5:58
- ABC News
- Donald Trump
- September 16, 2020
Trump's ABC News town hall: Fact check
President Trump responded to questions from uncommitted voters Tuesday.
5:58
Cities with higher population and urban areas are certainly represented predominantly by Democrats, but the rise in violent crime across the nation has not been restricted to those that are run by Democrats. The insinuation of a Democratic leader as the cause of the rising crime is not an accurate claim. High population areas and urban areas, run by leaders on both ends of the political spectrum, have historically had higher reported instances of violent crime.
For instance, the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings nationwide, last month reported that the country was on pace for nearly 600 mass shootings, which would be the highest total tallied by the group in its history. That predicted total was not a summation of only Democratic-run cities but as a result of the rising crime rate nationwide, including cities and towns led by Republican officials.
--Alexander Mallin and Terrance Smith
TRUMP'S CLAIM: \"New York was a very safe city. Rudy Giuliani did a fantastic job. The city was safe and then, all of a sudden, we have a mayor -- he starts cutting the police force, and crime is up 100%, 150%. I saw one form of crime up 300%.\"
FACT CHECK: To bolster his baseless claim that Democrats are the driving factor for increases in crime in certain cities, Trump pointed to his hometown of New York City -- where he incorrectly argued that under Mayor Bill de Blasio's leadership crime has worsened since the tenure of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who left office in 2001 and now serves as Trump's personal attorney.
The numbers tell a different story, though, with crime rates under Giuliani much higher than they are now.
While New York City has seen a spike in homicides and shooting incidents this year – a rise that preceded cuts to the New York Police Department – statistics from the NYPD show that totals for most major crimes still remain well below where they were in 2001, Giuliani's last year in office.
Giuliani indeed oversaw a significant decrease in crime levels during his tenure, but a side-by-side comparison between last year's crime totals and the totals in 2001 show a dramatic difference.
In 2001, there were 649 murders, 27,873 robberies, 23,020 felony assaults and 32,694 burglaries in New York. Last year, there were 319 murders, 13,369 robberies, 20,695 felony assaults and 10,778 burglaries.
While the most recent crime statistics in New York City show that murders are up 35% and burglaries are up 41% in comparison with this time last year, totals for both by the end of the year are still not on track to exceed the totals from 2001.
--Alexander Mallin
TRUMP'S CLAIM: \"We want people to come into our country ... but we want them to come in through a legal system.”
FACT CHECK: Trump campaigned on the promise to crack down on both legal and illegal immigration.
Under his administration, levels of legal immigration have decreased using such measures as caps on refugee admissions and sharp restrictions on people making asylum claims at the border.
Fighting tears, a new U.S. citizen who just lost her mother, asks, “What would you change to make more people like me and like her to become citizens?”
— ABC News (@ABC) September 16, 2020
Trump: “We want people to come into our country…but we want them to come in through a legal system.” https://t.co/5rferlTBvn pic.twitter.com/vAvcv3TAKt
Last year, the administration set a refugee cap of 18,000 people, which was down from the 110,000 limit set by Obama in 2016. The U.S. no longer leads the world in refugee admissions, according to a Pew Research Center report.
The president has ordered the suspension of several visa types this year, including employment-based visas, citing the health crisis.
--Anne Flaherty and Quinn Owen
TRUMP'S CLAIM: \"We have run it so much better than Obama ran it.\"
FACT CHECK: This claim grossly misrepresents how the Trump administration has administered the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which the administration is currently in court seeking to dismantle.
Trump has cut funding for Obamacare advertising and navigators that help people obtain health care coverage, and limited enrollment periods for Americans.
The administration in March decided against opening up a window for people to sign up for health care at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
--Benjamin Siegel
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/town-hall-9-abc-er-200915_1600220501261_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
TRUMP'S CLAIM: \"We're very close to having a vaccine. ... We're within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks but we think we have it.\"
FACT CHECK: Trump's timeline is overly optimistic and exaggerates how soon most Americans will be able to get vaccinated.
Several potential COVID-19 vaccines are currently going through phase III of trials, with pharmaceutical companies enrolling tens of thousands of participants to test the vaccines' safety and efficacy before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve their general use.
Top U.S. government public health officials and other experts have said that it's possible if everything goes well -- but unlikely -- that vaccine trials will have enough clear and compelling data will be available by the end of October or beginning of November. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost infectious disease expert, has said he thinks there will be a \"safe and effective vaccine\" by \"the end of this calendar year.\"
But even once that data becomes available for one or more of the vaccines, it will still need to be reviewed by the FDA and an independent advisory committee.
At that point, if the FDA determines the data shows the vaccine is safe and effective, it's possible the agency will grant approval for its use, either in a limited manner with an \"emergency use authorization,\" or for more broad use. At that point, the vaccine is expected to be first given to high-priority groups, like health care workers or those living in nursing homes. It will take months before the wider U.S. general population receives it, according to public health officials.
--Ben Gittleson
TRUMP'S CLAIM: \"We're starting to get very good marks if you look at what we've done compared to other countries with the excess mortality, the excess mortality rate.\" // \"Excess mortality rate -- it’s compared to Europe. Compared to other places, it's about 25% better. In one case, it's over 60% better. And we also have a very big country -- you know, this is -- we're talking about a lot bigger than most countries. \"
FACT CHECK: \"Excess mortality\" is the number of total deaths in a period of time compared with the number of expected deaths.
It's a poor comparison to make, since it doesn't reflect differences in demographics, population density and the state of the pandemic in each place.
The available data is poor, but using the midpoint of an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and EuropeMOMO data adjusted for population -- the latter of which is missing large parts of Europe -- the rate is about the same for the United State and Europe, according to an analysis by FactCheck.org.
Another source, the \"Human Mortality Database,\" shows that Europe's rate -- not adjusted for population -- is 32% higher, but accounting for population, it's actually 32% lower, according to the FactCheck.org analysis.
Due to the unavailability of strong data, demographic differences, uneven timing of outbreaks, and other factors, Trump's comparison is misconstrued.
--Ben Gittleson
TRUMP'S CLAIM: Stephanopoulos noted that the United States had just 4% of the world's population but more than 20% of its COVID-19 cases and more than 20% of its COVID-19 deaths. Trump replied: \"Well, we have 20% of the cases because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn't do testing you wouldn't have cases. You would have very few cases.\"
FACT CHECK: While the U.S. has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country, Trump is incorrect to say that the level of testing accounts for the country's proportionately higher number of confirmed cases, which he has repeatedly claimed for months.
Fundamentally, cases of COVID-19 exist in a population whether or not testing picks them up.
More testing will, of course, identify more cases.
But according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there are at least several countries that have conducted more testing per capita than the U.S., but also have fewer cases per capita than the U.S. does -- such as Australia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Those figures reflect all-time averages of daily tests conducted per capita -- and the daily percentage of tests that come back positive, which is known as the \"positivity rate\" or the \"percent positive rate.\"
Despite having one of the highest rates of tests per capita, the U.S. faces the largest outbreak in the world and new cases continue to trend upward in many states. The percent positivity in the U.S. remains high at 8%, when other countries with high testing figures report a significantly lower percent positivity rate, according to Johns Hopkins.
Trump is mistaken to suggest the higher reported rate of cases in the United States is purely a result of the increased testing.
--Ben Gittleson and Arielle Mitropoulos
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to include a fact check of Trump's claims about crime in New York City.
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