CNN
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As a new Trump era dawns, the same old Trump lies.
The day before his second inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump held a campaign-style rally at a Washington arena, where he repeated some of the most common false claims of the campaign trail while sprinkling in new lies.
Here’s a fact check on some of his claims.
Trump’s victory in Florida: Trump rightly said he won Florida by 13 percentage points in the 2024 election. But then he added, “No one has ever done that.” » This is false; Republican presidential candidates Richard Nixon (1972), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984), and George H. W. Bush (1988), in addition to various Republican and Democratic candidates from previous decades, won Florida by more than 13 percentage points . Nixon, for example, won by 44 percentage points.
The 2020 election: Trump lamented what could have happened if only the 2020 election “hadn’t been rigged,” then added, “But it was.” And he later said in his speech that “they rigged the election.” This is his usual lie; Trump rightfully lost a free and fair election to Joe Biden.
The youth vote: Trump falsely claimed that “we won the youth vote by 36 points” in the 2024 election. He did not specify how he defined “the youth vote” – CNN asked his transition team to clarify – but there is no basis for its assertion by any reasonable definition. Even though young voters, particularly young men, did shift toward Trump compared to the 2020 election, exit poll data released by CNN found that Vice President Kamala Harris beat Trump by 54% to 43% among voters aged 18 to 24, and 53% to 45% among voters aged 18 to 24. among voters aged 25 to 29, and 51 to 45% among voters aged 30 to 39. Even if Harris’ actual margins were smaller – exit data is often flawed – there is simply no sign that Trump dominated Harris with young voters.
Pennsylvania in 2024: After thanking billionaire supporter Elon Musk for his campaign efforts in Pennsylvania, Trump claimed, “We ended up winning Pennsylvania like a landslide.” » The phrase “like in a landslide” is too vague for us to offer a definitive fact-checking verdict, but it’s worth noting that Trump beat Harris in Pennsylvania by less than 2 percentage points.
Small business optimism: Trump claimed that since the 2024 election, “small business optimism has climbed a record 41 points to its highest level in 39 years.” It’s true that small business optimism has jumped since Trump’s victory, but the “highest in 39 years” part of the statement is not true if Trump was referring to the Small Business Optimism Index NFIB companies, often cited. (CNN asked its transition team to clarify.) This index reached its highest level since October 2018, less than seven years ago.
Trump’s claim of a 41-point increase appears to be a reference to one component of the optimism index: the percentage of small business owners expecting the economy to improve. This measure increased by 41 percentage points between the October pre-election period and the November post-election period.
Trump’s favorite immigration chart: Trump displayed a long-debunked graph of migration numbers at the U.S. southern border, drawing attention to a red arrow at the bottom — which the graph says points to a historic low level of illegal immigration at the time. where Trump left office in 2021.
But the arrow doesn’t actually indicate the time Trump left office. In reality, this refers to April 2020, when Trump still had more than eight months left in his first term and global migration had slowed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. After reaching a roughly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, the number of migrants at the southern border increased every month through the end of Trump’s term.
“The Congo” and migration: Trump reiterated his baseless claim that foreign countries deliberately emptied their prisons so that criminals could somehow enter the United States as migrants, and added: “Congo is very committed to emptying its prisons. » Experts from the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo told CNN that there was no evidence for these claims, which Trump’s own presidential campaign could not corroborate, and the government from each country told CNN that the claims were baseless.
Venezuela, prisons and migration: Trump reiterated his claim that Venezuela “emptied its prisons to our country.” Trump has never corroborated this claim, and experts have told CNN, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org that they are not aware of any evidence for it.
“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health facilities to send them out of the country, that is, to the United States or any other country,” said Roberto Briceño- León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Education Observatory. Violence, an independent organization that tracks violence in the country, said in an email to CNN in June, after Trump made similar statements.
Trump and the military: Trump, speaking about military equipment, reiterated his false claim that “we rebuilt our entire military” during his first term. “This statement is far from true. The military has tens of thousands of pieces of equipment, and the vast majority of it predates the Trump administration,” Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. November 2023, after Trump makes a version of this claim.
Iran and terrorist groups: Trump reiterated his false claim that during his first term, Iran “did not have money for Hezbollah, nor for Hamas.” Iranian funding of these groups actually declined during the second half of his presidency, largely because its sanctions on Iran had a major negative impact on its economy, but the funding never completely ceased, as four experts told CNN in 2024. In fact, Trump’s own administration said in 2020 that Iran continued to fund terrorist groups, including Hezbollah. You can read a longer fact check here.
Harrison said in an email at the time: “Additionally, the process of acquiring new equipment for the military is slow and takes many years. It is not at all possible to replace even half of the military equipment in a single presidential term.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
