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Source: Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch
On the border, the economy and other major issues, Wisconsin Watch's fact briefs have already debunked claims you’ll likely hear repeated during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Jul 17, 2024, 8:48 AM CST
The Republican National Convention kicks off this week in Milwaukee with dozens of primetime speeches leading up to the official GOP presidential nomination of former president Donald Trump.
By some measure, we already have a pretty good idea about what will be said.
And we’ve already checked whether a lot of those statements are accurate.
Among the thousands of Republicans speaking within earshot of thousands of reporters, some of what gets uttered during the July 15-18 convention will be new. And we’ll aim to fact-check some of that.
But much of what gets said in speeches and interviews and on social media over the four days will include recycled claims.
So, here’s our review of statements that Wisconsin Watch has fact-checked — on immigration, inflation, elections and more — that there’s a good chance you’ll hear repeated in Milwaukee.
Almost all new jobs are not “going to illegals.”
Each month, about 150,000 foreigners make unauthorized entry to the U.S., and employers create about 232,000 new jobs. Trump made the almost-all-new jobs claim while campaigning in Racine in June.
Biden has not “let in” nearly 1,700 people with links to terrorism.
Border agents have encountered individuals on the federal terrorist watch list nearly 1,700 times since President Joe Biden took office — meaning those people were stopped while trying to enter the U.S. Fox Business TV host Elizabeth MacDonald made the 1,700 claim in an interview with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
Studies contradict claims like one made by U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis. From 1870 to 2020, immigrant males have had lower incarceration rates than U.S.-born males, and “immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated,” one study found. The academic authors of a 2023 book, “Immigration and Crime,” said studies generally show no relationship between immigration and crime.
Immigrants aren’t responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths per year.
Wisconsin Watch found no evidence to back a claim that Trump made that hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents are killed every year because of illegal border crossings. For that to be even marginally correct, every homicide and fatal drug overdose in the U.S. would have to have been due to illegal border activity.
Congo prisons are not “being emptied out” into the U.S.
Experts on prison populations said there is no evidence that prisons in either the Republic of the Congo or the Democratic Republic of the Congo are emptying their prisons, or that released prisoners from those neighboring African nations are coming en masse to the U.S., despite a claim made by Trump.
More immigrants have become citizens in recent decades than in prior years.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., in discussing the waves of undocumented migrants entering the U.S., was correct in stating that the number of immigrants granted citizenship is higher in recent decades — particularly since the 1990s — than in previous periods.
Prices have not increased 40% to 50% since Trump left office.
As measured by the Federal Reserve, cumulative inflation from the time Trump left office in January 2021 through May 2024 was 20.1%. Trump claimed while campaigning in Racine that “real inflation” is more than twice that.
Inflation has risen dramatically under Biden.
Inflation under Biden peaked in June 2022. That month’s 9.1% year-over-year increase was a four-decade high.
We found that U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., accurately stated in December that inflation was up 17%. The Consumer Price Index, the government’s most widely used inflation measure, was 17% higher in November 2023 than in January 2021, the month Biden took office.
A similar inflation claim made by another Wisconsin Republican, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, was also accurate. Van Orden said in January that grocery prices under Biden had risen 20%. The Consumer Price Index for groceries rose more than 20% from January 2021 to December 2023.
Wisconsin housing prices have risen nearly 30% under Biden.
Wisconsin Realtors Association figures show a 26% increase in the median price of a Wisconsin home from January 2021, when Biden’s term began, to January 2024 — $210,000 to $265,000; and a 28% increase from May 2021 to May 2024 — $246,832 to $315,500 — using the latest figures available.
Wages did increase by a record amount under Trump, but COVID was a big factor.
Republican Eric Hovde, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in the 2024 election, was correct in saying that real wages — wages adjusted for inflation — increased 7% under Trump and were the highest increase over one presidential term since the 1970s. The Trump increase was due partly to low-wage workers being laid off disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lowest unemployment rates ever for women, Blacks and Hispanics did not occur under Trump.
Unemployment was low under Trump, but not the record lows claimed by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley in a Milwaukee radio talk show interview. For women, the lowest rate was 2.7% in 1953; Trump’s lowest was 3.4%. For Blacks, the lowest was 4.8% under Biden; Trump’s lowest was 5.3.%. For Hispanics, the lowest-ever was 3.9%, under both Trump and Biden.
Wisconsin Democrats did not address hostages in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party called for an unconditional cease-fire in Gaza without addressing hostages held by Hamas. Delegates at the party’s convention in June approved a resolution calling for the “immediate, unconditional” cease-fire, with no mention of Israel or hostages, as Hovde correctly claimed.
Nearly 100,000 Afghan refugees did not come into the U.S. unvetted.
About 76,000 refugees were brought to a military base in Europe or the Middle East, where U.S. officials collected fingerprints and biographical details and ran them through criminal and terrorism-related databases. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security review found not all of them were fully vetted.
The federal budget deficit was higher under Trump’s final year in office than in Biden’s first three years, leading to an increasingly large federal debt.
We found that Hovde was correct when he said that in 2024, the U.S. is spending more on interest payments ($870 billion) on the federal debt than on defense ($822 billion). The budget deficit in fiscal 2020 under Trump, and during COVID, was $3.1 trillion — three times higher than the previous year. In the next three years under Biden, the deficits were $2.8 trillion, $1.4 trillion and $1.7 trillion.
Annual federal spending increased to $6 trillion from $4 trillion in four years.
Johnson’s claim was correct: Spending was $6.27 trillion in fiscal 2022, which covered Oct. 1, 2021, through Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Treasury Department. That was the first full fiscal year under Biden and was up 51% from $4.11 trillion four years earlier, during the first full fiscal year of Trump’s administration.
Trump did not receive more votes than Biden in the 2020 election.
Nationally, Biden received 81,283,501 votes (51.3%), and Trump received 74,223,975 (46.9%).
Trump did not win Wisconsin in 2020.
Biden won by 20,600 votes, or 49.4% to Trump’s 48.8%, a comprehensive report by The Associated Press in 2021 found. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the Associated Press and partial recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties affirmed that result.
There was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin in the 2020 election.
The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and The Associated Press found no widespread fraud.
Some 20,000 people in Wisconsin with the same phone number did not vote in the 2020 election.
The debunked claim was made by Trump supporter and MyPillow company owner Mike Lindell. Records for more than 20,000 people listed with the same phone number in the Wisconsin Elections Commission system are for inactive voters who were given a default phone number.
A reference to the potential use of “deadly force” is part of standard policy for FBI agents issuing search warrants, not something that singled out Trump in the FBI’s 2022 search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, despite a claim by Johnson.
The Biden administration does not have plans to make Army tanks all-electric.
A 2022 Army climate strategy plan calls for fielding an all-electric light-duty non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2027 and fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050. None of those vehicles includes tanks, despite a Trump claim.
That’s according to the latest figures, which cover annual opioid-related overdose deaths through 2022. The vast majority of Wisconsin opioid-related deaths are from synthetic opioids, and the vast majority of synthetic opioid deaths are from fentanyl.
The Education Department’s April rule changes protect students and employees from sex-based harassment and discrimination, despite a claim by U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.
The VA’s approval rating under Trump wasn’t as high as he said it was.
The highest proportion of veterans who expressed having trust in the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department was roughly 80%, once during Trump’s administration and once under Biden. It didn’t reach 92% and was not the highest-ever rating, as Trump claimed.
Forward is a look at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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