washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump began the final day of his 2024 presidential campaign just as he has spent many days lying about immigration, the economy and other topics.
At his first of four planned rallies in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mr. Trump repeated lies about immigration that he has told over and over again over the last month. He also revived a baseless conspiracy theory about the Bureau of Labor Statistics, added new fanciful details just in case, and made two separate false claims about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The following is a fact-checked version of some of President Trump’s Rory statements.
Federal response to Hurricane Helen: President Trump repeated false claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “has not yet responded” to North Carolina in response to Hurricane Helen, which struck in late September.
This is far from the truth. FEMA immediately responded to the disaster in North Carolina, announcing on October 25 that it had deployed more than 1,700 employees to the state. FEMA announced on October 16 that it had approved more than $100 million in individual aid to North Carolinians.
“We appreciate the quick action and close communication with the President and the FEMA team,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said at a news conference in early October. “We appreciate the support not only from the 22 states that have sent aid teams, but also from the FEMA team and other federal officials,” Will Ray, the state’s emergency management director, said at a news conference. said.
FEMA and Immigration: President Trump falsely claimed that FEMA didn’t act in North Carolina because it “spent all its money bringing in murderers and bringing in a lot of people.” They spent all their money on accepting illegal immigrants. ”
FEMA did not disburse disaster relief funds to illegal aliens. According to official FEMA statistics, Congress has allocated the agency more than $35 billion in disaster relief funds for fiscal year 2024, as well as a much smaller amount of $650 million in fiscal year 2024 for programs that help local residents protect immigrants. Gave FEMA a $10,000 pool of funds. Contrary to President Trump’s claims, these are two separate pots of money.
Migrant numbers: President Trump repeated his false claim that “21 million” people have crossed the border under the Biden administration. Under the Biden administration, the country had recorded fewer than 11 million “encounters” with migrants nationwide through September, including millions who were rapidly deported. Even if you add in the so-called fugitives who evaded capture, which House Republicans estimate to be about 2 million, there’s no way the total would be “21 million.”
Immigration and murder: President Trump repeats false claims about immigration and crime numbers released in September that showed 13,099 murderers crossed the border during the Biden administration erroneously stated.
In fact, the Department of Homeland Security and independent experts say this number of immigrants currently convicted of murder is higher than it was during the administrations of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as President Trump’s own administration. It points out that it is about people who entered the country over several decades, including the era. This number includes people currently incarcerated in federal, state, and local prisons and jails. Details can be found here.
Prisons and foreign leaders: President Trump repeated the false claim that foreign governments are “releasing all prisoners from prisons around the world, not in South America.” He suggested that the world’s prison population is decreasing as a result.
There is no evidence for these claims, and Trump’s own campaign has been unable to defend them. The recorded global prison population increased from at least 10.77 million to at least 10.99 million between October 2021 and April 2024, according to the World Prison Population List compiled by British experts.
“I do daily news searches to find out what’s happening in prisons around the world, and I see absolutely no evidence that any country is emptying its prisons and sending everyone to the United States.” says Helen Fair, co-author of Prison Population List. Researchers at the Birkbeck Institute for Crime and Justice Policy at the University of London said this in June, when President Trump made similar claims.
President Trump’s favorite graphs: President Trump’s favorite graphs about the number of migrants at the southern border (which he luckily turned to when a gunman tried to kill him at a campaign rally in July) include: The bottom arrow points to “the day I left office,” which he said was the “lowest number of illegal immigrants” in U.S. history.
The chart doesn’t show that. In fact, the arrow actually points to April 2020. At the time, Trump still had more than eight months left in his term, and global immigration was slowly slowing due to the coronavirus pandemic. After hitting a nearly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, the number of migrants at the southern border increased every month until the end of President Trump’s term.
Wall construction: President Trump repeatedly falsely claimed during his administration that he had built “571 miles of wall” on the southern border. That’s a huge exaggeration. According to official government data, 458 miles were built under the Trump administration, including walls built where no barriers existed before and walls built to replace previous barriers. Both are included.
Immigration in Springfield: President Trump repeats false claim that “they removed 30,000 illegal immigrants” in Springfield, Ohio, while others use “a little technicality” to remove 30,000 illegal immigrants from Haiti says the new immigrants are not illegal immigrants, but said they are “illegal” in Haiti. his view.
This is wrong on multiple counts. The immigration status of all Haitian immigrants in Springfield is unknown, but the community as a whole is in the country legally. The City of Springfield’s website states, “Yes, Haitian immigrants are here legally under the Immigrant Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). In a September New York Times op-ed about Springfield, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Haitian immigrants are “legally there,” supporting Trump and J.D. Vance. As a candidate, he said he was “saddened” by the smearing of the candidates. A legal immigrant living in Springfield.
Second, no one “dropped” immigrants into Springfield. The city’s Haitian residents were not sent there through a government resettlement program. Rather, they decided to move to the city on their own, citing job opportunities, affordable housing, and the presence of a Haitian community.
And while there is no official count of immigrants in Springfield, Trump’s “30,000” figure is higher than local estimates. The city of Springfield has a total population of about 138,000 people, but there are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants in the county that includes Springfield, according to the city’s website. County Health Commissioner Chris Cook said in July that his team estimates the best number of Haitian residents in the county is 10,000 to 12,000.
August jobs report: President Trump repeated his false claim that a “whistleblower” was responsible for the downward revision of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment report. In August, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its annual revision of labor statistics that the economy had 818,000 fewer employees in the 12 months ending in March than originally reported.
“They thought they could get away with this through the election, but there was a whistleblower. The whistleblower couldn’t stand what they were doing, so he blew the whistle, and they got caught,” Trump said. ” he said. In Raleigh.
This is fiction. The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases preliminary revised data in August, and revealed the exact date of this particular data release (August 21) several weeks ago.
William Beach, a conservative economist appointed by President Trump to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote on social media: Remember, BLS always releases draft revisions in August, and this year’s date was announced many months ago, on August 21st. It is important to check the facts. ”
Latest jobs numbers: President Trump falsely claimed last week that there had been a downward revision to the jobs numbers. That’s because “they had to do it because there was another whistleblower. They wanted to wait until after the election again.” This is also nonsense. This is also a routine revision conducted and published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics itself, and there is no indication that the whistleblower was involved.
October jobs report: President Trump spoke about the October jobs report, which showed a lower-than-expected 12,000-job gain amid storms and labor strikes, and said he was grateful for its release. They tried to keep the report from being made public. “Please don’t issue that report, because it will cost us the election,” Kamara said.
This is also my imagination. The report was released at the scheduled publication time on Friday. There is no indication that Harris or anyone else tried to prevent its release.
Pelosi and stocks: President Trump repeats false claims about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying she sold Visa stock “last week” and the “day after” that the federal government launched a “massive investigation” into Visa. He said it was announced.
The Visa stock was actually sold by Pelosi’s husband — more than two and a half months before the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the company. And the lawsuit was filed in September, not last week.
Pelosi and Trump’s State of the Union address: Trump revisited false claims from his time as president that Pelosi “could have gone to jail” for tearing up a copy of the 2020 State of the Union address after she finished writing it. That’s not allowed. ”
Under the Government Records Act, it was not illegal for Pelosi to plagiarize a copy of President Trump’s speech. Experts told the media that copies of Pelosi’s speech do not qualify as official government records.
Trump and Nord Stream 2: Trump falsely said of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prized effort, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, “I shut down his pipeline, it’s dead.” repeated the claim. President Trump did not destroy the pipeline. About three years after taking office, he signed sanctions legislation related to the project, by which time the pipeline was already about 90% complete, and the Russian state-owned company behind the project announced plans to begin construction in December 2020. announced that it would reopen.
