setting it up." — Mon.
THE FACTS: No postal scam has emerged from the Democrats. Instead Trump has given credence to suspicions that he wants to suppress mail-in voting to aid his chances in the election.
He's said as much. In an interview this month, he admitted he's trying to starve the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of postal service-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.
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TRUMP, on defective ballots in an election: "What does lacking mean? It means fraud." — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, defective ballots practice not equate to fraud. The overwhelming majority aren't.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the vast majority of ballots are butterfingers because they arrive late, a item worry this yr because of recent U.Due south. Postal Service delays and an expected surge in mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ballots too are deemed defective if there is a missing signature — mutual with newer voters unfamiliar with the process — or information technology doesn't match what'southward on file. In addition, some states require absentee voters to get a witness or notary to sign their ballots.
"None of those are fraud," said Wendy Weiser, director of Brennan's republic program at NYU School of Law. When suspected cases are investigated for potential fraud, studies have borne out the primary reason for defects is voter mistake, she said.
Lacking ballots likewise unduly impact voters of color, and recent lawsuits have successfully challenged some requirements equally posing health risks or disenfranchising voters. Earlier this yr, for instance, a federal estimate ruled that a South Carolina requirement to take witnesses to postal service-in ballots could put voters' wellness at risk; the requirement was suspended it for the June primary. Others states including Minnesota and Rhode Island have besides suspended that requirement due to the pandemic.
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Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz in Chicago; David Klepper in Providence, Rhode Island; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Matthew Lee, Paul Wiseman and Matthew Daly in Washington; and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this written report.
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EDITOR'Southward Annotation — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.
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Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-fact-check-trumps-america-great-hellscape-72720018
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