In a rambling, often-incoherent speech following the delegate roll call that formalized his nomination, Donald Trump talked about a number of things “you don’t hear about” and “not a lot of people know.”
Trump claimed that mail in voting would mean definite fraud with “vote harvesting, a lot of vote harvesting” and how the election will be rigged unless he wins.
He described that people–presumably Democrats–would go around to houses, knock on people’s doors, ask them to sign a ballot and then fill out it instead of having the voter vote. “That’s vote harvesting,” Trump claimed.
He again falsely claimed that he passed VA choice (which was passed in 2014 under President Obama) and that he’s protected pre-existing conditions (he is leading a lawsuit in Texas to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act).
Trump also falsely stated that “Most Favored Nation Trading Status” means that the United States always gets the lowest price offered to anyone, “like socialistic countries do.”
Some other Trumpisms:
- Saying that Democrats want to eliminate guns, God and fossil fuels: “George Washington could come back from the dead and nominate for his vice president the late, great Abraham Lincoln, and they won’t do so good in Texas if they have no guns, no God and no oil.” (Fact check: Texas seceded from the nation when Abraham Lincoln was president.)
- “It used to take 17 years, 18 years, 21 years to build a highway…. now we have it down to two.” (Fact check: Well, no. Planning, engineering, construction, land acquisition and various other things mean it will still take years to build “a highway.”)
- Claiming that HBCUs never got federal funding–and then back tracking to say that HBCUs didn’t know if they “would be there” year after year because of annual funding requests–Trump said, “Nobody’s done for Historically Black Colleges and Universities than Donald Trump.” (Fact check: Annual funding has been in place since 1965, and HBCUs each have their own endowments.)
- “I think we have the greatest base of support anywhere at any time in any election.” (Fact check: Trump lost the popular vote in 2016.)
- Relating a tale (likely made up) he said a republican Congressman from Tennessee, which has early voting, came up to him at a Pennsylvania rally and told him: “They’re coming from the valleys. They’re coming from the hilltops. They’re coming from the cities. They’re coming from the rivers. … They came from the mountains. I’ve never seen it.”