There were a host of false things that Donald Trump said during his hour-long news conference Thursday that have gotten attention.
A glaring example is his helicopter emergency landing story, which has not stood up to scrutiny.
But there was so much more. A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.
Politicians spin. They fib. They misspeak. They make honest mistakes like the rest of us. And, yes, they even sometimes exaggerate their biographies.
The expectation, though, is that they will treat the truth as something important and correct any errors.
But what former President Trump did this past Thursday went well beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do.
Here’s what we found, going chronologically from the beginning of Trump’s remarks to the end:
1. “I think our country right now is in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint…”
The U.S. economy has rebounded from the pandemic downturn more rapidly than most other countries around the world. Growth has slowed in recent months, but gross domestic product still grew at a relatively healthy annual clip of 2.8% in April, May and June – which is faster than the pace in three of the four years when Trump was president. — Scott Horsley, NPR chief economics correspondent
2. “…from a safety standpoint, both gangs on the street…”
We don’t have great, up-to-date data on gang activity in the U.S., but violent crime trends offer a good glimpse into safety in the country. Nationally, violent crime – that includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – has been trending way down after a surge in 2020, according to the most recent data from the FBI. That data is preliminary and incomplete, covering around three-quarters of the country, but other crime analysts have found similar trends. Crime levels, of course, vary locally: murders are down in Philadelphia, for instance, but up in Charlotte, N.C. — Meg Anderson, NPR National Desk reporter covering criminal justice
3. “...and frankly, gangs outside of our country in the form of other countries that are, frankly, very powerful. They’re very powerful countries.”
The U.S. is not in the “most dangerous position” from a foreign-policy standpoint than ever before. Biden pulled troops out of Afghanistan in his first year in office — though the withdrawal itself was chaotic and a target of much criticism — and since then, U.S. troops have not been actively engaged in a war for the first time in 20 years. The U.S. is supporting Ukraine and Israel, of course, and has troops in Iraq and Syria, but they’re not fighting on any regular basis.
What’s more, however, FBI Director Christopher Wray has said the greatest threat to the country is domestic extremism. And beyond organized groups the very definition of extremism is changing, as fringe ideologies move into the mainstream, and radicalization takes hold amongst parts of the populace. Consider: the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and the assassination attempt on Trump’s life, even with a motive that remains murky at best. Regardless, the call is coming from inside the house, domestic extremism experts warn. Many polls show a sobering degree of support for political violence to drive change. — Andrew Sussman, NPR supervising editor for national security
4-5. “We have a lot of bad things coming up. You could end up in a Depression of the 1929 variety, which would be a devastating thing, took many years– took many decades to recover from it, and we’re very close to that.”
There is nothing to suggest that a 1930s style Depression is on the horizon for the United States. And the Depression did not take “many decades to recover from.” It ended during World War Two, in 1941. — Scott Horsley
6. “And we’re very close to a world war. In my opinion, we’re very close to a world war.”
No serious person thinks that the U.S., Russia and China are about to start a world war. Right now, Russia appears to be having a hard time defending Russia, given Ukraine’s recent incursions. While there are concerns about things like the potential for regional conflagrations in the Middle East, only Trump is talking about world war. — Andrew Sussman
7. “Kamala's record is horrible. She's a radical left person at a level that nobody's seen.”
It’s debatable how liberal Harris is. Some in California didn’t like her record on criminal justice and thought she was not progressive enough. She’s clearly liked by progressives and her voting scores as a senator are on the liberal end of the spectrum, but is she “radical left” and “at a level that nobody’s seen”? There are plenty of people alive and in history who would be considered far more liberal and more radical.
8. “She picked a radical left man.”
Few, if any, reasonable people would say Walz is a “radical left man.” He had a progressive record as governor with a Democratic legislature, but the things passed are hardly radical – free school lunch, protecting abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, restricting access to certain types of guns. All of these things have majority support from voters. What’s more, that “progressive” record ignores Walz’s first term as governor when he worked with Republicans because Democrats didn’t control the legislature. And it ignores Walz’s time as a congressman when he was considered a more moderate member given that he was from a district that had been previously held by a Republican.
9. “He's going for things that nobody's ever even heard of. Heavy into the transgender world.”
Last year, Walz championed and signed a bill that prevented state courts of officials from complying with child-removal requests, extraditions, arrests or subpoenas related to gender-affirming health care that a person receives or provides in Minnesota. “Heavy into the transgender world” is vague and misleading.
10. “He doesn't want to have borders. He doesn't want to have walls.”
Walz has never called for having no borders. He has voiced opposition to a wall because he doesn't think it will stop illegal immigration. He told Anderson Cooper on CNN, for example, that a wall "is not how you stop" illegal immigration He called for more border-control agents, electronics and more legal ways to immigrate.
11. “He doesn't want to have any form of safety for our country.”
Trump himself praised Walz’s handling of the aftermath of the George Floyd murder at the hands of a police officer. And it’s certainly hyperbole to say he “doesn’t want any form of safety for our country.” Walz served in the U.S. National Guard for 24 years, so clearly, he’s interested in the country having national security. And domestically, he’s never been a “defund the police” advocate. Walz opposed a ballot measure that would have gotten rid of minimum police staffing levels, for example. That angered advocates. He signed police reforms into law, but that does not prove wanting no safety.
12. “He doesn't mind people coming in from prisons.”
Walz has not said he wants people coming in from prisons. Trump is trying to tie his claim that other countries are sending prisoners to the United States to Democrats’ immigration policies.
13. “And neither does she, I guess. Because she's not, she couldn't care less.”
Harris has said a lot to the contrary of not caring about the levels of migrants coming across the border, let alone people coming in from prisons. In fact, when in Guatemala, she said her message for people thinking of immigrating to the United States was: "Do not come. Do not come."
14. “She's the border czar. By the way, she was the border czar, 100%. And all of a sudden, for the last few weeks, she's not the border czar anymore, like nobody ever said it.”
Harris was never appointed “border czar.” That’s a phrase that was used incorrectly by some media outlets. Biden tasked Harris with leading the “diplomatic effort” with leaders in Central American countries, where many migrants are coming from.
Biden said he wants Harris “to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.” He added that Harris “agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept — the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders — at their borders.”
Harris herself that day spoke of “the need to address root causes for the migration that we’ve been seeing.”
15. “We have a very, very sick country right now. You saw the other day with the stock market crashing. That was just the beginning. That was just the beginning.”
The stock market did not “crash.” The stock market fell sharply at the end of last week as investors fretted about a softening job market. This was amplified on Monday when Japan’s stock market tumbled 12%, sparking a selloff around the world. Stocks in Japan and elsewhere have since regained much of this ground, however. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 683 points on the day of Trump’s news conference. — Scott Horsley
16. “Fortunately, we've had some very good polls over the last fairly short period of time.”
Most good polls have shown Harris gaining not just nationally, but also in the swing states, though these same polls show a very close race.
17. “Rasmussen came out today. We're substantially leading.”
Trump is not substantially leading, and Rasmussen is viewed as one of the least credible pollsters in the country.
18. “And others came out today that we're leading, and in some cases, substantially, I guess, MSNBC came out, or CNBC came out also, with a poll that was, you know, has us leading.”
Polls have not shown substantial leads. CNBC had Trump leading by 2, unchanged from his 2-point lead in July.
19. “And leading fairly big in swing states. In some polls, I'm leading very big in swing states… .”
Again, polls in swing states have shown a tightened race.
20. “But as a border czar, she's been the worst border czar in history, in the world history.”
Vice President Harris was never asked to lead immigration policy. That’s the job of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Again, the term “border czar” was used inaccurately by some media outlets, and it’s a term conservatives have been using to attack her, in part, because she has only visited the Southern U.S. border a few times since 2021. But in reality, Harris was tapped by President Biden to address the root causes of migration. Her approach has focused on deterrence. She’s told migrants to not come to the U.S., and she has been able to secure more than $5 billion in commitments from private companies to help boost the economy in Central American countries. — Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, NPR immigration correspondent based in Texas
21. “I think the number is 20 million, but whether it's 15 or 20, it's numbers that nobody's ever heard before. 20 million people came over the border in the last– during the Biden-Harris administration. Twenty-million people. And it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows what the number is.”
It’s unclear where Trump is getting this number from. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, since 2021 agents have had more than 7.3 million encounters nationwide with migrants trying to cross into the country illegally. Under Biden, unlawful crossings hit an all-time high last year, but that number has decreased significantly, in part, due to Biden’s asylum restrictions at the Southern U.S. border. An April report from the Office of Homeland Security Statistics found there’s nearly 11 million unauthorized migrants in the country. — Sergio Martínez-Beltrán
22. “Just like far more people were killed in the Ukraine-Russia war than you have reported.”
Neither Russia nor Ukraine is revealing its own casualty figures, so there are only very broad estimates. — Andrew Sussman
23. “A lot of great things would have happened, but now you have millions and millions of dead people. And you have people dying financially, because they can't buy bacon; they can't buy food; they can't buy groceries; they can't do anything. And they're living horribly in our country right now.”
Grocery prices actually jumped sharply during Trump’s last year in office, as pandemic lockdowns disrupted the food supply chain and Americans were suddenly forced to eat more of their meals at home. Grocery inflation in June 2020 hit 5.6%. This was masked, however, by a plunge in other prices, as the global economy fell into pandemic recession.
As the economy rebounded, prices did, too. Inflation began to rise in 2021, and spiked in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent food and energy prices soaring. Inflation has since moderated, falling from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3% in June 2024. (July’s inflation figures will be released next week.) Grocery prices have largely leveled off in the last year, although they remain higher than they were before the pandemic – a potent reminder of the rising cost of living.
Economists have warned that Trump’s proposed import tariffs and immigration restrictions could result in higher inflation in the years to come. Researchers from the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimate the tariffs alone would cost the typical family about $1,700 a year. — Scott Horsley
24. “We've agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement, subject to them, on Sept. 10th.”
This is ABC, not NBC.
25. “She can't do an interview. She's barely competent and she can't do an interview.”
Harris hasn’t done interviews since getting into the campaign, but she has done them in the past, so saying “she can’t do” one or that she is “barely competent” are just insults. Trump tends to revert to questioning the intelligence of Black women who challenge him. In fact, Trump did it nine times in this news conference, saying either Harris is not that “smart” (five times) "incompetent” (three times) or “barely competent,” as he did here.
26-27. “Why is it that millions of people were allowed to come into our country from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions, insane asylums, even insane asylums, that's a– it's a mental institution on steroids. That's what it is.”
Immigration experts have said they have not been able to find any evidence of this. Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, told FactCheck.org: “It’s hard to prove a negative — nobody’s writing a report saying, ‘Ecuador is not opening its mental institutions’ — but what I can say is that I work full-time on migration, am on many coalition mailing lists, correspond constantly with partners in the region, and scan 300+ RSS feeds and Twitter lists of press outlets and activists region wide, and I have not seen a single report indicating that this is happening. … As far as I can tell, it’s a total fabrication.”
Notably, a version of this did happen in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift from Cuba. The Washington Post noted three years later: “Back in 1980, it seemed to be a humanitarian and patriotic gesture to accept provisionally, without papers or visas, all those fleeing from the port of Mariel. More than 125,000 came. Most were true refugees, many had families here, and the great majority has settled into American communities without mishap. But the Cuban dictator played a cruel joke. He opened his jails and mental hospitals and put their inmates on the boats too.”
Without a question, some migrants who have come into the U.S. have committed crimes, but the data show the vast majority do not. According to Northwestern University, immigrants are less likely to commit a crime than U.S.-born people and certainly at no higher rates that the population writ large. (Trump goes on to repeat this claim minutes later in the news conference as well, so it is included in our count here.)
28. “We have a president that's the worst president in the history of our country.”
Trump may have this opinion, but he says it as if it’s fact, and a 2022 survey of historians ranked Biden in the top half of presidents. Trump, on the other hand, was No. 43. The two below Trump were James Buchanan, who did little to stop the impending U.S. Civil War, and the impeached and nearly convicted Andrew Johnson.
29. “We have a vice president who is the least admired, least respected, and the worst vice president in the history of our country.”
A recent rating of vice presidents did not show this. Harris was in the bottom half of vice presidents, but Spiro Agnew, Dan Quayle, Henry A. Wallace and were toward the bottom of the list.
30. “The most unpopular vice president.”
This might have been true about a year ago or so, but not anymore. An NBC poll then showed Harris had the lowest favorability rating of any modern VP they’d tested. But her numbers have turned around. The NPR poll had Harris with a 46%/48% favorable to unfavorable rating, which was higher than Trump’s and his running mate, JD Vance, who is among the least popular running mates in recent history.
31. “Don't forget, she was the first one defeated. As I remember it, because I watched it very closely, but she was the first one.”
Harris was not “defeated,” because she dropped out of the Democratic presidential race before Iowa. But even if one considers her dropping out on Dec. 3, 2019, a defeat, she was not the first of the Democratic candidates in that primary campaign to do so. At least 10 others dropped out sooner.
32-34. “And I'm no Biden fan, but I'll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you're looking at, they took the presidency away. … And they took it away.”
There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution about picking presidential candidates. This is a party process, and everything has been done within party rules. And, again, the presidency wasn’t taken away: Biden is still president.
35. “They said they're going to use the 25th Amendment.”
This was never floated as a possibility to get Biden to withdraw from the race. Biden’s Cabinet members are all people he appointed and who are loyal to him. In addition, the 25th Amendment outlines a procedure for removing a sitting president from office, not from running for a second term.
36-39. "They're going to hit you hard. ‘Either we can do it the nice way. I heard, I know exactly, because I know a lot of people on the other side, believe it or not. And, they said, ‘We'll do it the nice way, or we'll do it the hard way.’ And he said, ‘All right.”
This was not said; he did not hear; no Democrats in the know are talking to Trump; and this dialogue is made up.
40. “We're leading, we're leading.”
The race is statistically tied in national polls and in the states. In some national polls, Harris leads. In some, Trump does.
41-42. “I'm saying it's a–, for a country with a Constitution that we cherish, we cherish this Constitution to have done it this way is pretty severe, pretty horrible. … But to just take it away from him, like he was a child.”
Again, this is Trump talking about how Biden stepped aside, and there’s nothing in the Constitution about how the political parties should pick candidates. And nothing was taken away.
43-46. “And he's a very angry man right now, I can tell you that. He's not happy with Obama, and he's not happy with Nancy Pelosi. Crazy Nancy, she is crazy, too. She's not happy with any of the people that told him that you've gotta leave. He's very unhappy, very angry, and I think he, He also blames her. He's trying to put up a good face, but it's a very bad thing in terms of a country when you do that. I'm not a fan of his, as you probably have noticed, and he had a rough debate, but that doesn't mean that you just take it away like that.”
Trump can’t speak to Biden’s state of mind; all evidence is that Nancy Pelosi is perfectly sane – see her recent multiple rounds of interviews about her book, including with NPR; again, Trump doesn’t know Biden’s state of mind; and again, nobody took it away.
47-51. “She's trying to say she had nothing to do with the border. She had everything. She was appointed to head the border. And then they said border czar. Oh, she loved that name. She loved that name. But she never went there. She went to a location once along the border, but that was a location that you would love to go and have dinner with your husband or whoever. That was a location that was not part of the problem. That was not really going to the border. So I– essentially she never went to the border.”
(1) As previously noted, she was not put in charge of the border and certainly did not have “everything” to do with it; (2) she was not appointed to head the border; (3) if “they” is the White House, then “they” did not call her “border czar”; (4) Trump doesn’t know what Harris might have thought about the term; (5) Harris did not go to a place at the border “you would love to go and have dinner with your husband or whoever.”
In 2021, Harris toured border patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas, visited an area where asylum seekers were screened, and met with migrants. Republicans criticized her at the time for not going to the Rio Grande Valley.
52. “Now we have the worst border in the history of the world.”
World history is filled with cases where one country has crossed a border and invaded a neighboring country.
53. “She destroyed San Francisco. She destroyed California as the A.G. But as the D.A. She destroyed it. She– San Francisco. … She destroyed– no cash bail, weak on crime, uh, she's terrible.”
As San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011, and then California’s attorney general until 2017, it’s true that Kamala Harris was deeply connected to how crime was prosecuted during that particular period. However, no single person is responsible for destroying any city or state, not to mention that both are not destroyed.
There are just too many factors that contribute to why crime rises and falls. What’s more, according to the FBI, both violent and property crime rates in California more or less mirrored national trends during her tenures. As a prosecutor, Harris was largely seen as aligning more with law-and-order tendencies, though she has supported some progressive reforms, like offering certain criminal defendants drug treatment instead of going to trial. She also tweeted support for a Minnesota bail fund after the 2020 protests of George Floyd’s murder. — Meg Anderson
During her campaign for the 2020 nomination, she rolled out a plan that would have phased out cash bail, and she pledged to eliminate it as president because “no one should have to sit in jail for days or even years because they don’t have the money to pay bail.” But in the same campaign, during a debate, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard criticized Harris for keeping cash bail in place as district attorney.
54. “And yet they weaponized the system against me.”
The justice system was not weaponized against Trump. Biden went through pains to not show any interference with the Justice Department. And Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers in New York in a state case.
55-58. “I won the big case in Florida. I won the big case. … Nobody even wrote about it. The big case.”
(1) Trump did not “win” the classified documents case against him in Florida; (2) this was not “the big case” against him; (3) there was plenty of coverage of it; and (4) he goes on to repeat that he won the case later.
For context: the judge in the case controversially dismissed it, claiming the special counsel was unconstitutionally appointed despite Supreme Court decisions upholding independent counsels. The Justice Department has signaled it will appeal by the end of August but by the time the decision comes back, the election will be over.
Trump had four criminal cases against him including the classified documents case – the fraudulent business practices case in New York, for which he was convicted on 34 felony counts; an election interference case in Georgia; and the other federal case dealing with Jan. 6. If there was a biggest case, it was the last one.
59. “The judge was a brilliant judge, and all they do is they play the ref with the judges. But this judge was a fair but brilliant judge.”
There has been lots of criticism of the judge in the case, Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed. She had very little experience as a trial judge, made several decisions that were questioned by legal experts and early in this case, had a ruling, in which she called for a special master to review classified documents first, overturned by the 11th Circuit.
60. “Now Biden lost it because he didn't have presidential immunity. He didn't have the Presidential Records Act. He lost it.”
This was not “Biden’s case.” It was to be tried by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Biden White House has made efforts to keep an arms-length distance from the investigation. Biden often declined to comment on the Justice Department’s and state investigations into Trump when it would likely have been politically advantageous for him to talk about it on the campaign trail.
61. “But the– I call it prosecutors, special counsel, special prosecutor to me. He–, appointed by him and appointed by Garland. He said the man's incompetent. He can't stand trial, but he can run for president.”
This appears to be a misrepresentation of what special counsel Robert Hur said of Biden in a report he released investigating the president’s handling of classified documents. Hur said he wouldn’t be charging Biden, called the president “an elderly man with a poor memory" and said a jury might find sympathy with him because of it. He did not say Biden was incompetent and could not stand trial.
62. “She couldn't pass her bar exam.”
This is false. Harris passed her bar exam on the second try. She failed on first attempt, which is not unusual for California’s bar exam given its difficulty.
63. “I was doing very well with Black voters, and I still am. I seem to be doing very well with Black males. This is according to polls, as you know.
Trump was not doing “very well” with Black voters. Biden was not doing as well with Black voters as he did in 2020, according to most surveys, but that didn’t mean Black voters were moving heavily toward Trump. Many seemed more likely not to vote. There were signs that Trump was doing better with Black men, but there wasn’t much good evidence to support this in polling, considering most national polls have such high margins of error with voter groups. A typical national survey might have 1,000 voters and 100 or so Black voters, give or take. That’s typically a margin of error upward of +/- 10 percentage points, meaning results could be a whopping 10 points higher or lower.
64. “Extremely well with Hispanic.”
Like with Black voters, it’s difficult to tell in most national surveys exactly how well a candidate is doing with Latino voters because of high margins of error. “Extremely well” depends on how it’s defined, but this is an exaggeration.
65. “Jewish voters, way up.”
Jewish voters traditionally vote roughly 2-to-1 for Democrats in presidential elections, so this seems more like a hope than reality.
66. “White males, way up. White males have gone through the roof. White males, way up.”
It’s just not the case that Trump is “way up.” NPR polling finds that while Trump is doing as well as ever with white men without college degrees, Harris – and Biden before her – is actually leading with white men with college degrees, a group Trump won in 2020, according to exit polls.
67. “It could be that I'll be affected somewhat with Black females. Well, we're doing pretty well. And I think ultimately they'll like me better, because I'm gonna give them security, safety and jobs.”
Trump is not doing well with Black females. Black women are a key pillar Democratic voting group, and Black voters have moved more in Harris’ favor since she’s gotten in.
69. “We have a very bad economy right now. We could, we could literally be on the throes of a depression. Not recession, a Depression. And they can't have that. They can't have that.”
This is not the case. See earlier fact check. (He repeats this again later in the press conference, so it is included here in the count.)
70. “I know Josh Shapiro. He's a terrible guy. And he's not very popular with anybody.”
A Fox News poll last month showed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a finalist to be Harris’ running mate, had a 61% approval rating in the state. Other polls also found him with a net-positive rating, though, not quite as high.
71. “Listen, I had 107,000 people in New Jersey. You didn't report it.”
It was reported that the numbers come from faulty information about the size of a crowd at Trump’s rally. More accurate estimates appear to be anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000. Still, a very large crowd, but Trump is exaggerating here.
72-77. “What did she have yesterday? 2,000 people? If I ever had 2,000 people, you'd say my campaign is finished. It's so dishonest, the press. … When she gets 1,500 people, and I saw it yesterday on ABC, which they said, ‘Oh, the crowd was so big.’ … I have 10 times, 20 times, 30 times the crowd size. And no, they never say the crowd was big. … I think it's so terrible when you say, ‘Well she has 1,500 people, 1,000 people,’ and they talk about, oh, the enthusiasm.”
(1-3) Trump gave at least three incorrect estimates here, downplaying Harris’ crowd sizes (2,000, 1,500 and 1,000); (4) He also far overestimated how big his crowd sizes are compared to Harris’; (5-6) He twice said the press is dishonest about her crowd size and about his.
For context, the Harris campaign’s estimate was 10,000 or more at each rally. What the exact number is might be unclear — as is often the case with crowd-size estimates — but they were bigger than 2,000 and 1,500. Reporters have often commented on the size of Trump’s crowds. Frequently, they are very large, certainly larger than ones that Hillary Clinton drew in 2016 or Joe Biden this year, but Trump also regularly exaggerates their sizes.
78. “If I were president, you wouldn't have Russia and Ukraine, where it never happened. Zero chance. You wouldn't have had Oct. 7th of Israel.”
This is speculation, and that there is simply no way to know what would have happened in either case if he'd been reelected.
79. “You wouldn't have had inflation. You wouldn't have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems.”
Again, this is speculative. Energy and food prices jumped sharply around the world following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting sanctions on Russian energy. Gasoline prices in the U.S. hit a record high topping $5 a gallon. But domestic energy production has not suffered during the Biden administration. In fact, U.S. oil and natural gas production hit record highs last year. AAA reports the average price of gasoline today is $3.45/gallon. — Scott Horsley
80. "I don't know if you know, they're drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to $7, $8, $9 a barrel."
Oil and gas production has largely been determined by energy companies. They were disciplined about not expanding production when prices were low but have become more aggressive as prices climbed. While Kamala Harris opposed “fracking” for oil and gas during her 2019 presidential campaign, she now says she would not try to outlaw the practice – which is important in battleground states such as Pennsylvania. — Scott Horsley
81. “Everybody's going to be forced to buy an electric car, which they're not going to do because they don't want that. It's got a great market. It's got a market. It's really a sub market.”
The Biden administration has set a goal of having 50% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030. It has primarily tried to achieve this through carrots rather than sticks, offering incentives to make electric cars more affordable, encouraging the development of electric charging stations and using the federal government’s own purchasing power to create demand. — Scott Horsley
82. “We don't have enough electricity. We couldn't make enough electricity for that.”
A shift to electric vehicles will require a rapid updating and expansion of the U.S. power grid, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. However, as EVs become more efficient, the increased demand could be reduced by as much as 50% per mile traveled over the next three decades. — Scott Horsley
83. “The weight of a car, the weight of a truck, they want all trucks to be electric. Little things that a lot of people don't talk about. The weight of a truck is two-and-a-half times, two-and-a- half times heavier.”
Electric vehicles are typically heavier than gasoline-powered vehicles, because of the batteries. But the weight difference is about 30%, not 250% as Trump said. What’s more, American vehicles have been getting heavier for decades, long before the move to EVs, thanks to the popularity of pickup trucks and SUVs.
84. “You would have to rebuild every bridge in this country, if you were going to do this ridiculous policy.”
While many bridges and other transportation infrastructure need improvement, the additional weight of EVs is just one of many factors that will need to be considered. Another challenge is that bridges and highways are typically funded through gasoline taxes. The shift to EVs, which don’t use gasoline, will require an alternate source of highway funding.
85-90. “So, but on crowd size in history, for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have, and you know that. And when she gets 1,000 people and everybody starts jumping, you know that if I had a thousand people would say, people would say, that's the end of his campaign. I have hundreds of thousands of people in, uh, South Carolina. I had 88,000 people in Alabama. I had 68,000 people. Nobody says about crowd size with me, but she has 1,000 people or 1,500 people, and they say, oh, the enthusiasm's back.”
There were at least six different misstatements here – (1) Trump has had large crowds, but “in history,” there certainly there have been people with larger crowds, from Barack Obama and others; (2, 3) her crowds have been larger than 1,000, which he repeats twice; (4) no serious analysts have said this is the end of Trump’s campaign. This race is very close; (5) there’s no evidence for crowds of the size Trump notes in South Carolina and Alabama; (6) people do talk about Trump’s crowd sizes.
91. “They wanna stop people from pouring into our country, from places unknown and from countries unknown from countries that nobody ever heard of.”
Someone has likely heard of whatever the unnamed country is.
92-93. “We're leading in Georgia by a lot. We're leading in Pennsylvania by a lot.”
The races in Georgia and Pennsylvania are within the margin of error, according to an average of the polls.
94. “So I won Alabama by a record. Nobody's ever gotten that many votes. I won South Carolina by a record. You don't win Alabama and South Carolina by records and lose Georgia. It doesn't happen.”
It does, and here’s why. Demographically, Georgia has become very different from South Carolina and Alabama. Georgia’s population is now majority-minority, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Alabama and South Carolina are 64% and 63% white, respectively.
Georgia’s Black population is also significant politically — 33% of the state’s population is Black. By comparison, Alabama is 27% Black, South Carolina 26%. Latinos also make up 11% of Georgia’s population and Asian Americans are 5%, both of which are higher than Alabama and South Carolina. And Georgia’s population is marginally younger — 15% of Georgia’s population is older than 65% compared to 18% in Alabama and 19% in South Carolina.
95. “If we have honest elections in Georgia, if we have honest elections in Pennsylvania, We're gonna win them by a lot.”
Winning them by a lot is highly unlikely, considering how close the states have been in recent elections, but perhaps more pressing is Trump’s insinuation that there were voting problems in the two states, which there were not. That’s why Trump is upset with Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, for example, because he upheld the valid 2020 election results even in the face of pressure from Trump.
96. “Of course there'll be a peaceful transfer. And there was last time.”
This wholly ignores the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol, which took place because of Trump’s election lies.
97. “Because I'm leading by a lot.”
Again, this is a very close race.
98. “We have commercials that are at a level I don't think that anybody's ever done before.”
This is false. Since Super Tuesday, Democrats have outspent Trump’s campaign and outside groups supporting him by more than double, according to data provided by AdImpact and analyzed by NPR — $373.5 million to $150.6 million.
99. “She's not smart enough to do a news conference.”
There is plenty of evidence that Harris is “smart enough to do a news conference,” as she has done in the past.
100. "We're in great danger of being in World War III. That could happen."
Again, no serious analyst believes this.
101. “I think those people were treated very harshly, when you compare them to other things that took place in this country where a lot of people were killed.”
The Justice Department investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, is the largest and most complex federal criminal probe in U.S. history, the attorney general has said. More than 140 law enforcement officers were injured that day, in what U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves has described as the biggest mass casualty event involving police. It’s hard to find any comparable event in recent American history.
As of Aug. 6, 2024, according to Graves’s office, prosecutors have charged more than 160 people with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. Prosecutors have also secured convictions on the rarely-deployed charge of seditious conspiracy, or attempting to overthrow the government by use of force, against top leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
Even so, only a small number of Jan. 6 defendants have been held in federal custody while they await trial. Mostly, these are the rioters who allegedly used the most violence on that day more than three years ago. Republican members of Congress have toured the jail facilities and decried conditions there, expressions of support that defendants facing ordinary charges in D.C. have not received. — Carrie Johnson, NPR national justice correspondent
102. “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6th.”
Conservatives were upset at the time that one of the rioters, Ashli Babbitt, was killed when she was shot by police, as she was trying to force her way into the Speaker’s Lobby of the Capitol, which leads to the House chamber, with a crowd of others. Many officers were injured that day; one died of a stroke as a result of Jan. 6; and others later died by suicide that their families say was also a result of Jan. 6.
103-105. “And, you know, it's very interesting, the biggest crowd I've ever spoken to. … The biggest crowd I've ever spoken before was that day. … The biggest crowd I've ever spoken. … I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me.”
It was not the biggest crowd he’s ever spoken to. His inauguration would have topped that. And others have had bigger crowds, as noted earlier.
106. “I said peacefully and patriotically.”
While Trump did utter those words, it is misleading. Trump also said the word “fight” multiple times, and he told the already angry crowd because of the election lies he fed them: “We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Trump aides testified that he “refused” to tweet the word “peaceful” in the days leading up to the rally because he thought it might discourage people from being there, and he was concerned about his crowd size.
107-108. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same, everything, same number of people. If not, we had more. …You look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, uh, we actually had more people.”
First, the speeches did not take place at the “same real estate.” Trump spoke from a position just south of the Ellipse. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Second, the crowds were not the same size and Trump’s was certainly not larger. It is an extraordinary claim and shows just how much Trump cares about crowd size.
109. “We have a Constitution. It's a very important document, and we live by it. She has no votes.”
Again, there’s nothing in the Constitution about how parties should pick their presidents.
110-111. “They said, ‘You're not going to win, you can't win, you're out.’ And at first they said it nicely, and he wasn't leaving, and then you, you know, the, you know it better than anybody. … At first, they were going to go out to another vote, they were going to go through a primary system, a quick primary system, which it would have to be. And then it all disappeared, and they just picked a person.”
As explained earlier, this is not how Biden wound up stepping aside. The story is yet another Trump invention. He also lies here in saying that “they were going to go through a primary system” and “it would have to be” a quick primary system.” There’s no requirement that a primary is held. In fact, for many years, candidates’ selection as party nominees had nothing to do with primaries, and they were not as prevalent as today.
112-113. “That was the first out. She was the first loser, OK? So, we call her the first loser. She was the first loser when– during the primary system, during the Democrat primary system, she was the first one to quit. And she quit.”
As explained earlier, Harris was not the first one out in the 2020 Democratic primary race. And “first loser” appears to be a name Trump made up at this news conference, as Harris has not been referred to that way as a result of her run for the 2020 nomination.
114. “She did, obviously, a bad job. She never made it to Iowa. Then for some reason, and I'm, I know he regrets it, you do too, uh, he picked her, and she turned on him too. She was working with the people that wanted him out."
Once again, this is a false conspiracy invented by Trump.
115. “She was the first one out.”
Trump repeats this false line again.
116. “I think the abortion issue is written very much tempered down, and I've answered I think very well in the debate, and it seems to be much less of an issue, especially for those where they have the exceptions.”
Abortion rights as a political and social issue has certainly not “tempered down.” There are millions of women, especially across the South, who do not have access to abortion and women who have experienced pregnancy losses with the inability to access medications for those necessary procedures.
117. “As you know, and I think it's when I look for 52 years, they wanted to bring abortion back to the states. They wanted to get rid of Roe v. Wade and that's Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and everybody. Liberals, conservatives, everybody wanted it back in the states. And I did that.”
Everybody absolutely did not want that. It was actually quite unpopular for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. And he again repeats that it has become less of an issue.
118-119. “I think that abortion has become much less of an issue. It's a very small.”
“I think it's actually going to be a very small issue. What I've done is I've done what every Democrat and every Every Republican wanted to have done.”
“I think the abortion issue has been taken down many notches. I don't think it's of– I don't think it's a big factor anymore, really.”
Minutes apart from each other, he repeats these three false claims. Abortion rights is not a “very small” issue for millions of voters. Democrats are organizing around it, and it has been seminal to Biden and Harris’ campaigns.
120. “Previous to [Virginia Gov.] Glenn [Youngkin], the governor, he said the baby will be born, we will put the baby aside, and we will decide with the mother what we're going to do. In other words, whether or not we're going to kill the baby.”
This is a distortion Republicans continue to push about what former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said. This has been fact-checked by others multiple times.
121-122. “I think the abortion issue has been, uh, taken down many notches. I don't think it's of, uh, I don't think it's a big factor anymore, really.”
“Everybody wanted it in the states.”
“But that issue has is very much subdued.”
He once again returns to the issue of abortions, which remains a “factor,” not everybody wanted it in the states, the issue is not “very much subdued.”
123-124. “She wants to take away everyone's gun.”
Harris has not proposed taking away all guns. She has proposed banning assault-style weapons, something that was in place for a decade. Some surveys had shown majority support for this. Others show a split. (Trump makes this case later, as well, so that is also included in the count.)
125. “Some countries have actually gone the opposite way. They had very strong gun laws and now they have gone the opposite way, where they allowed people to have guns, where in one case they encouraged people to go out and get guns, and crime is down 29%.”
It’s difficult to compare gun violence and gun laws in the United States to other countries, simply because of the staggering amount of guns we have here. Although the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, it holds almost 40% or more of the world’s civilian-owned guns. And it has “the highest homicide-by-firearm rate of the world’s most developed nations,” per the Council on Foreign Relations. Norway, Canada and Australia all tightened their gun restrictions after shootings. — Meg Anderson
126. “On July 4th, 117 people were shot and 17 died. The toughest gun laws in the United States are in the city of Chicago. You know that. They had 117 people shot. Afghanistan does not have that.”
Though Trump didn’t get the numbers exactly right, Chicago did have an incredibly violent July 4th holiday weekend this year. According to Mayor Brandon Johnson, more than 100 people were shot and 19 of those people died. Chicago does have strict gun laws, in part because its state does: Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control, ranks Illinois third in the nation for the strength of its gun-control laws. However, no state or city exists within a bubble, and Illinois is surrounded by states with much weaker laws, including Indiana, which is just a short drive from Chicago. — Meg Anderson
127. “For 18 months, not one American soldier was shot at or killed, but not even shot at.”
This is, to put it charitably, misleading. It appears that he’s actually referencing the period when the Trump administration signed the deal with the Taliban, in advance of U.S. troops leaving. The deal said the U.S. would be out in 14 months, and in exchange the Taliban wouldn’t harbor terrorists and would stop attacking U.S. service members. Needless to say, the deal didn’t hold. But as the AP notes, “There was an 18-month stretch that saw no combat, or ‘hostile,’ deaths in Afghanistan: from early February 2020 to August 2021.” – Andrew Sussman
128. “Kamala is in favor of not giving Israel weapons. That's what I hear.”
Harris does not support an Israel weapons embargo. A Biden administration official posted on social media that Harris "has been clear: she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.” A leader of the uncommitted movement said Harris “expressed an openness” to a meeting about an embargo, but the Biden administration official said Harris "will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law,” not that she would support an embargo.
129. “She's been very, very bad to Israel, and she's been very bad and disrespectful to Jewish people.”
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish. The couple has hosted Passover Seders.
130. “Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together and there was an emergency landing.”
This claim has not held up to scrutiny. Politico reported that Trump did have to make an emergency landing in a helicopter with a Black California politician decades ago, but it wasn’t Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and state assembly speaker. It was Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator.
131-132. “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was— he was a little concerned. So I know him. I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven't seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her.”
“He was not a fan of hers very much at that point.”
This is something Trump repeated twice, minutes apart from each other. Brown strongly denies having been on a helicopter with Trump or telling Trump negative things about Harris, whom he dated in the mid-1990s and supports now for president. The relationship ended in 1995.
133. “Our tax cuts, which are the biggest in history… .”
The 2017 tax cuts were not the biggest in history. As a share of the economy, they barely make the top 10. They were big enough, however, to blow a big hole in the federal budget, which is why Trump was overseeing a nearly $1 trillion dollar annual deficit before the pandemic. — Scott Horsley
134. “It'll destroy the economy.”
This is what Trump said will happen if his tax cuts are not renewed. But The 2017 tax cut did not deliver the economic boom that its supporters promised, and there’s no reason to think reversing a portion of the cut would cause economic destruction. — Scott Horsley
135. “I've never seen people get elected by saying, 'We're going to give you a tax increase.'”
Vice President Harris has echoed President Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. However, Biden has called for raising taxes on wealthy individuals and raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% – halfway back to where it was before the 2017 cut. — Scott Horsley
136. “These guys get up, think of it. ‘We're going to give you no security.’ …”
No Democratic presidential candidate has advocated “no security.”
137. “We're going to give you a weak military… .’ ”
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, showed a “review of historical defense budget trends shows there is more at play in determining overall investments in defense than just which party is in the White House.” Indeed, since the year 2000, U.S.-led wars overseas have resulted in a surge of spending by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
138-139. “…We're going to give you no walls, no borders, no anything.”
Harris, Walz and the Democratic Party have never said they want “no borders.” They certainly oppose Trump’s wall/fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, citing the exorbitant cost and its relative ineffectiveness, they say, compared to using other methods. (Trump later says that Harris wants “open borders,” so that’s included in the count here.)
140. “...We're going to give you a tax increase.”
Again, this is misleading and suggests Harris wants to increase taxes across the board when they have consistently talked about increasing taxes only on the wealthy. In Harris’ view, those making more than $400,000 a year.
141. “They're gonna destroy Social Security.”
Democrats have consistently advocated for keeping Social Security and making it solvent.
142. “They've weaponized government against me. Look at the Florida case. It was a totally weaponized case. All of these cases, by the way, the New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice. They sent their top person to the various places. They went to the A.G.'s office, got that one going, then he went to the D.A.'s office, got that one going, ran through it. No, no, this is all politics, and it's a disgrace.”
In congressional testimony this year, Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers that President Biden had never called him to discuss any of the cases against Trump. Garland also had aides review Justice Department leaders’ email for any correspondence with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In a letter to Congress in June 2024, the Justice Department said it had found no such contacts.
In that same letter, Justice Department legislative affairs chief Carlos Uriarte said the department did not “dispatch” former acting Associate Attorney General Matthew Colangelo to New York to join Bragg’s team prosecuting Trump. “Department leadership was unaware of his work on the investigation and prosecution involving the former president until it was reported in the news,” Uriarte wrote. — Carrie Johnson
143. “Any time you have mail-in ballots, you're gonna have problems. ... We should have one-day voting; we should have paper ballots; we should have voter ID; and we should have proof of citizenship.”
Trump continues to spread baseless claims about mail ballots. There’s no proof of widespread fraud with the voting method. When it comes to paper ballots, they're standard. One estimate found that in the 2024 general election, "nearly 99% of all registered voters will live in jurisdictions where they can cast a ballot with a paper record of the vote."
The proof of citizenship comment echoes a Republican push on the issue, though studies have shown voting by non-U.S. citizens in federal elections to be exceedingly rare. The GOP-led House has passed a bill to require such documentary proof, but it’s likely to go no further in a Senate led by Democrats who are opposed to adding new voting restrictions. — Ben Swasey, voting editor
144. “The polls have suggested, there are some polls that say we're going to win in a landslide.”
There are no polls that suggest Trump will win in a landslide. By all accounts, this is a very close race.
145. “...they're paying 50, 60, 70 percent more for food than they did just a couple of years ago.”
The rise in grocery prices is a common complaint, but Trump exaggerates the scale of the increase. According to the Consumer Price Index, grocery prices have risen 25% since before the pandemic and 21% since President Biden took office. (At the same time, average wages have risen 23% since before the pandemic and 17% since President Biden took office.)
146-149. The Strategic National Reserve is “virtually empty now. We've never had it this low.”
“He's sucked all of the oil out.”
“Essentially the gasoline to keep the, to keep the price down a little bit. … But you know what? We have no strategic national reserves now. He's emptied it. It's almost empty. It's never been this low.”
“They've just, for the sake of getting some votes, for the sake of having gasoline–. You know, that's meant for wars. It's meant for, like, tragedy. It's not meant to keep a gasoline price down, so that somebody can vote for Biden or, in this case, Kamala.”
The strategic oil reserve is actually up in the past year. Biden has since repurchased about 32 million barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As of this month, the reserve held about 376 million barrels of oil. The reserve was lower when Trump left office than when he got in.
150. “I see it right now, I see her going way down on the polls now.”
The opposite is true. Harris has continued her momentum since getting into the race.
151-152. “...now that people are finding out that she destroyed San Francisco, she destroyed the state of California.”
As addressed earlier, Harris is not entirely responsible for San Francisco or the state of California. Crime trends there were similar to national crime trends during her time as district attorney in San Francisco and as the state’s attorney general. What’s more, preliminary data for this year indicates that many cities in California, including San Francisco, are seeing murder rates falling. (Trump repeats the claim one more time later in the news conference, so it is included in the count here.) — Meg Anderson
153. “She was early, I mean, she was the first of the prosecutors, really, you know, now you see Philadelphia, you see Los Angeles, you see New York, you see various people that are very bad, but she was the first of the bad prosecutors, she was early.”
Although Harris did refer to herself in her 2019 memoir as a “progressive prosecutor,” her legacy has largely been seen as tougher on crime. She has supported some progressive reforms, such as pretrial diversion, which offers certain criminal defendants things like drug treatment instead of going to trial. — Meg Anderson
154. “You know, with Hillary Clinton, I could have done things to her that would have made your head spin. I thought it was a very bad thing – take the wife of a president of the United States, and put her in jail. And then I see the way they treat me. That's the way it goes. But I was very protective of her. Nobody would understand that. But I was. I think my people understand it. They used to say, lock her up, lock her up. And I'd say, just relax, please.”
Trump called for Clinton’s imprisonment multiple times, including going along with crowd chants of “lock her up.”
155. “Don't forget, she got a subpoena from the United States Congress, and then after getting the subpoena, she destroyed everything that she was supposed to get.
Clinton aides requested emails be deleted months before the subpoena, and the FBI said there’s no evidence the messages were deleted with a subpoena in mind. — Carrie Johnson
156. “I thought it was so bad to take her, and put her in jail, the wife of a president of the United States. And then, when it's my turn, nobody thinks that way.”
The Justice Department closed an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct some State Department business in 2016. Then-FBI Director Jim Comey gave a press conference to explain his reasoning in July of that election year. Comey said, “We did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” but he criticized Clinton and her aides for being “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” that flowed through the server.
By contrast, prosecutors in the Florida case against former President Donald Trump said Trump had flouted requests from the FBI and a subpoena for highly classified materials he stored in unsecure spaces like a ballroom and a bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The indictment in that case accuses Trump of unlawfully retaining government secrets and of intentionally obstructing justice with the help of an aide who moved boxes of materials and otherwise allegedly thwarted the FBI probe. Trump and his co-defendants pleaded not guilty. The Justice Department says it is appealing the district court’s decision to toss the case on constitutional grounds. — Carrie Johnson
157. “A lot of the MAGA, as they call them, but the base. And I think the base is, I think the base is 75% of the country, far beyond the Republican Party.”
Rounding up, Trump won 46% of the vote in 2016 and 47% of the vote in 2020. He has a high floor, but a low ceiling politically. Majorities continue to say they have an unfavorable rating of Trump, which has been consistent for years. No American presidential candidate has ever gotten 75% of the vote in this country, dating back to 1824 since data was kept for popular votes. Lyndon B. Johnson got 61% in 1964, Richard Nixon slightly less than 61% in 1972, Ronald Reagan 59% in 1984. Since then, Barack Obama got nearly 53% in 2008 and 51% in 2012, the first candidate since Eisenhower to win at least 51% of the vote twice.
158. “My sons are members, and I guess indirectly I'm a member, too.”
Trump here is talking about membership in the National Rifle Association. Another family member being an NRA member does not make someone else an NRA member “indirectly.”
159. “She served 24 years for being on a phone call having to do with drugs. You know who I'm talking about. She was great. And she had another 24 years to go. And it was largely about marijuana, which in many cases is now legalized, OK?”
Presumably, Trump is talking about Alice Marie Johnson, who had been convicted on cocaine conspiracy and money laundering charges. Kim Kardashian advocated for Johnson and won a pardon for her from Trump.
160. “They're either really stupid, and I don't believe they're stupid, because anybody that can cheat in elections like they cheat is not stupid.”
More than 60 court cases proved there was not widespread fraud or cheating that would have made any difference in any state.
161. “Lately I've seen where they're trying to sign these people up to vote. And they have to stop. They cannot let illegal immigrants vote in this upcoming election.”
This is a conspiracy not based in fact. Immigrants in the country illegally cannot vote in presidential elections, and there’s no evidence there is an intentional effort to sign them up in mass numbers to sway elections.
162. “If you go to California, and you ask the people of California, do they like the idea of sanctuary cities? They don't like it.”
The subject of sanctuary cities actually mostly splits Californians. Slim majorities have actually said that they favor the sanctuary-state law and are against their cities opting out of the law. Of course, this breaks down along party lines, and since California is heavily Democratic, those results might not be surprising. But it’s more divided than Trump suggests.
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