Former President Donald Trump held a press conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club, where he repeated several false and misleading claims on various issues, including crime, the economy, and immigration. Trump falsely claimed that crime had skyrocketed under the Biden administration, citing numbers he said were from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, FBI data released in June showed that the overall violent crime rate had declined by 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. The National Crime Victimization Survey also showed an increase in the number of times people were victims of violent crime, but the rate was not statistically different from 2019 when Trump was president.
Trump also made claims that thousands of people were being killed by “illegal migrants” in the U.S. However, there is no evidence to support this, as FBI statistics do not separate crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, and national statistics show that violent crime is actually on the way down. In terms of inflation, Trump claimed that prices had gone up like never before, but economists attribute the spike in inflation to disruptions caused by the pandemic and other factors. Inflation has now fallen to 2.5%, not far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with prices about 19% higher than before the pandemic. Household incomes have also risen by a similar amount, leaving inflation-adjusted incomes at roughly the same level as in 2019.
Trump further raised false claims about the voting system, suggesting that millions of ballots were being sent out all over the place. Election officials, however, have procedures in place to ensure that only one mail ballot is issued to each eligible voter. There are systems in place to verify voter eligibility and prevent multiple ballots from being issued to the same person. Trump also misrepresented a revision of U.S. job numbers, falsely claiming that a whistleblower forced the government’s recent downward revision of job gains by 818,000. In reality, the adjustment was part of a normal annual process conducted by career government employees.
Lastly, Trump claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration were secretly flying hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into the country. However, migrants are not being flown into the U.S. secretly by the government. Under a policy in effect since January 2023, up to 30,000 people from select countries can enter the country monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport, paying their own way. This policy allows for the admission of people on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. AP Fact Checkers and various Associated Press writers have contributed to this story to provide accurate information on the claims made by Trump.
