FactChecking Trump’s Presidential Bid Announcement

Summary

Here we go again. Donald Trump’s official bid to get back to the White House had us at FactCheck.org feeling a bit of déjà vu. His Nov. 15 speech announcing his candidacy for 2024 featured assertions we’ve fact-checked before and several mainstays of his rallies leading up to the midterm elections.

• Claiming a double-standard with regard to the search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump wrongly said former President Barack Obama “took a lot of things with him” when he left office. The National Archives and Records Administration says it always controlled and managed Obama administration records after his tenure.

• Trump claimed that “Joe Biden has intentionally surrendered our energy independence,” but the U.S. was never 100% self-sufficient or not reliant on energy imports under Trump.

• Comparing gasoline prices during his administration to Biden’s, Trump cherry-picked the pandemic low during his administration and greatly exaggerated current prices. And in any case, experts say neither president was primarily responsible for the prices.

• Trump also falsely claimed to have “filled up” the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which he said Biden has “virtually drained.” Neither is true.

• The former president wrongly said the southwest border was the “strongest ever” during his term and now is “open.” Apprehensions, a proxy for illegal immigration, were higher during Trump’s term than either of Obama’s terms. While they’ve increased considerably under President Joe Biden, well over 1 million, at least, have been expelled.

• Trump came up short of building the border wall he promised, despite his claim that he “completed” it.

• Trump downplayed the risk of climate change, incorrectly stating that sea level rise will be just “one-eighth of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years.” For U.S. coastlines, scientists project an increase of 10 to 12 inches in the next 30 years alone.

• He claimed that “drugs were coming into our country at the lowest level in many, many years” during his presidency. But the best available federal data suggest that overall drug smuggling may have been higher under Trump than Biden.

• He repeated his false talking point that his administration “built the greatest economy in the history of the world.” Annual real gross domestic product has exceeded Trump’s peak year 16 times.

• He claimed the U.S. “surrendered $85 billion” of military equipment when it withdrew troops from Afghanistan, a withdrawal that was initiated by his administration. That gross exaggeration is nearly the total amount spent on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund since the war began in 2001.

• While talking about tariffs, Trump falsely claimed that “no president had ever sought or received $1 for our country from China until I came along.” Prior to his administration, the U.S. collected billions of dollars in tariffs on products imported from China.

• Trump falsely claimed the Department of Justice is going after parents “who object” at school board meetings to “indoctrinating our children.” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said “spirited debate” is constitutionally protected but not “threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.”

Analysis

Mar-a-Lago Search

Referencing the court-approved Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in which FBI agents took possession of numerous records labeled “classified” and “Top Secret,” Trump said federal authorities were out to “get Trump” in ways they never were with his predecessors.

“And I said, ‘Why didn’t you raid Bush’s place?’” Trump said. “Why didn’t you raid Clinton’s place? Why didn’t you do Obama, who took a lot of things with him.”

We’re not sure to which Bush Trump was referring, George H.W. Bush or his son George W. Bush, but as we’ve written, neither of them stored presidential documents in their private residences after they left office. Neither did former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Trump has made before, and