Trump RNC speech fact-check: 21 false or deceptive claims in an hour

President Donald Trump on Thursday spoke for greater than an hour on the Republican Nationwide Conference — giving him loads of time to attempt to spin his presidency’s file positively and, it seems, get numerous issues incorrect.

CNN reporter Daniel Dale, who’s made a reputation for himself for fact-checking Trump, went on the community with a preliminary fact-check of the president — counting greater than 20 false or deceptive claims in Trump’s RNC speech, which might quantity to at least one false or deceptive declare about each three minutes. Dale proceeded to record these errors on the air, which took three minutes:

“This president is a serial liar, and he serially lied tonight,” Dale stated.

Right here’s the total record of errors, as recited by Dale:

1. “Trump stated Joe Biden is ‘speaking about taking down the border wall.’ Biden has particularly, explicitly rejected that concept. He simply stated he’ll cease additional further building.”
2. “Trump claimed, as at all times, that he’s the one who handed the veterans’ alternative regulation. Barack Obama signed that into regulation in 2014. Trump signed a 2018 regulation to switch it.”
3. “Trump stated, ‘I’ve accomplished extra for the African American group than any president since Abraham Lincoln.’ That’s ludicrous. Lyndon Johnson, for one, signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.”
4. “Trump once more touted a ‘file 9 million job acquire over the previous three months.’ He didn’t point out, as common, that that acquire follows a file 22 million job loss over the earlier two months.”
5. “He stated he’ll ‘proceed to decrease drug costs.’ They’ve elevated throughout his presidency.”
6. “He stated they opened a Jerusalem embassy for lower than $500,000. Early paperwork present it was not less than $21 million.”
7. “He claimed NATO member spending has elevated for the primary time in about 20 years. Spending, in actual fact, rose in 2015 and in 2016, earlier than he took workplace.”
8. “He stated he’ll at all times and Republicans will at all times strongly shield individuals with preexisting situations. That pledge has already been damaged. He and so they have repeatedly tried to weaken these protections in Obamacare.”
9. “He claimed once more that he banned journey from China and Europe. No, he imposed partial restrictions with many exemptions. Tens of 1000’s of individuals continued touring over.”
10. “He boasted in regards to the Covid testing system and about his common response. Look, consultants practically universally say the US was fatally sluggish in its response, particularly sluggish in establishing sufficient testing.”
11. “He stated he ended what he known as ‘a NAFTA nightmare’ and he signed a model new US-Mexico-Canada settlement — the USMCA. That settlement preserves, maintains most of NAFTA.”
12. “He boasted about constructing about 300 miles of border wall. What he didn’t say is that the majority of that’s alternative barrier. As of August 7, in keeping with official knowledge, simply 5 miles had been constructed the place none existed earlier than.”
13. “He advised Joe Biden would confiscate weapons. That’s baseless. Biden is working on a non-mandatory buyback of so-called assault weapons.”
14. “He stated Democrats need to defund the police. Biden, once more, doesn’t, has rejected that.”
15. “He stated he has ‘excellent info’ that China desires Biden to win as a result of Biden is comfortable on China or cheerleads for China. The US intelligence group says China desires Biden to win as a result of it sees Trump as unpredictable.”
16. “He stated Biden vowed to shut down constitution faculties. Biden’s plan is skeptical on charters, however not would abolish them completely.”
17. “He denounced Biden for voting for the Iraq Warfare. Biden did certainly vote for the Iraq Warfare. However what Trump doesn’t point out is that he additionally supported that invasion.”
18. “He stated Democrats twice eliminated the phrase ‘God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance at their conference. Two particular person caucus conferences outdoors the principle primetime programming did go away it out, but it surely was uttered in each primetime occasion.”
19. “Trump denounced so-called cancel tradition as an insidious, left-wing factor. He, Donald J. Trump, has tried to get dozens of individuals and entities canceled, fired, boycotted, together with actually final week Goodyear.”
20. “He stated he imposed an order to offer 10 years in jail to rioters. That’s a most discretionary sentence as much as judges in current legal guidelines. His order simply requested the federal government to totally implement.”
21. “He stated Biden’s plan would eradicate America’s borders. No. Simply no. It’s incorrect.”

It’s fairly the record, however this stage of mendacity and deceptive isn’t new to Trump. In line with the Washington Publish, Trump has now made greater than 20,000 false or deceptive claims since he assumed workplace.

As my colleague Matt Yglesias has argued, there’s one thing extra to this than simply mendacity — it’s bullshitting. Right here’s a passage from Princeton College philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt, explaining the idea:

For the bullshitter, nevertheless, all these bets are off: he’s neither on the aspect of the true nor on the aspect of the false. His eye just isn’t on the info in any respect, because the eyes of the trustworthy man and of the liar are, besides insofar as they might be pertinent to his curiosity in getting away with what he says. He doesn’t care whether or not the issues he says describe actuality accurately. He simply picks them out, or makes them up, to go well with his function.

It’s not simply that Trump is mendacity. It’s that Trump doesn’t appear to care in any respect for the reality. What he says is barely meant to make him look good. That’s the context by which Trump claims time and time once more that he’s handed legal guidelines he by no means handed and constructed border partitions he by no means constructed.

And so when the president speaks, it’s perpetually troublesome to say if he’s telling the reality or merely reciting self-serving bullshit.

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