Donald Trump does not exactly have a record in public office that can be used to assess his likely performance going forward. Nor does he really have a policy platform in a traditional sense.
What he does is speak. A lot.
Trump’s words — at rallies, on television shows, and in press conferences — have been the alpha and omega of his campaign.
And his nomination acceptance speech, delivered Thursday night in Cleveland, is the biggest, most important speech he’s given yet.
Painting a bleak period of a nation facing a "moment of crisis," Trump pledged an emergency response to a growing set of threats to the physical security of everyday Americans as well as a broad range of economic woes. The speech featured striking claims about "chaos in our communities" and widespread violence, and a bold promise that "the crime and violence that afflict our communities will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end."
"I will present the facts plainly and honestly," Trump said. But did he? We counted dozens of factual claims in the speech, and fewer than half scored as true or almost true. But there were also plenty of falsehoods, misleading or disputed claims, or baseless accusations.
Trump says: "Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement."
In fact: Crime has indeed plummeted for decades — a fact to keep in mind throughout Trump’s speech. The murder rate, for example, fell by more than half from a peak in 1980 (10.2 per 100,000 people) to a decade low in 2014 (4.5 per 100,000 people).
But there’s simply no evidence that a federal "rollback of criminal enforcement" has led to a reversal of those trends. The murder rate was at historic lows in 2014, and there aren’t full nationwide statistics for all of 2015 or even part of 2016 yet.
It’s also not clear that there’s been any rollback in law enforcement at all (Trump doesn’t name any specific policies), or whether any policy changes by the Obama administration would make any difference, since the overwhelming majority of policing is done at the local and state level. Research has found that shifts in policing were only a partial cause for the violent crime drop over the past 25 years, making it unlikely that any Obama policies would have a huge impact on the crime drop. —German Lopez
Ruling: Baseless
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Trump says: "Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60 percent in nearby Baltimore."
In fact: Trump is referring to research that found a 17 percent increase in homicides in large US cities, including alarming spikes in Washington, DC, and Baltimore. For DC, that sharp increase came between 2014 and 2015 — so far in 2016, murder is down 9 percent.
But what Trump leaves out is that one of the researchers behind this work, Richard Rosenfeld, has repeatedly said that it’s way too early to say whether this trend is applicable to the rest of the country or whether it truly indicates a reversal to the long-term violent crime drop of the past 25 years. And even if the nationwide murder rate increased by 17 percent in 2015, that rate would remain far, far below the peaks of the 1960s and '70s and below any period in the '90s. —German Lopez
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office."
In fact: Trump is right that there have been more than 2,000 victims of shootings in 2016, and that there have been nearly 4,000 homicides in Chicago since Obama took office.
That said, there’s simply no evidence that "this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement" caused violent crime to rise. And while it is true that America has more shootings than other developed nations, researchers generally attribute that to the country’s enormous number of guns, not law enforcement. —German Lopez
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 percent compared to this point last year."
In fact: This statistic apparently comes from an outdated, poorly worded USA Today headline. But according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, on-duty deaths of police officers are actually down 1 percent in 2016 compared to the same point in 2015. If this trend continues throughout the year, 2016 will be near a historic low for on-duty deaths. (This site tracks total deaths, not just killings, but there's no on-duty death tracker with 2016 data that solely tracks killings.)
It’s possible Trump is referring to the fact that on-duty deaths specifically from gunfire are up by 84 percent over the past year — which adds up to 31 on-duty deaths by gunfire so far this year.
All on-duty deaths are tragic. But despite Trump’s rhetoric painting the country as in a state of chaos, on-duty deaths remain rare, and 2016’s increase in gunfire deaths so far came after decades of decline. —German Lopez
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens."
In fact: There are indeed about 180,000 immigrants with criminal records still in the United States who have been ordered deported. But the assumption that all of them are "threaten[ing] peaceful citizens" is deeply questionable.
However, the government doesn’t specify what those convictions were for; in the past, many of the immigrants deported as "criminal aliens" had only been convicted of minor crimes, or had been convicted of entering or reentering the US illegally rather than of anything they’d done when in the US. —Dara Lind
Ruling: The statistic is true, the threat is questionable
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Trump says: "The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015."
In fact: Trump is referring to the number of immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents. (In other words, the number of immigrants who’ve been caught.) These are people who have entered the US without papers, but they’re not necessarily "illegal"; it’s legal to cross into the US to request asylum, and that’s just what many families have done.
His numbers need closer scrutiny, though. So far in calendar year 2016 (as of June 30), 29,682 immigrants traveling as families have been apprehended — way fewer than the 53,840 members of family units apprehended over calendar year 2015.
So what’s he talking about? Donald Trump’s actually referring to fiscal year 2016 — which started in October of last year. So far in fiscal year 2016 (as of June 30), 51,152 members of "family units" have been apprehended by Border Patrol; in all of fiscal year 2015, only 39,838 members of family units were apprehended.
If you think in fiscal years, this might check out. But if you’re among the millions of Americans who think of years as calendar years, you’ll get the wrong impression here. —Dara Lind
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources. One such border crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root."
In fact: Immigrants caught by Border Patrol are deported (sometimes after serving a US prison term) unless they seek some form of legal status in the US, like asylum. But it can take years in court to determine whether they’re eligible for it, and in the meantime, many immigrants are in fact released into the community. This is especially likely for "unaccompanied alien children," since the Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t have the resources to care for the immigrants it's charged with.
That’s what happened to Eswin Mejia, who was apprehended crossing the border in 2013, released into his brother’s custody later that year, and charged in February with felony motor vehicle homicide in Sarah Root’s death.
The reason that Trump is telling this story, of course, is to imply that all unauthorized immigrants are lawless. In fact, immigrants are less likely than citizens to commit crimes. But to Trump and his followers, the very fact that someone doesn’t yet have legal status in the US is proof that he’s on some level a criminal. —Dara Lind
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "Nearly 4 in 10 African-American children are living in poverty."
In fact: According to the official poverty measure (an imperfect metric), 38 percent of black children lived in poverty in 2014. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True.
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Trump says: "58 percent of African-American youth are not employed."
In fact: CNN's Tami Luhby looked into this claim and found that the 58 percent figure was extrapolated from the fact that roughly 42 percent of black Americans ages 16 to 24 were employed as of earlier this year. That's an erroneous way to calculate; many of those people aren't unemployed but are simply in school or otherwise not looking for work. It’s technically true to say they’re "not employed," but that gives a misleading impression that they’re out of work and struggling. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago."
In fact: In 2008, the year before Obama took office, the Hispanic poverty rate was 23.3 percent; the more accurate Supplemental Poverty Measure put the number at 30 percent. In 2014, the most recent year for which there are numbers, the official rate was 23.8 percent and the SPM rate was 25.4 percent.
Assuming Trump is going by the official numbers, poverty was slightly higher — and because of population growth, that meant the number of Hispanics in poverty was 13.2 million in 2014, versus about 11 million in 2008. That’s where Trump gets his 2 million increase number.
But this isn’t a case where using raw numbers is informative. If you use rates, the Hispanic poverty rate was either roughly unchanged or, using the more accurate metric, reduced in Obama’s time in office. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely."
In fact: In January 2009, the civilian labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent. In June 2016, it was 62.7 percent. That's a real decline, one driven by a mixture of population aging, economic weakness, and a long-running trend of lower labor force participation for older men.
But Trump’s literal claim is that 14 million people have left the workforce. In January 2008, there were 154 million people in the US labor force. Last month, there were 158.9 million. Close to 5 million people have been added to the labor force. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000."
In fact: In 2014, the real median household income was $53,657, according to the Census Bureau. In 2000, it was $57,724, after adjusting for inflation. It has indeed declined by more than $4,000 in real terms. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "Our trade deficit in goods reached — think of this — our trade deficit is $800 billion last year alone."
In fact: This is just false. The manufacturing trade deficit is large, but it was $681 billion in 2015, not "nearly $800 billion." It’s also worth noting that many economists do not consider high trade deficits to be inherently bad. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion and growing."
In fact: Total public debt was $11.2 trillion in quarter one of 2009 and had risen to $19.3 trillion by quarter one of 2016. That’s not a doubling, although Trump hedged with "almost."
That said, a lot of that debt is money that the US owes to itself in the form of Social Security trust fund bonds and the like. For that reason, most economists prefer to look at "debt held by the public": that is, national debt not including that owned by the government itself. That has more than doubled, from $6.8 trillion in Q1 2009 to $13.9 trillion in Q1 2016.
As a share of the economy, though, the debt definitely hasn't doubled, rising from 47.5 percent to 76.4 percent. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps."
In fact: It is true that there are approximately 43 million Americans on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. It is also true that American infrastructure could do with major improvements, as President Barack Obama called for in his 2015 State of the Union speech. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers report card for infrastructure, the United States receives a D+.
However, claiming that American airports are in Third World conditions is, at best, an exaggeration. According to Priceonomics, which analyzed reviews of 17,000 airports worldwide, America's still rank among the best. —Tara Golshan
Ruling: Exaggerated
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Trump says: "The Iran deal ... gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us nothing – it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made."
In fact: Experts say the value of Iranian assets that have become "unfrozen" as a result of the nuclear agreement is probably closer to $100 billion than $150 billion, and much of that won’t immediately be available to Iran because it is tied up in other debts. Thus, experts estimate the actual amount that Iran is able to access is somewhere in the $35 billion to $60 billion range.
Furthermore, the United States does in fact get something out of the deal: In exchange for unfreezing these assets, Iran is complying with the requirements of the nuclear agreement that makes it much harder for the country to build a nuclear weapon. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "In Libya, our consulate — the symbol of American prestige around the globe — was brought down in flames."
In fact: The US Special Mission compound and Annex in Benghazi, Libya, were attacked on September 11 and 12, 2012, with arson, mortar fire, and other weapons, resulting in the deaths of four US government personnel and the destruction and abandonment of both facilities.
The buildings were a relatively remote diplomatic outpost and as such were not themselves global symbols of American prestige. However, inasmuch as all US diplomatic facilities are symbols of US influence in the countries in which they are located, it is reasonable to conclude that the facilities in Benghazi were attacked in large part because of their symbolic nature as representations of US influence in Libya. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy. ... I am certain it is a decision that President Obama truly regrets."
In fact: Parts of the world, in particular the Middle East, are indeed much less stable in many ways than before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. However, the secretary of state merely carries out the foreign policy directives of the president, and doesn’t make substantive foreign policy decisions without the consent of the president.
Further, the fact that Obama is now actively campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton strongly suggests he does not particularly regret the way she performed when she was his secretary of state. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map."
In fact: The group named ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) did not formally exist under that name until 2013; however, it was formed out of the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which dates back to 2004. So this is a little misleading.
Following the US troop surge in Iraq in 2007, the group was largely defeated. But around 2011, as US troops began to withdraw from Iraq (under an agreement reached during the Bush administration), and as the civil war next door in Syria got underway, the group took advantage of the chaos to regroup and began launching attacks.
In 2013, the group changed its name to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and in June 2014 it launched full-scale operations in Iraq, capturing large swaths of that country. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary … Libya was stable."
In fact: The 2011 intervention in Libya that deposed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi left behind a failed state in which ISIS-linked militants were able to grow in power and strength. Qaddafi was overthrown with US support because he was massacring his own people in response to Arab Spring–related uprisings in Libya.
However, it is true that during the George W. Bush administration, US-Libya relations had undergone a dramatic improvement. In 2003, Qaddafi made a "historic decision" to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism, and in 2006 the US restored full diplomatic relations with Libya. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary … Egypt was peaceful."
In fact: The Egyptian revolution that overthrew longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak and ushered in an era of political upheaval and instability in Egypt that persists to this day occurred in 2011.
However, in the years leading up to that, Egypt had experienced periodic eruptions of political violence, including protests, strikes, and riots — as well as severe political repression at the hands of the regime — but overall the country was generally more stable and less violent than it is today (though most of the violence in Egypt today comes from the military regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi). And even after the 2011 revolution, including during the period when the Muslim Brotherhood–backed Mohamed Morsi was in charge of the country, Egypt maintained its peace treaty with Israel. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary … Iraq was seeing really a reduction in violence."
In fact: As Brookings’s Ken Pollack has documented:
By early 2009, Iraq was still a long way from stability, tranquility, prosperity or true democracy. … But in a relative sense, it had made enormous progress. It was finally headed in the right direction. And it had taken some remarkable steps forward, steps that had seemed impossible even a few years before. In 2009 Iraq held provincial elections, and in 2010 national elections, that resulted in stunning victories for those parties considered the most secular, the most vested in improving governance and services, the least tied to the militias and the least sectarian.
Iraq’s slide back into full-blown chaos began in 2010, when US troops, under an agreement reached by the Bush administration with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, began withdrawing from the country in significant numbers. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary … Iran was being choked by sanctions."
In fact: For years before the historic nuclear deal reached with Iran in 2015, the country was under harsh sanctions that had crippled its economy. The overall point of the sanctions, however, was to bring Iran to the negotiating table on its nuclear program. Now that a deal has been reached, the sanctions that were specifically applied because of its nuclear activities are being removed. However, Iran remains under sanctions for other activities unrelated to its nuclear program, such as its support for terrorist organizations. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "In 2009, pre-Hillary … Syria was under control."
In fact: Before the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, Syria — like Egypt and Libya — was largely stable and under control. However, also like Egypt and Libya, that control was at the hands of a brutally repressive dictator; in the case of Syria, that dictator was Bashar al-Assad. The uprising of 2011 plunged the country into chaos, mainly because of the actions of Assad himself, who, rather than leave power, chose to launch a full-scale war against his own people. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "Iran is on a path to nuclear weapons."
In fact: According to experts such as Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Iran is basically complying with the core parts of the nuclear agreement — such as limiting the number of centrifuges it has and eliminating its stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could quickly be converted to weapons-grade material — that make it harder for the country to make a nuclear weapon. There is no evidence that Iran is currently pursuing a nuclear weapon in contravention of the deal’s terms. —Zack Beauchamp
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "Recently I have said that NATO was obsolete, because it did not properly cover terror, and also that many of the member countries were not paying their fair share. As usual, the United States has been picking up the cost."
In fact: The US does pay the most toward NATO’s budget. That is in large part because the share each country is expected to pay is calculated according to each country’s gross national income. The US gross national income is higher, so it pays a bigger share. Makes sense.
However, as Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post reported, NATO documents clearly state that "[t]he volume of the US defense expenditure effectively represents 73 per cent of the defense spending of the Alliance as a whole" and that "there is an over-reliance by the Alliance as a whole on the United States for the provision of essential capabilities, including for instance, in regard to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; air-to-air refueling; ballistic missile defense; and airborne electronic warfare."
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "And when a secretary of state illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her crime..."
In fact: The claim that Clinton "illegally" stored her emails has no merit, according to FBI Director James Comey. After an investigation that lasted nearly a year, Comey said he found no evidence that Clinton intentionally broke the law.
Second, when Trump claims Clinton deleted 33,000 emails to cover up a crime, he’s leaving out one key fact: According to Clinton, these were personal emails stored on her private server. And she had no obligation to turn personal emails over to the government.
Meanwhile, Clinton says she turned over all the work-related emails — about 30,000 of them — that her team managed to find. This wasn’t a full inventory: Comey’s investigation recovered "several thousand" additional work-related emails that weren’t turned over. But, Comey said: "We found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them." —Andrew Prokop
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "When the FBI director says that the secretary of state was 'extremely careless' and 'negligent' in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did."
In fact: FBI Director Comey did indeed use those terms, but Trump’s assertion that what Clinton "actually did" was far worse is utterly baseless — an unsupported smear. Comey testified to Congress that the FBI’s "best information" indicated that Clinton used the private server "for convenience," rather than for any nefarious purpose. —Andrew Prokop
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "…that same secretary of state rakes in millions and millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers."
In fact: This refers to a number of reports, including one from the Washington Post, that found "[t]he Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state." But no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of either Hillary Clinton or the foundation itself has been found to date, and even Peter Schweizer, the author of a book aimed at exposing the Clinton Foundation’s faults, admits as much.
So the bottom line is that there were definitely ethical lines that were crossed, but it is also the case that the money that went to the foundation was ostensibly used for disaster relief and other humanitarian efforts, not for enriching the personal wealth of Hillary and Bill Clinton. —Jennifer Williams
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "Immediately after Dallas, we’ve seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, and Tennessee. On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and three were very, very badly injured."
In fact: Trump is right that police officers have faced continued threats while doing their jobs. But this has always been true. And, as noted above, the Officer Down Memorial Page tracker shows on-duty deaths of police officers are near historic lows — despite an increase in gunfire deaths, but a drop in overall deaths, in 2016. —German Lopez
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "My opponent has called for a radical 550 percent increase ... in Syrian refugees on top of the existing massive refugee flows coming in already under the leadership of President Obama."
In fact: The Obama administration has set a goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US in fiscal year 2016. They’re not exactly on pace to meet that goal — as of the end of June (three-quarters of the way through the fiscal year), the US had admitted about 5,200 Syrian refugees.
Meanwhile, many Democrats and advocacy groups have called for the US to take 50 percent of the Syrian refugees approved for resettlement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — which amounts to 65,000. Hillary Clinton has endorsed that idea, hence the 550 percent increase.
That said, given that the United States only takes about 80,000 refugees a year total from around the world, it’s unlikely that Clinton could hit this target. Also note that even Clinton’s expanded target pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in many European countries and the million-plus Syrian refugees in Turkey. Historically, the US has been a leader in taking refugees: it’s generally taken half of all refugees resettled around the world. —Dara Lind
Ruling: Mostly true
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Trump says: "There’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from."
In fact: It takes approximately two years to approve a refugee to settle in the US. Most of that time is spent screening the refugee. The process for screening Syrian refugees is so stringent (for example, a refugee who’d once given "a sandwich or a cigarette" to a Syrian rebel soldier would have been banned until last year) that the government rarely let in any before fall 2015. And it’s still not on pace to meet its goal of admitting 10,000 refugees this year because it’s being so careful with the screening process. —Dara Lind
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers."
In fact: There is some research indicating that inflows of unskilled immigrants reduces wages specifically for US-born high school dropouts (other research disputes this), but immigration raises incomes for the large majority of Americans who have a high school degree. —Matt Yglesias
Ruling: False
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Trump says: " Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more ... than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border. These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protest on their behalf."
In fact: At least one of the families Trump names who have lost a child to an unauthorized immigrant — Jamiel and Anita Shaw — have been involved in anti-immigrant advocacy since before Trump teased his last presidential run. They’ve been supported by the advocacy group the Federation for American Immigration Reform since at least 2008; Jamiel Shaw testified before Congress in February 2015, months before Trump announced his run.
This seems like a silly nit to pick, but it’s important because getting in touch with these families is how Trump realized the issue of unauthorized immigration was so powerful last summer. They organized him, not the other way around. Trump has relatively deep ties to the people (like Sen. Jeff Sessions) who’ve spoken the loudest against legal and unauthorized immigration; he’s not giving voice to an unheard perspective, just one that neither party’s establishment has recently embraced. —Dara Lind
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "By ending catch and release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. We will stop it. It won’t be happening very much anymore. Peace will be restored."
In fact: Illegal border crossings are already extremely low. They’re not at zero, but they’re historically low. And while the Mexico side of the US/Mexico border is pretty violent, the US side of the border is already very peaceful. El Paso, Texas, is one of the safest cities in the US. There’s no peace to restore there.
It’s also not clear what Trump is promising to do, exactly. The policy referred to as "catch and release" was ended in 2006, when the US started prosecuting immigrants en masse in criminal court for illegal entry and illegal reentry (swamping the courts in the process).
Some border agents (including the union, which has endorsed Trump) allege that the administration has started it again by telling border patrol agents not to arrest unauthorized immigrants who aren’t "priorities" — but the "priorities" include anyone who’s entered the US after 2014, so, by definition, it wouldn’t stop agents from catching people crossing the border. —Dara Lind
Ruling: Baseless
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Trump says: "Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape from poverty."
In fact: "Mass lawlessness" implies that Clinton wants millions of unauthorized immigrants in the US. But the premise of her "comprehensive immigration reform" is that — with the current unauthorized population legalized, enforcement strengthened, and legal immigration revamped to meet demand — illegal immigration would stop being a problem.
Trump might not believe that’s what would happen, but it’s certainly what Clinton and other CIR supporters are proposing. —Dara Lind
Ruling: Disputed
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Trump says: "America has lost nearly one-third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton."
In fact: It’s true that manufacturing employment has declined by about a third since 1997, though it’s worth emphasizing that manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high. The choice of base year here is also a bit odd. NAFTA was enacted in 1994, and permanent normal trade relations with China came into effect in 2001. Nothing noteworthy in trade policy happened in 1997, which just happened to be the all-time peak year for US manufacturing employment. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: Mostly true
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Trump says: "My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization — another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes and disasters. She supported the job-killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership."
In fact: Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and legislation paving the way for China’s entrance into the WTO. Hillary wasn’t an elected official at the time, but she made favorable comments about NAFTA during his administration. Clinton criticized the South Korea trade agreement on the campaign trail in 2007, but supported a later version of the agreement as secretary of state in 2011. She said the Trans-Pacific Partnership "sets the gold standard in trade agreements" as secretary of state in 2012 but became an opponent of the TPP on the campaign trail in 2015. —Timothy B. Lee
Ruling: Mostly true
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Trump says: "[The TPP] will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments."
In fact: The US manufacturing sector is in no danger of being destroyed — in fact, US factories are producing more goods than ever. However, employment in manufacturing has been falling for three decades, in part due to competition from low-wage countries.
The TPP would lower trade barriers with about a dozen countries, including low-wage Vietnam and Malaysia, most notably in the textile industry, so it could mean job losses in that sector of the economy. However, US trade barriers are already quite low, and the TPP would also open up new markets — especially Japan — for exports. So the overall impact on manufacturing employment is likely to be modest.
The TPP won’t make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments directly, but it will make US trade policy subject to the rulings of dispute settlement panels. —Timothy B. Lee
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared for the presidential race this year — Democrat or Republican."
In fact: It's true that Trump's tax cuts would cost more than those of any other candidate, at $11.2 trillion over 10 years, compared with $10.2 trillion for Ted Cruz and $8.2 trillion for Marco Rubio. He also proposes the biggest tax cuts for the median taxpayer. The middle quintile would get back $2,732 on average, compared with $1,365 for Rubio, $1,783 for Cruz, and $1,464 for Jeb Bush.
This is all assuming that Trump pays for the whole tax plan through deficit spending. If he tries to cut spending instead, then he’ll necessarily have to cut into programs that help the poor and middle class, and quite possibly leave typical Americans worse off than they were before.
Whether or not Clinton’s plan is a "massive" increase is a matter of opinion; the Tax Policy Center estimates the middle quintile will pay $44 a year more under her proposals. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country."
In fact: Among rich countries, America is one of the least-taxed nations in the world. According to OECD statistics, total taxes in the US — including federal, state, and local — totaled 26 percent in 2014, the last year on record. Only South Korea and Chile were less taxed among wealthier nations.
For comparison, taxes made up 51 percent of Danish GDP, 45 percent of French GDP, 36 percent of German GDP, 33 percent of UK GDP, and 31 percent of Canadian GDP.
Trump’s associated claim that cutting US taxes would create jobs is heavily disputed among economists, but at least there’s an argument there. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year."
In fact: This number comes from a disputed study by the National Association of Manufacturers that relies on surveys of business leaders. Similar surveys have been criticized by the Congressional Research Service for relying on businesses’ vague "perception" of costs to reach high numbers.
More to the point, though, this study doesn’t include any benefits of these regulations (such as, for instance, lower pollution and cleaner air). Failing to include benefits gives a misleading picture here. —Brad Plumer
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job-creating economic activity over the next four decades."
In fact: As president, Trump could relax various restrictions on oil and gas drilling that Obama has put in place on federal lands. But adding $500 billion a year to GDP via these actions would be incredibly difficult. That number comes from a paper by the Institute for Energy Research, which envisions a scenario in which all federal lands currently off limits to oil and gas production are opened up and companies start drilling.
This scenario is far from assured. It would require states like California to agree to open up protected coasts, which seems unlikely. More importantly, if oil prices remain at their current low levels, it’s doubtful that companies would choose to go drill in many of these areas, many of which are costly and technically challenging (such as the ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico). David Victor, an energy expert at the University of California San Diego, has called Trump’s $20 trillion number "a fantasy" and "off by an order of magnitude." —Brad Plumer
Ruling: Disputed
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Trump says: "My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and steelworkers of our country out of work — that will never happen when I am president. Our steelworkers and our miners are going back to work again."
In fact: Hillary Clinton’s climate plan would very likely lead to a shrinkage of the coal industry — putting coal miners out of work. But miners would also very likely continue to go out of work even under a President Trump, because the coal industry is being crushed right now by cheap natural gas, collapsing demand from China, and other forces that Trump would have no control over. —Brad Plumer
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again."
In fact: It is true that Donald Trump does want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But his replacement plan will, according to an analysis from the Committee on a Responsible Fiscal Budget, cause 21 million people to lose coverage. Not being able to afford a doctor is pretty functionally similar, if not worse, than being able to choose one.
One of the assumptions implicit in Trump’s statement is that right now, it’s particularly hard to see a doctor of one’s choice. But the data doesn’t back that up: A recent survey of Americans with health insurance finds that 87 percent are satisfied with their choice of doctors. —Sarah Kliff
Ruling: Misleading
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Trump says: "My opponent dismissed the VA scandal — one more sign of how out of touch she really is."
In fact: Clinton indeed said something to this effect, telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: "It’s not been as widespread as it has been made out to be. … Now nobody would believe that from the coverage you see, and the constant berating of the VA that comes from the Republicans, in part in pursuit of this ideological agenda that they have." Her campaign later backtracked.
That being said, Clinton was basically correct: The claims of VA ineptitude have been wildly overblown for ideological reasons, and the VA still offers some of the, and in some areas the, best health care available in the United States. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: True
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Trump says: "My opponent wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment."
In fact: Clinton wants additional gun control regulation but told This Week’s George Stephanopoulos, "I believe we can have commonsense gun safety measures consistent with the Second Amendment" and has at no point called for the amendment's repeal. —Dylan Matthews
Ruling: False
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Trump says: "An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views."
In fact: In 1954, Johnson did introduce an amendment preventing tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates for elected political office — and that technically applies to churches too. (Note, though, that Johnson wasn’t really focused on churches when he passed the amendment, as Purdue University sociology professor James D. Davidson explains in Why Churches Cannot Endorse or Oppose Political Candidates. He was trying to slow the spread of McCarthyism.) —Tara Golshan
Ruling: True
