Former President Donald Trump visited a factory in York on Monday to present his record on the economy. In his often rambling speech attacking his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, Trump offered a number of fact-checking opportunities, so let’s take a closer look at some of them:
- Trump stressed that he was the head of the “largest economy in the world” but that claim has been repeatedly debunked. Yes, Trump did reduce the unemployment rate (until it skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic), but PBS reported that President Joe Biden “matched or exceeded those levels.” PBS also noted that annual gross domestic product gains under Trump were “broadly similar” to those during former President Barack Obama’s final six years in office, and that GDP growth was “well below that of previous presidents.”
- Under Trump, inflation has reached levels “that no one has ever seen before.” Inflation was low, ranging between 1.8 and 2.4 percent from 2017 to 2019, PBS reported, before falling to 1.2 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic’s impact on the economy. However, there were lower annual inflation rates under Obama in 2009 and 2015 and comparable levels in the years before that.
- Vice President Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking. “She is absolutely against fracking,” Trump claimed on Monday. According to the Associated Press, Harris’ campaign has denied the allegation, even though she supported a fracking ban during her 2019 presidential campaign. The AP reported that Harris is backed by the union that represents pipeline and power plant workers. “Harris has supported Biden’s plan to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” the AP reported, “but that plan never included a ban on fracking, and Biden has said he views those energy sources as necessary during the transition.”
- Trump said his administration had done a “great job” in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This statement is false on every count. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were over 350,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States in 2020. Trump initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic, saying in January 2020, “We have it completely under control. It’s just one person coming in from China. It’s going to be OK.” In February 2020, Trump claimed the virus would “miraculously disappear” with warmer weather. White House officials insisted in March 2020 that one million people would be tested that week and four million tests would be conducted weekly thereafter, but the CDC had conducted just 4,000 tests by the end of that week. Trump pushed back against any accusation that his administration was slow to respond to the pandemic, but by the end of April there were 60,000 deaths and the economy was collapsing while 26 million people filed for unemployment benefits. Trump claimed his administration had done a “great job” in the pandemic, just two days before the death toll passed 90,000. By the end of 2020, 2 million people had been vaccinated, far below the Trump administration’s goal of 20 million.
