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The Republican nominee repeated his usual falsehoods about the 2020 election having been stolen from him, while his son Eric spewed some transphobia.
Donald Trump capped the Republican National Convention Thursday night with the longest speech in national convention history, one that’s being described as “meandering” and packed with lies.
The former president and this year’s GOP presidential nominee spoke for more than 90 minutes, “the longest convention address in modern history,” as CBS News notes. The network’s summation of the speech called it “meandering.”
Early on, Trump went into the assassination attempt on him at a campaign rally Saturday in Pennsylvania. “I am not supposed to be here tonight,” he said. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.”
He then talked about wanting to unite the American people, but he called U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi “crazy,” repeated his frequent false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and said of his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden, “If you add up the 10 worst presidents, they wouldn’t have done the damage that Biden has done. Biden — I’m not going to use that name anymore.”
Trump claimed that if Biden is reelected, the Democrat is “going to raise your taxes by four times what you’re paying now.” This is false, according to PolitiFact, which points out that Biden’s proposed tax increase is 7 percent, not 300 percent, and would primarily affect the top 1 percent of earners — those whose income is nearly $1 million a year. Others would see a modest increase or even a decrease.
Watch former President Donald Trump's full RNC speechwww.youtube.com
He boasted of having the most secure southern border in U.S. history, which is “mostly false,” PolitiFact reports: “Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than it was during both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.”
He contended that Democrats “used COVID to cheat” in the 2020 election. PolitiFact rates this one “Pants on Fire,” as there is no evidence that there was widespread fraud due to increased availability of mail-in voting and other steps states took to make it safe to vote during the pandemic. “State officials used legal methods to enact these changes, and the new rules applied to all voters, regardless of party affiliation,” the outlet notes. “The 2020 election was certified by every state and confirmed by more than 60 court cases nationwide.”
He claimed he would “end [Biden’s] electric vehicle mandate on day one,” but there is no such mandate. “The Biden administration has set a goal — not a mandate — to have electric vehicles comprise half of all new vehicle sales by 2030,” PolitiFact points out.
Trump further alleged, as he often has, that the wars in Ukraine and Israel would never have happened had he been president, which is impossible to know. He claimed crime is up in the U.S., but violent crime is actually down, although property crime is up somewhat. He also bragged of presiding over the best economy in U.S. history, which is not true by a variety of measures.
He clapped back at the idea that he is a threat to democracy, even though he has said he wanted to be a dictator on day one of his new administration, and claimed he is the one defending it. And he made his usual allegation that all the criminal charges against him are due to “witch hunts” originating from the Biden administration, but there is no evidence Biden was involved in any of the indictments.
Other speakers during the evening included his son Eric Trump, who got in some of the anti-transgender rhetoric that was used by many speakers earlier in the convention. “Male athletes, guys my height — 6 foot 5 … are swimming in women’s sports” and “destroying the dreams of young girls who have trained every minute of their lives.”
And former Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke, appearing to be all in for Donald Trump despite having said privately that he hates Trump “passionately.” At the convention, Carlson praised Trump as showing courage and unselfishness in the assassination attempt and its aftermath. Carlson also implied there was divine intervention in the fact that Trump survived. “God is among us right now,” he concluded.
