Former President Donald Trump smiles to the crowd while attending the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
By Tom Kertscher
Wisconsin Watch
In fact-checking the Republican National Convention live from Milwaukee, we found that statements about mortgage rates, deportations and fentanyl deaths were exaggerated, claims about harassing IRS agents and gas prices were misleading, and claims about living paycheck to paycheck and returning profits to the U.S. were accurate.
Here’s a rundown of 10 fact checks from the RNC, held July 15-18, 2024, in Milwaukee.
No, mortgage rates have not quadrupled since Joe Biden became president.
Mortgage rates are 2.5 times higher than when Donald Trump left the presidency and Biden took over in January 2021.
Trump made the quadrupled claim during his speech accepting the GOP nomination for president.
Led by Apple, U.S. multinational corporations returned profits held overseas, as Trump claimed, after the U.S. corporate tax rate was reduced to 21% from 35%.
No, deportations under Trump were not “the highest ever.”
More deportations occurred under previous presidents.
For example, the most repatriations, to use a catch-all term for various types of deportation, occurred during Bill Clinton’s second term as president. They averaged 1.7 million annually from 1997 through 2000. Trump’s highest was 600,000 in 2020.
No, organizers did not choose Easter Sunday for Transgender Day of Visibility.
The annual observance of Transgender Day of Visibility has been on March 31 since 2009. This year Easter, which occurs on a rotation of dates based on the lunar calendar, happened to fall on the same date.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., claimed “the Washington establishment … gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday.”
No, fentanyl does not kill more than 100,000 Americans every year.
That claim by Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde, who is running against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, was exaggerated.
Drug overdoses kill more than 100,000 people annually, but fentanyl accounts for only about 70% of that number.
Spectators in cowboy hats wait for the vice presidential nomination during the Republican National Convention on Monday, July 15, 2024, at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Yes, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck.
Three national polls done in 2024 found nearly two-thirds of Americans said they are living paycheck to paycheck, making it difficult to save for the future.
No, Biden did not hire “85,000 new IRS agents to harass hard-working Americans.”
The number and the nature of the work of those employees made in a claim by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., are misleading.
The Biden administration in 2021 approved hiring 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service employees by 2031, but only a fraction are agents, and most are filling expected vacancies.
The claim was made by Republican Kari Lake against U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat. Both are running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona.
Gallego voted July 10 against a bill that would require proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections. The bill would not allow noncitizens to vote, which is illegal under current law.
No, gas prices have not risen 48% under Biden under an apples-to-apples comparison.
The 48% claim by U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., compared January 2021 with July 2024.
The average weekly price was $2.38 per gallon the week of Jan. 18, 2021, and $3.06 the week of Jan. 15, 2024 — 29% higher.
The price was $3.13 the week of July 12, 2021, and $3.50 the week of July 15, 2024 — 12% higher.
No, the U.S. did not become the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas under Trump.
That was the claim in the RNC platform.
The U.S. became the world’s largest oil producer during Trump’s presidency, but the largest natural gas producer six years before he became president.
See more fact checks
Prior to the convention, we fact-checked many claims that were likely to be repeated at the RNC; in fact, many were. Here’s a look at those claims and the facts.
Other nonprofit newsrooms fact-checked the RNC, too. They include PolitiFact and FactCheck.org.
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.