In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, said he would and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.
Here's a look at some of those claims. ___
CROWD SIZES
CLAIM: 鈥淭he biggest crowd I鈥檝e ever spoken 鈥� I鈥檝e spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody鈥檚 spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.鈥�
THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.鈥檚 famous 鈥淚 Have a Dream鈥� speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.
But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.
Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, . The Associated Press that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump鈥檚 address.
Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the , which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at , a grassy area just south of the White House.
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JAN. 6
CLAIM: 鈥淣obody was killed on Jan. 6.鈥�
THE FACTS: That鈥檚 false. in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress鈥� effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden鈥檚 2020 election victory.
Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt鈥檚 death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.
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DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
CLAIM: 鈥淭he presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I鈥檓 no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.鈥�
THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. is determined by the Democratic National Committee.
Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for 鈥減resent,鈥� the only other option on the ballot.
The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party鈥檚 deadline following President Joe Biden鈥檚 decision to on July 21.
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THE ECONOMY
CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: 鈥淵ou wouldn鈥檛 have had inflation. You wouldn鈥檛 have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they鈥檝e gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They鈥檙e drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.鈥�
THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president鈥檚 control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn鈥檛 get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine鈥檚 wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.
Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level .
Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden鈥檚 $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn鈥檛 cause inflation all by itself. And Trump in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.
Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden鈥檚, such as , and the , though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia鈥檚 invasion.
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IMMIGRATION
CLAIM: 鈥淭wenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration 鈥� 20 million people 鈥� and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows."
THE FACTS: Trump鈥檚 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn鈥檛 provide sources.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That鈥檚 arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.
U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.
All told, that鈥檚 nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.
There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as 鈥済ot-aways鈥� in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn鈥檛 publish that number.
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CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris "was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she鈥檚 not the border czar anymore.鈥�
THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address 鈥渞oot causes鈥� of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.
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NEW YORK CASES
CLAIM: 鈥淭he New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.鈥�
THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases in New York 鈥� one civil and the other criminal.
Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The civil case was initiated from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, . In May, a jury on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___
Find AP Fact Checks here: .
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An earlier version of this story mixed up 鈥渓atter鈥� and 鈥渇ormer鈥� in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.鈥檚 鈥淚 Have a Dream鈥� speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump's speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Associated Press
