Joseph Zambon
Joseph J. Zambon is a retired university professor, periodontist, microbiologist, senior administrator and Navy veteran. Navigating the politics of a large university prepared him to write about politics in Western New York.
Former President Trump’s speech at last week’s Republican National Convention provided his views on a number of topics, including the economy, election fraud, crime, and many other topics. Public Broadcasting – PBS – looked at and fact-checked many of his comments. They categorize his comments as True, Mostly True, Mostly False, False, or Pant-on-Fire False. I’ve edited their summary for brevity. The full fact check is at “Fact-checking Trump’s RNC speech”.
| Trump’s Statement | PBS Fact Check | |
| Immigrants are “coming from prisons, they’re coming from jails, they’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.” | False. Pants on Fire False. | |
| “Caracas, Venezuela, really dangerous place, but not anymore. Because in Venezuela, crime is down 72 percent” | False, From 2022 to 2023, violent deaths dropped by 25%. | |
| El Salvador murders are down 70 percent “because they’re sending their murderers to the United States of America.” | False. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has aggressively cracked down on crime | |
“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.” | Mostly False. Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than it was during both of former President Barack Obama’s terms. | |
| The jobs that are created under Biden, “107 percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.” | Mostly False. 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. | |
| 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. The unemployment rate fell during Trump’s presidency to levels untouched in five decades… Joe Biden matched or exceeded those levels. | |
| “Our current administration, groceries are up 57 percent, gasoline is up 60 percent and 70 percent, mortgage rates have quadrupled.” | Mostly False. There is an element of truth because prices have risen for all of these. But Trump exaggerated the percentages. | |
| “Our crime rate is going up.” | Mostly False. He’s wrong on violent crimes but has a point for some property crimes. | |
| 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 7% tax increase over the next decade, not 300%, as Trump claims. About 83% of the tax would come from the top 1%. | |
| The IRS hired “88,000 agents” to go after Americans.” | Mostly False. Included information technology and taxpayer services, not just enforcement staff. | |
| “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, Medicare and Medicaid. | |
| Electric Vehicles: “They spent $9 billion on eight chargers.” | False. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allocated $7.5 billion to electric vehicle charging. As of April, 7 charging stations with 29 spots in 5 states have opened at a cost of $58-150K per charger, equal to a maximum cost of $4.35 million (not billion). | |
| “I will end the electric vehicle mandate on Day 1.” | False. There is no electric vehicle mandate | |
| “Under the Trump administration, just three and a half years ago, we were energy independent.” |
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| Election fraud claim. “They used COVID to cheat.” | Pants on Fire! The 2020 election was certified by every state and confirmed by more than 60 court cases nationwide. | |
| During his presidency, we had “the biggest regulation cuts ever.” | False. An expert told us (PBS) that overall, the number of federal regulations has remained roughly unchanged since Trump took office. | |
| Russia’s war in Ukraine and Hamas’ attack on Israel “would have never happened if I were president.” | This is unsubstantiated. It ignores the complexities of global conflict. There’s no way to assess whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would or wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump was president or whether Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel | |
| When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, we “left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment.” | False. Not $85 billion. About $7 billion of U.S.-funded equipment remained in Afghanistan; The U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan | |
| 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. |