Fact check: Trump makes numerous false claims in Republican convention speech
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump made numerous false claims in his rambling Wednesday speech at the Republican midterm convention.
Trump repeated long-debunked lies about elections and immigration. He delivered a whopper on the critical subject of inflation, wrongly saying “almost every item” is getting cheaper even as prices continue to rise. He falsely claimed to have kept “every single promise” he made on the campaign trail. And he delivered a smattering of baseless attacks on Democratic candidates, though also some factual ones.
Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s assertions, along with some of the assertions made by the speakers who preceded him at the event in Dallas. This is not a comprehensive list of Trump’s falsehoods in his speech.
Economy and prices
Investment in the US
Trump repeated his false claim that there has been “over $20 trillion” invested in the US during his second term so far.
That figure is fiction, as we noted when he has made the same or similar claims on numerous previous occasions. The White House has never been able to substantiate it.
As Trump said it this time, the White House’s own website claimed there had been “$11.2 trillion” in “major investment announcements” this term, not “over $20 trillion,” and even the White House figure was a major exaggeration of actual investment. A detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges – pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US – and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.
The White House figure includes pledges from US-based companies as well as foreign entities. Federal data shows that new foreign direct investment in the US was about $232 billion in 2025.
When CNN asked the White House in early September for any evidence for the “$20 trillion” figure, spokesperson Kush Desai emailed a reply without any such evidence. Instead, Desai returned to the Trump team’s standard practice of declaring that “President Trump is right” even about Trump claims the team can’t corroborate.
“President Trump is right: business leaders from across the world and across industries are lining up to invest in the United States thanks to the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda,” Desai said.
Trump and prices
Trump boasted of how the price of eggs has fallen sharply during his administration, which is true. But then he also said, “Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.” That is not even close to true; prices keep going up.
The most recent available inflation rate, for July, showed a 3.4% year-over-year increase – higher than the 2.9% rate in President Joe Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, and the 3.0% rate in January 2025.
The vast majority of products and product categories tracked by the federal Consumer Price Index have increased in price, not decreased in price, since Trump returned to office in January 2025; you can see a chart of these changes here. Overall consumer prices are up 4.3% since January 2025, while food prices are up 4.3% and grocery prices in particular are up 3.4%.
Taxes on Social Security
Trump repeated his usual false claim that he achieved “no tax on Social Security” for seniors, as other speakers did earlier Wednesday night.
The big domestic policy bill Trump signed in 2025 did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more), but as the White House has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients will continue to pay taxes on their benefits even before the temporary new deduction expires after 2028; the Social Security Administration said in 2025 that “the bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits.”
CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this item.
Iowa gas prices before the Iran war
Trump claimed, as he has on numerous previous occasions, that gas prices were just “$1.85” per gallon in Iowa before he launched the war against Iran in late February. There is no apparent basis for this claim.
On the day he visited Iowa in late January, the average price in the state for regular gasoline was $2.57 per gallon, according to AAA; the firm GasBuddy found just four stations in the state selling that day for under $2 per gallon — $1.97, to be specific, not $1.85 — out of 2,036 stations the firm was tracking there. And a CNN reporter noticed that the station right outside the venue where Trump spoke was at $2.69 per gallon that day.
It’s possible Trump was referring to the price of E85, an ethanol-gasoline blend that is sold in a minority of gas stations and can only be used in the small percentage of vehicles that are compatible with it; the blend was selling for around $1.85 per gallon in Iowa at the time of his visit. But, as when he made this claim about Iowa gas prices on previous occasions, he offered no indication here that he was talking about a niche product.
Global drug prices
From CNN’s Tami Luhby
Trump repeated his frequent claim that the US now has the lowest drug prices in the world.
The assertion is so broad that it is unclear what exactly Trump is referencing. But several experts told CNN they highly doubt that the prices for brand-name drugs in the US are generally less than they are in other countries, and the Trump administration has not provided details to prove the claim.
The US paid about three times the price of other developed countries for brand name medications in 2022, according to a highly cited RAND study funded by the Department of Health and Human Services. (Notably, Americans paid less for generic drugs, which make up 90% of prescriptions in the US, than patients elsewhere.)
During his second term, Trump has signed “Most Favored Nation” deals with more than two dozen pharmaceutical manufacturers. The drugmakers promised to provide steep discounts to Medicaid (which already receives substantial discounts); launch new drugs at the lowest price available globally; and sell some of their products on TrumpRx, a direct-to-consumer clearinghouse for patients willing to pay cash for medicines and forgo insurance – in return for a three-year exemption from tariffs and other benefits.
The specific terms of the deals have not been disclosed, which multiple experts say make it hard to evaluate their impact.
“It’s tough to claim that you’re getting the lowest prices anywhere in the world and then also not have any evidence to support that,” Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist at RAND and co-author of the study, told CNN in September.
There are currently 80 brand-name drugs listed as “presidential deals” on TrumpRx – a small fraction of the number of medications on the market.
Analysts at ING, a global financial institution, were more definitive, telling CNN that the US does not have the world’s lowest drug prices. The “Most Favored Nation” agreements largely have an impact on drug prices in Medicaid, which is only 10% of the US market, said Diederik Stadig, senior healthcare economist at ING.
“To say that the US now has the lowest drug prices in the world is at this moment not true,” Stadig said.
That said, Trump’s agreements with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to reduce the cash-pay prices of their blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss medications have led to an equalization in their cost in the US and abroad, Stephen Farrelly, ING’s global lead for pharma and healthcare, told CNN.
Previously asked about the president’s sweeping claim that the US now has the world’s lowest drug prices, Desai, the White House spokesperson, said Trump is correct but did not respond to CNN’s request to provide evidence to substantiate this claim. What’s more, his statement showed that the agreements are limited to certain medications and to certain programs.
“The Trump administration’s Most-Favored-Nations deals ensure that American patients will pay no more – and ideally less – than people in other developed nations for all prescription drugs to be launched in the future,” Desai said in the statement. “Previously-released branded drugs are available to patients at the MFN net price through TrumpRx.gov and to state Medicaid programs.”
The number of Americans working
Trump declared that “right now, in the United States of America, we have more people working than we have ever had before.” This is true, but Trump didn’t explain that this statistic he frequently cites is nearly meaningless; every US president since at least 1948, when modern federal data collection began, could have accurately said at some point during their tenure that more people were working in the US than ever before. That’s because the number of people working in the US generally rises over time simply because the population rises over time. With the exception of recessions, like those caused by the financial crisis of 2008 or the Covid-19 crisis of 2020, the number of employed people tends to just get higher as the years pass.
“There are more Americans working because there are more Americans. That’s the entire analysis,” Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan professor of public policy and economics, wrote in his newsletter in August.
Better ways to measure the labor market, like the unemployment rate, the employment-population ratio, the labor force participation rate and the pace of job creation, show that it has been far from historically strong this term. You can read more here.
Immigration
Migration under Biden and Trump
Trump repeated his usual false claim that “25 million” migrants entered the country during the Biden administration. The “25 million” figure is false; even Trump’s previous “21 million” figure was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the last full month of the Biden administration, the federal government had recorded under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country. Even adding in the so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total was even close to what Trump has said.
Trump also claimed that “zero illegal aliens have entered our country from the southern border in the last 15 months; zero.” This is an exaggeration.
US Customs and Border Protection said in August that the authorities hadn’t released any migrants into the country over the 15 months ending in July after encountering these migrants crossing the border. But it’s clear that some migrants evaded authorities to cross the border illegally during that 15-month period, though it appears the number of “gotaways” was much smaller than it was during the Biden administration. NewsNation reported in May 2026 that “the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement issued to NewsNation that the number of ‘gotaways’ has dropped by 86% in the first half of 2026 compared to fiscal year 2025” – a major decline, but not a decline to zero.
Migrants and murder
After denouncing the Biden administration on immigration, Trump claimed that Democrats allowed “11,888 murderers” to enter the country. It’s not true that the Biden administration in particular or Democrats in general allowed in all these murderers; as he has on numerous prior occasions, Trump was inaccurately describing federal data.
The Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have noted that the figure it appears Trump is referring to is about non-citizens who entered the US not just under Biden but over the course of multiple decades, including during Trump’s own first administration. They were convicted of homicide at some point, usually in the US after their arrival, and are still in the US while being listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket” – which includes people who are currently serving their prison sentences.
You can read more here.
Democratic candidates
Talarico and masking
Mocking James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, Trump said Talarico was seen wearing a mask “a few months ago.” CNN could find no evidence that Talarico was seen wearing a mask that recently. Republicans have lampooned Talarico over a video showing him wearing a mask at an event in 2022.
This wasn’t a one-time exaggeration by Trump. He said in May that Talarico was wearing a mask “six months ago” and in an interview released in early June that it was “a couple of months ago.” He provided no evidence for those claims.
The killing of Iryna Zarutska
Attacking Roy Cooper, the Democratic former North Carolina governor who is now running for the US Senate, Trump claimed Cooper released a man from prison who later killed a Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on public transit in Charlotte last year. “Roy Cooper was the governor who released this animal into North Carolina society, and others that were almost as bad,” Trump said.
But as PolitiFact and The Charlotte Observer have previously noted, the state corrections department has repeatedly said that the man charged with the murder, Decarlos Brown Jr., was not released early and had served his full sentence for another crime when he was released in September 2020. The department says Brown’s release was entirely unrelated to a lawsuit settlement over prison conditions amid the Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in some other offenders getting out early under Cooper. In fact, the settlement wasn’t signed until February 2021, months after Brown’s sentence ended.
PolitiFact also noted that Brown received the sentence in question before Cooper became governor and that, even if Brown had been convicted after another incident for which he was arrested in February 2021 while on post-release supervision (charges were eventually dropped in 2022), he would not have been in prison on those charges in 2025, when Zarutska was killed.
This Republican criticism of Cooper appears to be based on Brown’s name having been included on a list of prisoners connected to the lawsuit settlement. But PolitiFact and the Observer reported that state corrections officials said the settlement allowed the state to count certain cases retroactively, so Brown, like others, was listed even though he was out of prison before the settlement.
Trump’s record
Trump and elections
Trump lied, “We won the presidency three times,” then repeated the false claim late in the speech by invoking his “three great victories” in “2016, 2020, and 2024.” He won twice, in 2016 and 2024, and lost once, fair and square, in 2020.
Trump’s campaign promises
Trump claimed, “Every single promise I made you as a candidate, I’ve delivered on. I’ve delivered on everything.”
Trump certainly hasn’t kept every promise he made as a candidate. To cite two prominent unkept promises from his 2024 campaign, he repeatedly vowed to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to office, or even before being inaugurated, and to end inflation. During his 2016 campaign, he famously vowed that Mexico would pay for his border wall, which also did not happen.
Who’s paying for Trump’s ballroom
Trump claimed that his White House ballroom will use “zero tax dollars.” It’s not yet clear what the final breakdown of the project’s costs will be, but the current plan is to use taxpayer funding at least for security measures related to the project, which includes a secretive underground bunker complex Trump claims is critical for national security.
The Washington Post reported in June that a detailed project summary prepared for the White House “estimated the total construction cost at $600 million – with more than half coming from taxpayers,” according to a copy of the estimate obtained by the Post. The Post and the New York Times have reported this year that the Secret Service has acknowledged it will use public funds for security measures connected to the project.
And this spring, Senate Republicans proposed that nearly $1 billion in public funds go in part toward security related to the project; although that proposal ultimately failed, it acknowledged that there would be taxpayer costs associated with the construction.
On Sunday, Trump called it “the White House Ballroom/Military Complex,” which may be an indication of how he sees a division around how it will be paid for.
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this item.
Other GOP speakers
Some of the other speakers at the Wednesday convention also made false or misleading claims. Here is a fact check of some of their remarks:
Scalise’s false claim that Democrats just voted to allow illegal immigrants to vote in federal elections
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise claimed in his convention speech, “Just last week, Democrats voted to allow illegals to vote in our federal elections.”
That’s not true. There was no congressional vote last week on whether to change the law that makes it illegal for non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, to vote in federal elections.
Scalise was referring to the House vote last week on a non-binding Republican resolution – not a law – that included five separate statements. The first said the House “condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms.” The third “reiterates the notion that American elections are for American citizens only.” The fifth calls for the passage of Trump’s favored elections bill, the SAVE America Act, which contains various provisions opposed by many Democrats.
The vast majority of Democrats voted “no,” but they could have done so for numerous reasons other than wanting undocumented immigrants to be able to vote. Again, nothing in the resolution would have changed voting law.
Some GOP speakers take Democratic quotes out of context
Some speakers took quotes from Democratic midterm candidates out of context.
On Troy Jackson: Sen. Tim Scott said Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson “said he would’ve run as a communist.” But Jackson wasn’t expressing any support for communism. Rather, he was making a joke while trying to explain in 2017 why he used to be a Republican politician.
Jackson said he had just wanted to get into the state legislature any way he could in order to fix local problems. In what even the conservative New York Post described as a joke, Jackson added, “I would’ve ran as anything, I would’ve ran as a communist.” The Post reported that the comment was greeted with laughs.
On James Talarico: Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Talarico “says he would lay out a welcome mat at our southern border.” Talarico has frequently spoken of laying out a border “welcome mat,” but Barrasso left out the second, more conservative part of Talarico’s favored two-part immigration metaphor; Talarico keeps saying the border should be like a front porch with “a welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”
Here’s how Talarico explains the comment on his website: “We can both welcome the stranger – refugees, asylum seekers, and folks who want to contribute to our economy and pursue the American dream – and we can keep people out who mean to do us harm.”
Ossoff voted for the Laken Riley Act
Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia is running for Senate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. In Collins’ speech to the convention, he blasted Ossoff for allegedly declining to help him pass a bill named after Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant in 2024.
“I sat in Jon Ossoff’s office and demanded that he help America remember the name of our shared constituent. But no, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. He forgot her name until it was politically convenient,” Collins said.
We can’t be certain what happened between the two behind the scenes. But Collins didn’t make clear in the speech that Ossoff voted for the bill.
In July, Collins falsely claimed Ossoff voted against the bill. Collins didn’t go that far on Wednesday, but he also didn’t explicitly acknowledge Ossoff ended up joining him on the proposal.
This article has been updated with additional items.
CNN’s Deja Oliver and Isa Mudannayake contributed to this report.
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