'Pants on fire!': Fact-checker finds Trump campaign speech was riddled with lies

Former President Donald Trump during his Republican National Convention nomination speech made false claims about foreign insane asylums, Medicare, inflation, the capital of Venezuela, military equipment in Afghanistan, murders in El Salvador and jobs in America.

He did, however, tell the truth about his ear.

That's according to the Poynter Institute fact checkers at Politifact, who on Friday morning released a report that found Trump's address to the nation included 17 serious lies about policies and strategies at the heart of his campaign.

One lie was so egregious it received a "pants on fire!" rating from the prestigious and nonpartisan media nonprofit.

Only three out of 20 comments PolitiFact investigated were not deemed false and two of those came with caveats of "half true" and "compromise."

Trump's only true comment appears to have been about his own ear.

"The ears are the bloodiest part," Trump said. "If something happens with the ears, they bleed more than any other part of the body.”

The fact-checkers rated this mostly true but noted, "Although the ears do bleed heavily, PolitiFact could not identify statistical evidence that they are the “bloodiest part” of the body."

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PolitiFact noted they did not check every statement Trump made during his rambling 93-minute speech, but did find many particularly worthy of note.

Here are just a few:

1. Immigrants are “coming from prisons, they’re coming from jails, they’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "Immigration experts said despite those data limitations, there is no evidence to support Trump’s statement. Many people in Latin American countries face barriers to mental health treatment, so if patients are coming to the U.S., they are probably coming from their homes, not psychiatric hospitals."

2. “Caracas, Venezuela, really dangerous place, but not anymore. Because in Venezuela, crime is down 72%”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "There is no evidence that Venezuela’s government is emptying its prisons and sending criminals to the United States."

3. The jobs that are created under Biden, “107% of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.”

"Mostly False," PolitiFact writes. "The unemployment rate for native-born workers under Biden is comparable to what it was during the final two prepandemic years of Trump’s presidency."

4. Our current administration, groceries are up 57%, gasoline is up 60% and 70%, mortgage rates have quadrupled.”

"Mostly False," PolitiFact writes. "Trump exaggerated the percentages."

5. The Biden administration is “the only administration that said we’re going to raise your taxes by four times what you’re paying now.”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "Biden is proposing a tax increase of roughly 7% over the next decade, not 300%, as Trump claims."

6. “Democrats are going to destroy Social Security and Medicare, because all of these people, by the millions, they’re coming in. They’re going to be on Social Security and Medicare and other things, and you’re not able to afford it. They are destroying your Social Security and your Medicare.”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "Immigration is far from a fiscal fix-all for Social Security’s challenges. But having more immigrants in the United States would increase the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, potentially for decades, thus extending the program’s solvency, economic experts say."

7. “I will end the electric vehicle mandate on Day 1.”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "There is no electric vehicle mandate to begin with."

8. When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, we “left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment.”

"False," PolitiFact writes. "This is an exaggeration...A 2022 independent inspector general report informed Congress that about $7 billion of U.S.-funded equipment remained in Afghanistan and in the Taliban’s hands. According to the report, 'The U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout the drawdown period in 2021.'"

9. “They used COVID to cheat.”

"Pants on Fire!" PolitiFact declared. "The 2020 election was certified by every state and confirmed by more than 60 court cases nationwide."