AP FACT CHECK: Is Trump's America great again or hellscape? See AP LINK for COMPLETE text of summary

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https://apnews.com/d375608014209ef443cd5defafa486dd

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican National Convention begged this question: Why are President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters describing the state of his union as a hellscape?

It was perhaps the central paradox for voters wondering what to believe in the rhetoric because it defied logic to believe it all. Are Americans living in a dystopia or in an America made great again by Trump?
Four years ago, candidate Trump promised that if he won, “The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.”

PROTESTS
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, expressing support for people in uniform: “People like Dave Patrick Underwood, an officer in Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.” — Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Pence is blurring what happened, leaving the impression that Underwood was a victim of rioters. Underwood was not killed by demonstrators in Oakland who were protesting for racial justice.
Federal authorities say Underwood was fatally shot by Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant they say has ties to a far-right, anti-government movement, while Underwood was guarding a federal courthouse during protests in May. Officials believe Carrillo used the protests as a cover for the slaying and his subsequent escape.

RACIAL INEQUALITY
KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL DANIEL CAMERON: “On the economy: Joe Biden couldn’t do it, but President Trump did build an economy that worked for everyone, especially minorities.” — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not accurate.

POLICE
ERIC TRUMP: “Biden has pledged to defund the police.” — Wednesday.
REP. STEVE SCALISE of Louisiana: “Joe Biden has embraced the left’s insane mission to defund them.”
THE FACTS: No, Biden has explicitly rejected the call by some on the left to defund the police. He has proposed more money for police, conditioned on improvements in their practices.
Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into federal community policing grant programs. That’s more money, not less.

BLACK LIVES MATTER
GIULIANI: “Black Lives Matter and antifa sprang into action and, in a flash, they hijacked the peaceful protest into vicious, brutal riots.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That’s a hollow claim.
There’s no evidence that Black Lives Matter or antifa, or any political group for that matter, is infiltrating racial injustice protests and injecting violence.

COVID-19
TRUMP: “The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: Not true. Not if you consider Russia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and India to be major countries.
TRUMP: “Instead of following the science, Joe Biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country. His shutdown would inflict unthinkable and lasting harm on our nation’s children, families, and citizens of all backgrounds.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That’s false. Biden has publicly said he would shut down the nation’s economy only if scientists and public health advisers recommended he do so to stem the COVID-19 threat. In other words, he said he would follow the science, not disregard it.

DONALD TRUMP JR. on the coronavirus response: “The president quickly took action and shut down travel from China.” — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, he didn’t shut down travel from China. He restricted it. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did.

EDUCATION
TRUMP: “Biden also vowed to oppose school choice and oppose all charter schools.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: That’s false. Biden doesn’t oppose charter schools. He opposes federal money going to for-profit charter companies.
Such companies are only a slice of the charter school market, meaning Biden’s position wouldn’t substantially alter the charter landscape that is dominated by nonprofit organizations.
Biden does oppose federal money for tuition vouchers.

HEALTH CARE
TRUMP: “We protected your preexisting conditions. Very strongly protected preexisting ... and you don’t hear that.” — Monday.
THE FACTS: You don’t hear it because it’s not true.
People with such medical problems have health insurance protections because of President Barack Obama’s health care law, which Trump is trying to dismantle.
Before the Affordable Care Act, any insurer could deny coverage — or charge more — to anyone with a preexisting condition who was seeking to buy an individual policy.

BIDEN’S AGENDA
NIKKI HALEY, former ambassador to the United Nations, on the Democrats: “They want a government takeover of health care. They want to ban fracking and kill millions of jobs.” — Monday.
REP. JIM JORDAN of Ohio: “Defund the police, defund border patrol and defund our military.” — Monday.
THE FACTS: Those aren’t Biden’s positions. A number of Republican speakers seized on proposals of the Democratic left, in some cases distorting those positions, and assigned them to Biden, who doesn’t share those views.
He does not favor a government takeover of health care; instead he proposes building on Obama’s law, which preserves the private insurance market while expanding Medicaid.

VIRUS TESTING
IVANKA TRUMP: “Our president rapidly mobilized the full force of government and the private sector ... to build the most robust testing system in the world.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: Her assertion of superior U.S. testing for COVID-19 is dubious. The U.S. repeatedly stumbled with testing in the early weeks of the outbreak, allowing the virus to quickly spread in the U.S. The president’s own experts say the U.S. is nowhere near the level of testing needed to control the virus.

IRAN
SEN. TOM COTTON of Arkansas: “Joe Biden sent pallets of cash to the ayatollahs.” — Thursday.
THE FACTS: This is a distorted tale Trump and Republicans love to tell. Yes, the U.S. flew cash to Iran in the Obama years, but it was money the United States owed to that country.
Cotton also played into the convention’s pattern of attributing every questionable action of Obama’s administration to Biden personally.

ECONOMY
PENCE: “Four years ago we inherited ... an economy struggling to break out of the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. ... In our first three years we built the greatest economy in the world.” — Wednesday.
LARRY KUDLOW, Trump economic adviser: Trump was ”inheriting a stagnant economy on the front end of recession,” and under the
president, “the economy was rebuilt in three years.” — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This is false. The economy was healthy when Trump arrived at the White House

WAR
SEN. RAND PAUL: “Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war, which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation.” — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Trump had no more foresight on this matter than Biden. Neither was against it when it started.
When asked during a Sept. 11, 2002, radio interview if he would support an Iraq invasion, Trump responded, “Yeah, I guess so.” The next month, Biden as a senator voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force in Iraq.

TAXES
ERIC TRUMP: The president slashed taxes and “wages went through the roof.” — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not quite. Wage growth did improve, but there is clearly still a roof on workers’ incomes.

FARMING
CRIS PETERSON, from a Wisconsin dairy family: “Our entire economy and dairy farming are once again roaring back. One person deserves the credit and our vote, President Donald J. Trump.” — Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not everyone in the dairy industry views it as booming, especially as larger operations are putting smaller family farms out of business.

SUBURBS
PATRICIA McCLOSKEY on Democrats: “They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back.” — Monday.
THE FACTS: That’s a false account of what Biden supports. In 2015, during the Obama administration, a regulation took effect intended to ensure that communities confront racial segregation in housing.
McClosky and her husband have been charged with a felony for brandishing guns outside their St. Louis home as racial justice protesters passed.

VOTING FRAUD
TRUMP, on mail-in voting: “Absentee — like in Florida — absentee is good. But other than that, they’re very, very bad.” — Monday.
FACTS: He’s making a false distinction. Mail-in ballots are cast in the same way as absentee mail ballots, with the same level of scrutiny such as signature verification in many states.
TRUMP, on defective ballots in an election: “What does defective mean? It means fraud.” — Monday.
THE FACTS: No, defective ballots do not equate to fraud. The overwhelming majority aren’t.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the vast majority of ballots are disqualified because they arrive late, a particular worry this year because of recent U.S. Postal Service delays and an expected surge in mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.


https://apnews.com/d375608014209ef443cd5defafa486dd

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