CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale debunked lies former President Donald Trump told during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, dedicating two minutes to picking apart Trump's many falsehoods.
Trump made numerous oddball remarks during his speech, particularly his reference that the world was "at peace" when he was in office until his political opponents "turned it into a planet of war," declaring that the planet is now "blowing up around us" due to Democratic policies.
Dale—who has made a name for himself thanks to his comprehensive and rigorous fact-checking—was quick to shut these claims down during an interview with Jake Tapper, noting that Trump didn't preside over a "peaceful" period at all:
"This is false. Trump did not achieve world peace when he was president and certainly not when he left office. There were active wars and armed conflicts in dozens of nations in 2020, 51 by one institution's count and again, 51 in 2021. Trump handed Joe Biden ongoing wars in Yemen and Syria and of course the unresolved Palestinian conflict and Iranian conflict, the war in Ethiopia."
"I could go on for a while but I don't have time because there are so many other false claims."
Dale noted that Trump "repeated his usual lie about Democrats having cheated in the 2020 election," calling it "nonsense." He also noted that despite Trump's claim that crime "is going up," actually "the opposite is true, sharply down in 2023 and down in early 2024." Crime, Dale said, is lower than when Trump "left office in 2020."
He added:
"He said we have the worst inflation we've ever had. Again, not even close. It is 3% right now. The U.S. record is 23.7%. He said there was no inflation under him: It was low of course, not nonexistent. It was 8% total during his presidency, 1.1% the month he left office."
"He said the price of groceries is up 57% under Biden. It's actually 21%. He said Democrats are proposing to quadruple people's taxes. That is imaginary. He said his tax cuts are the largest in American history; again, not even close."
"He said the Biden administration does nothing to stop migrants but the administration tried to get Congress to pass a bill to tighten the border and after Trump himself helped to kill that bill, Biden took executive action to tighten the border."
Dale pointed out that Trump had weirdly claimed to have "stopped human trafficking," that nations "stopped purchasing oil from Iran under him," and that "foreign governments are sending criminals and mental health patients" to the United States even though "his campaign has been unable to provide proof for that."
He concluded:
"He said he defeated ISIS in a couple of months. In fact, the ISIS caliphate was declared fully liberated more than two years into his presidency. And there were other exaggerations about trade with China, about North Korean missile launches, about gas prices, about IRS agents."
"It just went on and on and on in terms of falsehood just like how the speech went on and on and on itself."
You can hear what Dale said in the video below.
Many appreciated Dale's fact-check—and joined him in criticizing the former president.
Dale has of course called out Trump's lies many times before.
Earlier this year, he said Trump is "deranged" following his blatant lie that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the insurrection of January 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise the 2020 general election had been stolen.
Dale emphasized that the attack on the Capitol was orchestrated by a mob of pro-Trump supporters who were incited by Trump himself, discrediting Trump's attempt to shift blame onto Pelosi. He clarified that Pelosi had actively sought to "protect the Capitol" by attempting to "summon National Guard troops."
Similarly, when Trump in 2022 announced he would run for office in 2024, Dale said Trump's comments were “more accurate” than what he often says at campaign rallies, but only because Trump was using a teleprompter.
Dale noted, among other things, that Trump gave himself credit for the liberation of the Islamic State's (ISIS) “caliphate” in Syria when he claimed that the terrorist group "was decimated by me and our great warriors in less than three weeks.”
But that is incorrect, because the so-called ISIS "caliphate" was liberated two years into his presidency, not three weeks. While it is not entirely clear what Trump meant by "decimated," the United States' fight against ISIS continued well after he took office.
