Trump on the Stump
We reviewed all of President Donald Trump’s speeches at campaign rallies over five days, from Oct. 12 to Oct. 16. There were six speeches and combined, Trump spoke for more than eight hours, averaging about one hour and 20 minutes per speech.
Below is a compilation of 46 of the false and misleading claims he made; Trump often repeated those claims at multiple rallies. We have organized them by subject matter.
Trump spoke in Sanford, Florida, on Oct. 12, his first rally since recovering from COVID-19. It was the shortest of the five speeches, at just over an hour. The following night, the Republican nominee spoke in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, followed by an Oct. 14 rally in Des Moines, Iowa, then Greenville, North Carolina, on Oct. 15. He finished up the week with two rallies: one in Ocala, Florida, and another in Macon, Georgia, on Oct. 16.
(We published a similar story looking at the false or misleading statements made by former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, during his stump speeches over the same period. Readers will likely observe that we wrote about fewer claims from Biden. We would note that while Biden held six rallies — the same as Trump — he spoke for a total of only two hours and 46 minutes. Trump spoke nearly three times longer than Biden.)
COVID-19 Pandemic
#1: Not ‘Rounding the Turn’ on COVID-19
As he did in his Oct. 15 town hall, the president baselessly claimed in his Pennsylvania and North Carolina rallies that the U.S. is “rounding the turn” on the coronavirus pandemic. That’s at odds with the available data showing an increase in COVID-19 cases and with expert assessments of the situation.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Oct. 12 that the U.S. is “on a trajectory of getting worse” and recommended that the public continue to practice simple public health measures, including physical distancing, wearing masks and avoiding crowds.
As of Oct. 18, the seven-day average of new cases is topping 55,000 a day, up from a still-high low of around 34,000 in mid-September. The COVID Tracking Project, which is responsible for tabulating those figures, concluded that a “third surge” is underway. A Johns Hopkins University analysis similarly shows that cases are on the rise in many states, particularly in the upper Midwest.
#2: ‘Unscientific Lockdowns’
At three different rallies, Trump misleadingly claimed that Biden would “annihilate” the economy with a “draconian unscientific lockdown.” Trump is referring to a comment Biden made in an ABC News interview with David Muir on Aug. 21, but contrary to supporting an “unscientific lockdown,” Biden said he would “listen to the scientists” if they recommended another shutdown. “So if the scientists say shut it down?” Muir asked. “I would shut it down, I would listen to the scientists,” Biden said. He has since emphasized that he doesn’t think a lockdown would be necessary.
#3: Travel Restrictions
As he has done for months, Trump claimed in Sanford, Florida, that Biden opposed his decision to impose travel restrictions on China in late January.
“But when I locked down China, he thought it was a terrible thing,” Trump said. “He called me xenophobic, right? When I locked down China, which was in January, months earlier than what he said. Then ultimately, he admitted I’m right, but then he said, oh, he should’ve acted faster. Well, this was months later, then, he says I should have acted fast. Nobody acted fast like I did.” There are several false claims in this statement.
For starters, as we have written repeatedly, Trump did not “lock down” travel from China. There were exceptions for American citizens and permanent residents, as well as their family members, meaning that tens of thousands of people flew directly from China to the U.S. in the months after the restrictions were enacted.
As for Biden, the former vice president made this statement on the same day that the president announced the travel restrictions on Jan. 31: “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.” Trump cites it as evidence that Biden opposed his decision to impose travel restrictions on China. But the Biden campaign on April 3 said Biden supported the travel restrictions, and that the xenophobia comment was unrelated to them.
And finally, contrary to Trump’s claim that “nobody acted fast like I did” with travel restrictions on China, a country-by-country analysis by Think Global Health, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, shows that 36 countries imposed travel restrictions, including the U.S., by Feb. 2.
#4: Face Masks
Trump misstated the findings of a study on COVID-19, saying, “Did you see, the CDC? That 85% of the people wearing the mask catch it, okay?” The day before the speech, the CDC released directly contradicting the president’s claim, saying, “the interpretation that
