After three hectic days at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump took the stage at the Quicken Loans Arena Thursday night and accepted the Republican nomination for president. While Trump might have gotten those in attendance to cheer, fact-checkers weren't fooled.
Trump debunked
It started with Melania Trump being accused of plagiarizing for her convention speech, as experts quickly proved that she had lifted parts of Michelle Obama's DNC speech in 2008.
On Wednesday night, the convention continued its controversy when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz refused to endorse Trump when he appeared on stage, leading to members of the audience attempting to attack his wife, Heidi Cruz, who was sitting in crowd. When the billionaire real estate mogul finally gave his convention acceptance speech, he delivered information that didn't hold up to fact-checkers, as reported by The New York Daily News on July 21.
After a unknown Republican leaked the final draft of Trump's speech to the press, it was only a matter of time before the public knew what was inside. In his prepared remarks, Trump claims that "decades of progress" involved with limiting crime has been the victim of President Obama's "rollback of criminal enforcement," However, fact-checkers show that the violent crime is actually at it's lowest rate in over 45 years, to which they cited statistics from the FBI.
Trump continued his theme of violence, stating that murders in Washington, D.C. "have risen by 50 percent." That number is also wrong, as local police reports show that killings in D.C. have gone down, falling 9 percent over the last year.
Other failed statements
The former host of "The Apprentice" then went on to blame Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), saying that before Clinton became Secretary of State in 2009, "ISIS was not even on the map." Once again, Trump was misleading in his statement as ISIS was originally formed in 2004 as part of al Qaeda in Iraq, and renamed in 2006.
Turning his attention to economics, Trump made what many are considering his biggest "whopper" of the night.
The GOP nominee said that the United States was "one of the highest-taxed nations" in the entire world. Fact-checkers listed over 30 nations where taxes are higher than in the U.S. Trump continued his speech, as many other claims failed to hold up to fact-checking.
Election outlook
Despite failing to earn a passing grade from fact-checkers, the majority of Republicans praised Trump's speech, and the crowd was enthusiastic about the upcoming general election. Current poll numbers show a tight race, as Clinton has a slim advantage of just under five points. Trump's biggest issues are with minority voters, where he will be forced to quickly make-up ground if he plans to move into the White House next January.