Donald Trump claimed on Thursday there is no money available for home mortgages, that he was indicted nine times and that there are 19 different ways of pronouncing Vice President Kamala Harris’ first name.
“The cost of the typical monthly mortgage has really tripled, and you can’t get the money,” the coup-attempting criminal former president said in a speech ostensibly about energy at a steel plant in Michigan. “So, you know, you’ll go from 2% to 10% but you can’t get the money at 10%. I guess they want more than that, but you just can’t get the money.”
In fact, banks and credit unions have plenty of money to lend for home purchases. Trump was indicted not nine times, but four — five if you count a superseding indictment filed earlier this week for his actions related to his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt. And, according to Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, there is one correct way to pronounce her name.
Trump also brought up a variety of other complaints and comments in his 66 minutes of remarks, many of them greatly exaggerated or flatly false.
He said that President Joe Biden was sleeping too much, while Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un do very little sleeping. He claimed, falsely, that the United States had the strongest economy in history on his watch and, also falsely, that he had the largest tax cuts in American history. He claimed that in certain states, parents were allowed to kill newborns immediately after birth.
In fact, the economy was stronger at numerous other points, and tax cuts under presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were larger than his.
What’s more, there are no states that permit the murder of newborn babies.
Trump further claimed that crimes are falling all over the world because other countries are sending their criminals to the United States.
There is no factual basis for that claim, and his campaign did not respond to queries asking for sources backing it up.
Even when Trump finally did speak about energy, many of his statements were false.
“You know where we’re getting a lot of our energy now? Venezuela,” he said.
In fact, the United States imports a negligible amount of oil from that country, according to U.S. government statistics.
Trump’s only real energy “policy” in the energy speech was a previously announced pledge to lower gasoline and electricity prices by 50%.
“My goal will be to cut your energy costs in half within 12 months after taking office,” he said.
Oil industry experts, though, point out that Trump’s promise ignores a fundamental reality that oil prices are set in a global market and that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers have decided not to let the world price fall much below $75 per barrel.
In recent years, OPEC nations have cut their production as U.S. companies have increased theirs. As a result, oil prices have remained largely unchanged.
In any case, if gas prices somehow actually fell to half their current levels, it would likely be accompanied by a deep recession and the collapse of the U.S. oil industry, which cannot break even if oil were to fall to $20-$30 per barrel — the level necessary for gasoline to cost $1.70 per gallon.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump defended his use of a visit to Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week to make a campaign video — even though federal law prohibits the use of the cemetery for political purposes.
Trump said he was invited by three families of service members who died during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan who, after the wreath-laying ceremony, asked him for photos.
“Would you take pictures with us, sir? Absolutely, I did,” he said. “And last night I read that I was using the site to politick, that I used it to politick. This all comes out of Washington, just like all of these prosecutors come out of Washington, they all come out. They send their prosecutors into the DA’s office. They send them into the attorney general’s office. These are bad people we’re dealing with.”
The Army has issued a statement saying that the rule banning campaign photography had been explained to Trump’s staff beforehand, but that Trump violated it anyway.