Fact Checking Donald Trump's RNC Speech

Misinformation, disinformation, and fabrication sum up Trump's historically long GOP nomination acceptance remarks

In his latest bid for reelection, Donald Trump delivered the longest nomination acceptance speech in US history, peppered with so many falsehoods that it’s impossible to fact-check them all in a single article. Perhaps that was the point. His strategy relies on overwhelming the public with misinformation, banking on the notion that sheer volume will bury the truth. We must see through this vile rhetoric and reject the hate he spreads. To that end, I debunk four of his biggest lies in this article, on immigration, on crime, on foreign policy, and on climate and the economy. Let’s Address This.

Donald Trump at the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee, WI. Credit: Getty Images

1. Demonizing Immigrants

Trump’s favorite scare tactic throughout his speech was to claim there’s an “invasion of immigrants killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.” Let’s break down this blatant falsehood:

• There’s no “invasion.” Notwithstanding the absurdity of labeling immigrants as “invaders,” undocumented crossings are at a three year low.

• Immigrants are not “killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.” In reality, all murders in America combined total around 21,500 annually. Trump fabricated data to fear monger and hope it wins him votes.

• Far from record crime rates as Trump alleged, America’s murder rates are at historic lows, and falling. Again, the facts are inconvenient to Trump so he makes up his own alternative facts as he goes along.

• Trump never mentions that murder rates are 40% higher in red states than in blue states, and 8 of the top 10 states with highest murder rates are red states. This is in part due to failed “tough on crime” policies that red states espouse. It’s also due to the lack of meaningful gun safety legislation in red states. And, it’s due to the lack of basic social welfare programs in many red states, forcing people into poverty and desperation. Trump demonizes immigrants to avoid dealing with failed Republican policies.

• Likewise, Trump’s claim that “I have no problem with immigrants, but they have to do it legally” is a lie. In reality, Trump is changing what legal immigration is, and he’s opposed to non-white immigration. For example, asylum is legal immigration—but here’s the entire timeline of Trump’s repeated efforts to ban asylum altogether. Likewise, Trump is on record that he wants more white immigrants from ‘nice’ countries like Norway, but condemns immigrants from “sh*thole countries,” i.e. his pejorative for Haiti and African countries. He claims he will support immigration reform, but when this Congress had a bipartisan immigration bill—Trump told GOP to kill it.

• Finally, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have significantly lower crime rates than do born U.S. citizens. This has in fact always been the case. You are statistically safer living next to an immigrant than you are living next to a born U.S. citizen. In fact, a study over a 150 year period found that immigrants have never had a higher crime rate than born U.S. citizens. Trump has long demonized immigrants with outright demonization and disinformation, he his RNC speech was on brand with bigotry.

2. Fabricating Crime Data

Trump repeatedly claimed that crime is at historic highs in the United States, and low in nations like Venezuela and El Salvador, because allegedly those nations are sending their criminals to the United States. Literally none of this is true.

Crime rates in the United States have fallen to historic lows. In fact, FBI data reports that violent crime in the United States is at near 50 year lows. Moreover, not only is there zero reliable data that crime is dropping in Venezuela, for example, there’s also zero evidence that Venezuela or any country is “sending us their criminals.” As mentioned earlier, immigrants have had lower crime rates than US citizens for the entirety of the last 150 years that this data has been tracked.

Meanwhile, while study after study shows that white supremacy terrorism is the single greatest threat to American safety and security, Trump never once even hinted at that fact. Instead, he continued to weaponize racism, conveniently ignoring the white male conservative extremist who attempted to assassinate him with a legally purchased firearm just a week prior. Where’s the action on gun safety? Even as guns are the leading cause of death for children in America, Donald Trump takes no action to stop the mass violence and death.

In a desperate ploy to win over Black and Latino voters, Trump peddles the age-old lie that “illegal aliens” are taking their jobs. This is a classic white supremacist tactic: sow division among people of color to prevent unity against systemic oppression. It’s a trick as old as time, and we must reject it outright. In fact, a recent study showed that immigrants contributed a whopping $7 Trillion to the economy. Far from costing anyone a job, the facts show that immigrants are a literal gold mine of economic prosperity for the communities in which they reside.

Finally, remember Trump’s racist rhetoric isn’t just divisive; it’s strategically selective. He warns of an ongoing “invasion” from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, yet never once mentions the over 648,000 (mostly white) undocumented immigrants from Canada, Europe, and Oceania in the US. Why? Because, again, this isn’t about border security; it’s about advancing white supremacy.

3. Failed Foreign Policy

Trump’s self-congratulations for being “tough” on the Taliban ring hollow when you remember he forced the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban terrorists from prison without securing a single concession. Many of these terrorists went on to participate in attacks. This isn’t strength—it’s reckless endangerment.

Trump goes on to claim he was tough on Russia, China, and North Korea. None of this is, of course, accurate. North Korea produced more ICBMs under Trump than under Obama, and according to experts became even more dangerous than before. Russia successfully interfered with our elections without facing any meaningful accountability. And the trade deal Trump signed with China is recognized as an abject failure.

Finally, Trump’s repeated reference to Hamas’s war crimes on 10/7, with zero regard to the at least tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians killed in indiscriminate bombing since, sends a clear message that he will only continue the violence. Trump ignored the ICJ prosecution, the ICC prosecution, and the UN reports describing the killing of Palestinians as “extermination,”—and promised to send ‪even more arms to bomb Palestine.‬ In other words, a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for continued genocide of the Palestinian people, without any real plan for peace or upholding justice.

4. Inviting Economic and Climate Catastrophe

And last but not least, Donald Trump’s remarks made crystal clear that he is inviting economic and climate disaster. He repeatedly declared “drill baby drill,” in a reference to expanding drilling for oil—something that climate scientists tell us is both devastating to our environment but also unnecessary with newer green energy technologies. Notwithstanding that we are currently experiencing the hottest 12 month period on record, Trump’s anti-climate platform will doom our country and planet for generations.

Trump repeatedly promised to cut taxes once more. In reality, these are tax cuts for billionaires—made worse as our nation suffers through the worst wealth and income inequality since the Great Depression. We already know Trump’s 2017 tax plan was majorly skewed to benefit the rich and screw over working people. This was predicted and it happened to no one’s surprise. Now, a new study documents how Trump’s potential 2025 tax plan would raise taxes on working families and raise tariffs about $1500 a year per average working family.

In short, Donald Trump’s policies guarantee economic, environmental, and social catastrophe.

In Conclusion

Donald Trump’s lies are not mere words; they’re dangerous deceptions designed to enact policies to divide and destroy. His presidency was marked by a consistent pattern of dishonesty, racism, and policy failures, and nothing has changed since he was voted out of office. Make no mistake, his return to the White House with a Project 2025 agenda will invite fascism to America. And while this short article did not capture every lie he put forth in his RNC speech, it presents enough data to demonstrate that Donald Trump is not to be trusted with the office of the presidency—not if we care about the economy, the environment, immigration reform, reproductive health access, and government accountability.

We must see through Trumps’s smokescreen of lies, understand the real threats to our nation’s future, and work with actual productive policy for economic, social, and climate justice. Reject the rhetoric. Reject the hate. Reject Donald Trump. Our country deserves better.

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