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A CNN team is fact-checking the first night of the Republican National Convention.
This list will continue to be updated throughout the night.
North Carolina gubernatorial candidates’ economic policy positions
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is currently running for governor, made a series of economic claims in his speech at the Republican National Convention on Monday, calling the claims about the Biden administration misleading and those about the Trump administration touting pre-pandemic statistics and failing to acknowledge that the economy was in much worse shape when Trump left office.
“Food prices have skyrocketed and gasoline prices have nearly doubled” under President Joe Biden’s administration, Robinson said.
Facts first: While it’s true that food prices have increased by more than 20% since Biden took office, gasoline prices have not doubled since he took office.
The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was about $3.52 as of Monday, compared with $2.39 when Biden took office, according to AAA.
Robinson also argued that unemployment was at an “all-time low” under former President Donald Trump’s administration, which was certainly true before the pandemic: In February 2020, for example, the national unemployment rate was 3.5%, the lowest since the late 1960s.
By comparison, the average monthly unemployment rate over the past decade was 4.8%.
But when Trump left office, his approval rating was just 6.4%, far from its all-time low.
From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald
Speaking at the Republican National Convention, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia argued about Democrats, “They claim our economy is thriving, yet hundreds of thousands of American-born workers have lost their jobs in recent years.”
Facts First: This is misleading at best. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show Under President Joe Biden’s administration, there has been a significant increase in the number of U.S.-born workers with jobs. About 130.9 million U.S.-born workers were employed in June, up about 4.7 million from June 2021, just after Biden took office. (This data is not seasonally adjusted, so for an accurate comparison you need to look at the same month each year. In January 2021, when Biden took office, there were about 123 million U.S.-born workers employed.)
It is certainly possible that hundreds of thousands of native-born workers lost their jobs during this period, as labor markets are always subject to fluctuations, but contrary to what Green suggests, native-born workers as a whole have gained far more under Biden than they have lost.
Daniel Dale and Tami Ruby, CNN
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked Democrats in a convention speech on Monday, saying the “Washington establishment” had set Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter this year.
“They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday,” the Georgia Republican said.
Facts first: This assertion requires context. Transgender Visibility Day Easter began in 2009 as a day of awareness celebrating the success of transgender and gender non-conforming people and is held annually on March 31st. Celebrated on the First Sunday The holiday begins after the first full moon the day after the beginning of spring and is subject to change each year. In 2024, the holiday fell on March 31st.
Response to Republicans criticizing President Joe Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre April 1st Briefing She said she was “astonished by the misinformation” about Easter and Transgender Visibility Day falling on the same day.
“For the last few years, March 31st has been designated Transgender Visibility Day every year. If you know how the calendar works, you know that Easter falls on a different Sunday every year. This year it happened to coincide with Transgender Visibility Day. That’s the simple fact,” she said.
Jack Forrest, CNN
In a video shown at the Republican National Convention, a narrator claimed that former President Donald Trump “enacted the biggest tax cut in history.”
Facts first: This is false: Analysis shows that President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was not the largest in history, either as a percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The law made numerous permanent and temporary changes to the tax code, including reducing corporate and personal income tax rates.
In a report released in June, the federal government’s bipartisan Congressional Budget Office The study looked at the size of past tax cuts enacted between 1981 and 2023 and found that two tax cut bills were larger: former President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut bill and a bill signed by former President Barack Obama extending earlier tax cuts enacted during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
CBO measured the size of tax cuts by looking at the revenue effect of the bill as a percentage of gross domestic product — in other words, how much the bill would reduce federal revenue as a share of the economy over a five-year period — Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts and Obama’s 2012 tax cut extension were 3.5 percent and 1.7 percent of GDP, respectively.
In contrast, President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts were estimated to be about 1% of GDP.
The nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in 2017 that the Trump tax cuts would be the fourth-largest since 1940 in inflation-adjusted dollars. 8th Largest Percentage of Gross Domestic Product since 1918.
From CNN’s Tami Ruby
“Four years ago, Europe and the Middle East were at peace,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a speech at the party’s convention on Monday.
Facts first: Whatley’s assertion is false. Whatever the merits of the Abraham Accords, which the Trump administration helped negotiate, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates Agreed to normalize ties with Israel in 2020 (Morocco and Sudan followed suit), and as of mid-2020, four years ago, and as of early 2021, when President Trump left office, there were still many unresolved armed conflicts in the Middle East.
The list especially Yemen Civil War; Syrian Civil War;and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Gaza and West BankIsrael and Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon, Between Israel and Syriaand a former State Department official Aaron David Miller“War Between Wars Conflict between Israel and Iran continues in the air, on land and at sea.” Americaits allies and civilians continued to come under attack In unstable Iraq.
“That’s a wildly inaccurate statement,” Miller, who worked on Middle East peace negotiations during his time in government and is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said last fall, when Trump himself made a similar claim that peace had been achieved in the Middle East.
Dana El KurdJonathan McCain, a senior adjunct fellow at the Arab Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank, also called Trump “false” when he made that claim. “The Abraham Accords have not brought about peace in the Middle East. In fact, Israeli-Palestinian violence has increased since the agreements (by every metric you can think of: death toll, settlement violence, etc.),” he said in a November email.
Daniel Dale of CNN
The Republican National Convention aired a video attacking President Joe Biden over gasoline prices, but the video misleadingly presented old numbers as if they were current.
The narrator asserts, “When President Trump left office, gasoline prices were just $2.20. Under Biden and Harris, gas prices have soared to an all-time high, over $5 a gallon.” Later in the video, a young man says, “After less than a year of driving, you have to pay the national average of $5.03,” while a woman says, “It’s impossible to pay $5.03. We need to take better care of our people.”
Facts First: Those claims about gas prices during the Biden administration are two years old: The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was about $3.52 on Monday. According to AAA:. The national average is under Biden. A record high Over $5 per gallon – about $5.02; According to AAA Data: But that happened in June 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This caused a surge in global oil pricesThere was nothing in the RNC video to suggest that the national average has dropped significantly since then..
Also, on the day President Trump left office in January 2021, the national average was It was about $2.39 per gallon.It was $2.20, not $2.20, but in some states it was below $2.20.
Daniel Dale of CNN
In a video criticizing President Joe Biden’s economic policies shown at the Republican National Convention, a narrator said, “The Wall Street Journal reported today that Americans’ incomes have fallen for a third year in a row.”
Facts First: This needs context: The RNC video omits some inconvenient facts. Wall Street Journal report Published in 2023: This is the first of three consecutive years in which inflation-adjusted median household income has fallen. 2020When Donald Trump was president. The coronavirus pandemic was a major factor in the decline, but the ad failed to explain that not all three years were under Biden’s administration.
Real median household income declined from $78,250 in 2019 to $76,660 in 2020 (all under Trump), then declined modestly to $76,330 in 2021 (mostly under Biden), and then declined more dramatically to $74,580 in 2022 (all under Biden). Figures so far for 2023 and 2024 are not available.
Daniel Dale of CNN
The Republican National Convention aired a video criticizing President Joe Biden’s economic policies, in which a narrator said, “America has reached its highest inflation rate in 40 years.”
Facts first: This claim is two years old. The year-on-year inflation rate for June 2022 is: Approximately 9.1%It is true that inflation was at its highest in 40 to 41 years since the latter half of 1981. However, A sharp decline Since the Biden-era peak, and at the latest available rates, June 2024: approx. 3.0% Excluding President Biden’s term, this percentage is Exceeded in 2011.
Daniel Dale of CNN
