Where Does Donald Trumps Make America Great Again Made
AP FACT Check: Is Trump's America nifty once again or hellscape?
At their national convention, Republicans portrayed the U.S. as a country made great again by President Donald Trump
WASHINGTON -- The Republican National Convention begged this question: Why are President Donald Trump'southward most fervent supporters describing the state of his union as a hellscape?
It was maybe the fundamental 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 fabricated groovy once again by Trump?
Four years ago, candidate Trump promised that if he won, "The offense and violence that today afflicts our nation will shortly come to an end. Offset on Jan 20th, 2017, rubber volition be restored."
At present? "I've never seen our streets go this bad then rapidly," Pat Lynch, representing tens of thousands of New York police officers, told the GOP proceedings. "We are staring downwards the barrel of a public safety disaster." He said this in remarks singing Trump'southward praises.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer and a former New York mayor, spoke of years of "carnage" and violence ascent at present, and implored, "Mr. President, make our nation safe again."
All of the convention's apocalyptic rhetoric was in service of bashing Trump challenger Joe Biden, Democratic mayors and national Democrats both in and out of function as being soft on violence and chaos. Withal the landscape of lawlessness they described is Trump'southward 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's agenda.
A pick from the calendar week:
PROTESTS
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, expressing support for people in uniform: "People similar Dave Patrick Underwood, an officeholder in Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California." — Wed.
THE FACTS: Pence is blurring what happened, leaving the impression that Underwood was a victim of rioters. Underwood was not killed by demonstrators in Oakland who were protesting for racial justice.
Federal authorities say Underwood was fatally shot by Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant they say has ties to a far-correct, anti-government movement, while Underwood was guarding a federal courthouse during protests in May. Officials believe Carrillo used the protests as a cover for the slaying and his subsequent escape.
Carrillo, 32, hatched a plot to target officers with at least one other accomplice online, federal authorities criminate. Over an eight-day span before his capture, they say, Carrillo fatally shot Underwood and wounded his partner, then killed a California sheriff'southward deputy and injured four others.
Of the two police enforcement officers killed, Pence only mentioned the one who was in the vicinity of the protest. The other is Santa Cruz County Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, who authorities say was killed past Carrillo while pursuing him in June.
—-
RACIAL INEQUALITY
KENTUCKY Chaser General DANIEL CAMERON: "On the economy: Joe Biden couldn't exercise it, but President Trump did build an economy that worked for everyone, particularly minorities." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not accurate.
Republicans can talk successfully most the decline in unemployment rates for Black and Hispanic workers. Just that'due south just i gauge; plenty of economic troubles and inequalities abound for minorities. Minority groups still lagged behind white people with regard to incomes, wealth and abode ownership before the pandemic. But when the illness struck, it became clear that the economy did not work well for everybody as the job losses and infections disproportionately hitting minorities.
Black unemployment now stands at xiv.6%. Hispanic unemployment is 12.9%. The white unemployment rate is nine.2%. For every dollar of total wealth held by white households, Blacks accept just 5 cents, according to the Federal Reserve. It'southward iv cents for Hispanics. That is not show of an economic system working "especially" for minorities.
———
POLICE
ERIC TRUMP: "Biden has pledged to defund the police." — 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 telephone 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 federal coin for "training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths" and hiring more than officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve.
Specifically, he calls for a $300 1000000 infusion into federal community policing grant programs. That's more money, non less.
———
Blackness 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'southward a hollow claim.
There's no prove that Black Lives Thing or antifa, or whatsoever political group for that thing, is infiltrating racial injustice protests and injecting violence.
In June, The Associated Printing analyzed court records, employment histories and social media posts for 217 people arrested in Minneapolis and the District of Columbia, cities at the center of the protests earlier this yr.
More than 85 per centum 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 down 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 busted accounts linked to white supremacy groups that were promoting some of those falsehoods online.
———
COVID-19
TRUMP: "The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major state anywhere in the world." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: Not truthful. Not if you consider Russian federation, Kingdom of saudi arabia, the Philippines and Republic of india to exist major countries.
The U.S. sits correct in the middle when it comes to COVID-xix mortality rates in the 20 nations most impacted by the pandemic, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
Of the 20, Mexico has the highest mortality charge per unit 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 1.two, followed by Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russia, Morocco, Bharat, Argentina, S Africa and Chile.
The U.S. had the 10th lowest of the 20 nations, with a mortality rate of iii.1.
When the center looked at the data in another style, analyzing the COVID expiry rate for every 100,000 residents, the U.South. fares even worse. Merely three nations — Brazil, Chile and Peru — posted higher decease rates.
Understanding deaths every bit a per centum of the population or as a percentage of known infections is problematic considering countries rail and report COVID-xix deaths and cases differently. Many other factors are in play in shaping a death price too how well a country responded to the pandemic, such equally the overall wellness or youth of national populations.
———
TRUMP: "Instead of following the science, Joe Biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire state. His shutdown would inflict unthinkable and lasting harm on our nation's children, families, and citizens of all backgrounds." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That'due south false. Biden has publicly said he would shut downwards the nation's economy only if scientists and public wellness advisers recommended he do so to stalk the COVID-xix threat. In other words, he said he would follow the science, not condone it.
Speaking Sunday in an ABC interview, Biden said he "will be prepared to practise whatsoever it takes to salve lives" when he was asked if he would be willing to shut the country again.
"So if the scientists say shut it downwards?" asked ABC'south David Muir.
"I would shut it down," Biden responded. "I would heed to the scientists." The onetime vice president has said repeatedly that no one knows what January would look like.
———
DONALD TRUMP JR. on the coronavirus response: "The president quickly took action and shut down travel from China." — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, he didn't close down travel from China. He restricted information technology. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots earlier or around the same time the U.S. did.
The U.Due south. restrictions that took issue Feb. ii connected to allow travel to the U.S. from China's Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than eight,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.South. in the start three months later the travel restrictions were imposed.
Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland Cathay in the first calendar month later on the restrictions took effect. U.Southward. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. ii official at the U.S. Centers for Illness Command and Prevention, also told the AP that the federal government was boring to understand how much the coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped bulldoze the dispatch of outbreaks across the U.Due south. in late February. Trump didn't announce travel restrictions for many European countries until mid-March.
———
Educational activity
TRUMP: "Biden likewise vowed to oppose school selection and oppose all charter schools." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That's false. Biden doesn't oppose lease schools. He opposes federal money going to for-profit charter companies.
Such companies are only a slice of the charter school market, significant Biden'south position wouldn't essentially alter the charter landscape that is dominated by nonprofit organizations.
Biden does oppose federal money for tuition vouchers.
———
Health CARE
TRUMP: "We protected your preexisting atmospheric condition. Very strongly protected preexisting ... and y'all don't hear that." — Mon.
THE FACTS: You don't hear information technology considering it's not truthful.
People with such medical problems have wellness insurance protections because of President Barack Obama'due south health care law, which Trump is trying to dismantle.
One of Trump's alternatives to Obama's law — short-term health insurance, already in place — doesn't have to comprehend preexisting conditions. Another alternative is association health plans, which are oriented to modest businesses and sole proprietors and exercise cover those conditions.
Neither of the two alternatives appears to have made much divergence in the marketplace.
Meanwhile, Trump'southward administration is pressing the Supreme Court for total repeal of the Obama-era law, including provisions that protect people with preexisting weather condition from health insurance discrimination.
With "Obamacare" still in identify, preexisting conditions continue to be covered by regular individual health insurance plans.
Insurers must accept all applicants, regardless of medical history, and accuse the aforementioned standard premiums to good for you people and those who are in poor wellness, or accept a history of medical problems.
Before the Affordable Intendance Act, whatever insurer could deny coverage — or charge more — to anyone with a preexisting condition who was seeking to purchase an individual policy.
———
BIDEN'S Agenda
NIKKI HALEY, former administrator to the Un, on the Democrats: "They want a government takeover of health intendance. They desire to ban fracking and kill millions of jobs." — Monday.
REP. JIM Hashemite kingdom of jordan of Ohio: "Defund the police, defund border patrol and defund our armed services." — Monday.
RONNA McDANIEL, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee: "Y'all deserve to know that they would ban fracking and eliminate fossil fuels, which would kill millions of good-paying jobs and raise the cost of driving our cars and heating our homes. You deserve to know that they want a consummate regime takeover of our health care system, so moms like me won't be able to take our kids to the aforementioned pediatrician they've been seeing for years." — Monday.
THE FACTS: Those aren't Biden'southward 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 non favor a regime takeover of health care; instead he proposes edifice on Obama's constabulary, which preserves the private insurance market while expanding Medicaid.
Biden as well did not endorse proposals to cease border enforcement or even to decriminalize illegal crossings.
Biden supports banning only new oil and gas permits, fracking included, on federal land. But most U.South. production is on private land. The government says production on federal land deemed for less than 10% of oil and gas in 2018.
In a March fifteen primary contend, Biden misstated his free energy policy, suggesting he would allow no new fracking. His campaign chop-chop corrected the record. Biden has otherwise been consistent on his middle-of-the-road position, going and so far as to tell an anti-fracking activist that he "ought to vote for somebody else" if he wanted an immediate fracking ban.
———
VIRUS TESTING
IVANKA TRUMP: "Our president quickly mobilized the total forcefulness of government and the individual sector ... to build the most robust testing system in the world." — Th.
THE FACTS: Her assertion of superior U.South. testing for COVID-19 is dubious. The U.S. repeatedly stumbled with testing in the early weeks of the outbreak, allowing the virus to quickly spread in the U.S. The president's own experts say the U.Due south. is nowhere virtually the level of testing needed to control the virus.
The U.S. currently is conducting nearly 750,000 tests a 24-hour interval, 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 have called for 4 million or more tests daily, while a group assembled past Harvard University estimated that 20 one thousand thousand a 24-hour interval would be needed to go along the virus in check.
Public-health authorities acknowledge testing was a critical failure in the crucial early months. The number of tests existence done has since surged only remains inadequate. Many who practice go tested have disproportionately long waits for results, during which time they tin can be spreading the virus to others.
———
IRAN
SEN. TOM COTTON of Arkansas: "Joe Biden sent pallets of cash to the ayatollahs." — Thursday.
THE FACTS: This is a distorted tale Trump and Republicans dear to tell. Yes, the U.Southward. flew cash to Iran in the Obama years, merely it was coin the U.s. owed to that country.
Cotton fiber likewise played into the convention's pattern of attributing every questionable action of Obama's administration to Biden personally.
———
Economic system
PENCE: "Four years ago nosotros inherited ... an economy struggling to break out of the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. ... In our beginning three years we built the greatest economy in the world." — Midweek.
LARRY KUDLOW, Trump economical adviser: Trump was "inheriting a stagnant economy on the forepart of recession," and under the president, "the economy was rebuilt in three years." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This is false. The economy was healthy when Trump arrived at the White House.
Even if the recovery from the 2008 fiscal crisis was slow, Trump took office with unemployment at a low 4.7%, steady chore growth and a falling federal budget arrears. The longest expansion in U.S. history began in the middle of 2009 and connected until the offset of the year, spanning both the Obama and Trump presidencies.
The U.South. economic system did benefit from Trump's 2017 taxation cuts with a jump in growth in 2018, but 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.
Annual growth during Obama's 2d term averaged about 2.3%. Trump notched a slightly better 2.5% during his starting time three years, but the state swung into recession this year considering of the coronavirus and will probably leave Trump with an junior track record to his predecessor over four years.
———
WAR
SEN. RAND PAUL: "Joe Biden voted for the Iraq state of war, which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Trump had no more than foresight on this matter than Biden. Neither was against it when it started.
When asked during a Sept. eleven, 2002, radio interview if he would support an Iraq invasion, Trump responded, "Yeah, I gauge so." The next calendar month, Biden as a senator voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force in Iraq.
The next March, but days later on the U.S. launched its invasion, Trump said it "looks like a tremendous success from a armed services standpoint."
It wasn't until September 2003 that Trump first publicly raised doubts about the invasion, proverb "a lot of people (are) questioning the whole concept of going in in the commencement place." In November 2005, Biden chosen his Senate vote to authorize forcefulness a mistake.
———
TAXES
ERIC TRUMP: The president slashed taxes and "wages went through the roof." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not quite. Wage growth did improve, but there is clearly still a roof on workers' incomes.
The 2017 tax cuts announced unlikely to evangelize on their promised pay increases. White Firm economists argued that incomes would surge past at to the lowest degree $4,000 considering of the lower corporate tax rate. That has yet to occur and seems unlikely given the electric current recession.
Simply average hourly wages did amend to a 3.5% annual proceeds by February 2019, much better than the 2.7% annual gain in December 2016 before Trump became president. The problem was that wage growth then began to slip through the end of last twelvemonth despite the steady hiring. Wage gains only accelerated again with the pandemic and layoffs of millions of poor workers that artificially raised average wages.
What workers take even so to see is a meaningful change in the distribution of income. More than one-half of total household income goes to the tiptop 20% of earners, according to the Census Agency. Their share has increased slightly under Trump with data that is current through 2018. The bottom 20% of earners get just 3.1% of total income, just equally they did earlier Trump's presidency.
———
FARMING
CRIS PETERSON, from a Wisconsin dairy family: "Our entire economy and dairy farming are once again roaring dorsum. 1 person deserves the credit and our vote, President Donald J. Trump." — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not anybody in the dairy manufacture views it as booming, especially as larger operations are putting smaller family farms out of business organisation.
The Agriculture Department reported this summer that "dairy herds fell by more than than half between 2002 and 2019, with an accelerating rate of decline in 2018 and 2019, even as milk production connected to grow."
Function of the problem is that smaller farms face college production costs. Farms with more than 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 authorities figures.
———
SUBURBS
PATRICIA McCLOSKEY on Democrats: "They desire to abolish the suburbs altogether by catastrophe single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back." — Mon.
THE FACTS: That's a false business relationship of what Biden supports. In 2015, during the Obama administration, a regulation took effect intended to ensure that communities confront racial segregation in housing.
The rule required more than one,200 jurisdictions receiving federal Housing and Urban Development block grants and housing aid to analyze their housing stock and come up up with plans to combat patterns of segregation and discrimination. It 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 edifice single-family unit 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.
———
VOTING FRAUD
TRUMP, on mail-in voting: "Absentee — like in Florida — absentee is practiced. But other than that, they're very, very bad." — Monday.
THE FACTS: He'due south making a false distinction. Post-in ballots are cast in the same mode every bit absentee mail ballots, with the aforementioned level of scrutiny such as signature verification in many states.
In more than than thirty states and the District of Columbia, voters accept a correct to "no excuse" absentee voting. That means they can use post-in ballots for any reason, regardless of whether a person is out of town or working.
In Florida, the Legislature in 2016 voted to change the diction of such balloting from "absentee" to "vote-past-mail" to make articulate a voter tin can cast such ballots if they wish. And then 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 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
———
TRUMP, on the Nov vote count and Democrats: "We have to be very, very conscientious and this fourth dimension they are trying to do information technology with the whole mail service office scam. They will arraign it on the post office. Y'all can run into them setting information technology upwards." — Monday.
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'due south said as much. In an interview this month, he admitted he'due south trying to starve the U.S. Mail of money in social club to make information technology harder to procedure an expected surge of postal service-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.
———
TRUMP, on defective ballots in an ballot: "What does defective hateful? It means fraud." — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, defective ballots do non 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 particular worry this year considering of recent U.S. Postal Service delays and an expected surge in mail service-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ballots likewise are deemed lacking if there is a missing signature — common with newer voters unfamiliar with the procedure — or information technology doesn't match what's on file. In add-on, 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 democracy programme at NYU School of Law. When suspected cases are investigated for potential fraud, studies have borne out the main reason for defects is voter mistake, she said.
Defective ballots also disproportionately impact voters of color, and recent lawsuits have successfully challenged some requirements as posing health risks or disenfranchising voters. Before this year, for instance, a federal judge ruled that a South Carolina requirement to have witnesses to post-in ballots could put voters' health at risk; the requirement was suspended it for the June principal. Others states including Minnesota and Rhode Island have also suspended that requirement due to the pandemic.
———
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 report.
———
EDITOR'S NOTE — A wait at the veracity of claims by political figures.
———
Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck
Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-fact-check-trumps-america-great-hellscape-72720018
0 Response to "Where Does Donald Trumps Make America Great Again Made"
Post a Comment