Though Trump talked about violence “happening all over our country,” homicides and violent crimes overall have declined over the past several decades.
Trump falsely claimed Clinton plans to bring in “620,000 refugees in her first term.” Clinton has not said how many refugees she would accept in fiscal 2017 or beyond.
Trump said Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, which “destroyed our manufacturing in this country.” Economic studies say NAFTA’s overall net impact on jobs has been small, and NAFTA was actually signed by President George H.W. Bush, though Clinton signed a bill enabling NAFTA.
Trump promised to provide “big league tax reduction” for middle-class families. The Tax Foundation says everyone would get tax cuts under Trump’s plan, though the biggest cuts — both in raw dollars and as a percentage of income — would go to the wealthiest.
Meanwhile, Trump said Clinton would “raise your taxes substantially.” She would not, unless you are among the top 10 percent of taxpayers.
Trump said “58 percent of African American youth are not employed.” But that includes millions of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not looking for work, including many in school. The unemployment rate among this group was 15.7 percent in August.
Trump blamed Obama for the fact that “14 million people have left the workforce entirely.” But it’s part of a decades-old trend, largely driven by aging baby boomers and other changing demographics.
Trump said under Obama “another 2 million Hispanic Americans have fallen into poverty.” That’s an outdated figure that has since been trimmed to 1.1 million. Moreover, the percentage of Hispanic Americans living in poverty has dropped under Obama.
Trump falsely claimed that his promise to “repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare” would “instantly save another 2 million jobs.” The Congressional Budget Office estimated the Affordable Care Act would encourage some to work less or retire earlier, not that jobs would be “lost.”
Trump also cherry-picked high rate increases on the ACA exchanges in claiming that “your premiums” are “through the roof.” Most people get their insurance through employers, where premiums have been growing at historically low rates. Premiums on the exchanges vary, with one analysis finding an average proposed increase of 9 percent across 17 major cities.
Trump, as usual, claimed that “I was against going into the war in Iraq.” We found no evidence for that. Trump voiced an opinion only once on whether to invade Iraq before the war started, and he said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
