Trump: How Truthful Are The President's 8 Big Claims In His Speech At The Republican National Convention
President Donald Trump closed the Republican Party convention with a speech in which he stressed that the upcoming elections will be "the most important" in the history of the United States.
In accepting his party's nomination for a second presidential term, he listed his accomplishments and criticized his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half making an extensive series of claims. Reality Check, the BBC's verification team, analyzed the veracity of some of the most important ones.
Claim 1: "If Joe Biden is given power, the radical left will take funding from police departments across the country."
President Trump attacked his Democratic rival on law and order, in the context of recent riots in several US cities.
Since the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis in May, there have been calls to "withdraw funds from the police."
Donald Trump and other Republicans say Joe Biden supports that measure, but Biden has repeatedly said no.
In June, he told CBS News: "I do not support de-funding the police."
Biden repeated his point of view in an opinion column in USA Today, urging police reform.
"I do not support withdrawing funding from the police. A better response is to give police departments the resources necessary to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal monies on compliance with those reforms," he wrote.
He added that he would give "an additional $ 300 million to revitalize community policing."
Claim 2: "We have already built 300 miles [482 km] of border wall"
Since January 2017, when Trump took office, 442 kilometers of wall have been completed along the border with Mexico, according to the latest report from the US Customs and Border Protection agency.
However, most of that construction was to replace existing structures.
A total of 394 kilometers of wall have been built to replace old fences.
But only 48 kilometers of new wall have been built.
Most of these (40 kilometers) make up what is called a "secondary wall", which is built to reinforce the main border barrier.
The border with Mexico is more than 3,200 kilometers long.
Claim 3: "In the last three months, we have obtained more than 9 million jobs, a new record"
Here, President Trump claimed that the US economy was recovering "much faster" from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic than other countries in the West.
It's true that - since April - nine million people have been added to the US payroll, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Claim 4: "The United States has the lowest [coronavirus] fatality rates of any major country in the world"
The president declined to mention that the US has the highest total of COVID-19 deaths in the world, more than 180,000 (as of August 28).
Instead, he wanted to highlight the fatality rate, that is, how many have died of those who have tested positive for coronavirus.
It is true that this rate in the US is relatively low compared to most European countries, including the UK.
But it is not the lowest in the world. In Norway, Japan, South Korea, for example, it is lower.
However, countries have different ways of testing for coronavirus cases, so direct comparisons are difficult to make.
A low case fatality rate could mean that a comprehensive testing system identifies many mild cases that are unlikely to be fatal to begin with.
Claim 5: "He [Joe Biden] has promised a $ 4 trillion increase in taxes to almost all American families"
Trump is correct when he refers to the fact that Biden's plan would generate $ 4 trillion (4,000,000,000,000) in public revenue (over a decade), according to analysis by the Center for Tax Policy.
However, that claim is misleading, as the levies would be imposed on the wealthiest Americans, not "almost all American families."
The Center for Tax Policy found that 93% of the increase in taxes would be covered by the taxpayers of the fifth part of households with the highest income.
Those earning the most would see "substantially larger tax increases than households in other lower income groups, both in dollar amounts and as a portion of their income."
Claim 6: "We annihilated 100% of the caliphate of IS"
It's true that the territory of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) - a "caliphate" declared in 2014 through Iraq and Syria - ended during Trump's presidential term.
The US-led military alliance overwhelmed the group in its last stronghold in Syria in March 2019.
However, as the BBC reported at the time, "despite the physical disappearance of the caliphate, IS remains a brave and well-disciplined force" whose defeat is not assured.
On August 12, a senior US military official outlined what it would take to achieve a lasting victory against IS, noting that the group was still a threat.
Claim 7: "Always, and most emphatically, we will protect patients with pre-existing conditions, and that is a promise from the entire Republican Party."
This statement refers to the requirement that health insurance companies cannot charge more to people with pre-existing conditions.
That obligation was signed into law with President Obama's iconic domestic policy legislation - the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare."
Donald Trump and the Republican Party want to repeal that legislation and replace it, but have not succeeded despite their efforts in Congress.
In June, the government asked the US Supreme Court to permanently eliminate Obamacare, the law that provides for the protection of people with pre-existing conditions.
If successful, it is unclear what the Trump administration would replace the health program with.
The president has indicated that he would force insurers to offer coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, but has not given details.
Claim 8: "Our NATO partners, as an example, were far behind in their defense payments. But under my heavy pressure, they agreed to pay an additional $ 130 billion a year."
The current defense spending target for NATO members is 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), which is expected to be achieved by 2024.
The United States invested roughly 3.4% of its GDP in defense in 2019, as estimated by NATO, while the average for European nations and Canada was 1.55%.
Trump argues that members are not investing enough in defense to support the alliance and that the US bears most of the burden.
The figure the president mentioned - $ 130 billion - is the amount that has been added since 2016, not a year.
"Since 2016, Canada and European allies have added an additional US $ 130 billion to defense budgets, and this figure will increase to US $ 400 billion by 2014," declared NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in December 2019.
