FactChecking Day 3 of the GOP Convention

Summary

CLEVELAND — On the third night of the Republican convention, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence accepted his party’s nomination for vice president, and Sen. Ted Cruz rejected calls to endorse the GOP ticket. But Pence and Cruz had one thing in common: They and other speakers distorted some of the facts.

• Vice presidential nominee Mike Pence said that Hillary Clinton’s “only answer” to the debt “is to keep borrowing and spending.” But the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that Trump’s tax and spending plan would cause a “massive increase” in the debt, while Clinton’s plan would result in a “relatively small”  increase.
• Pence said “we cannot have four more years of apologizing to our enemies,” an old claim from 2012 that Obama apologized to other countries. But we read through all the speeches in question and found none rose to the level of an apology.
• Pence said that “nearly 150,000 new jobs” were created in Indiana during his governorship. True, but 20 states and the District of Columbia had higher rates of job growth during the same time period.
• Eric Trump claimed that the U.S. is “one of the highest-taxed nations in the world,” but U.S. personal taxes aren’t even in the top ten among industrialized nations. The U.S. has one of the highest business tax rates.
• Florida Gov. Rick Scott claimed the U.S. has “world-record high debt” — it actually ranks 39th out of 178 nations in terms of debt as a percentage of GDP. And he said the U.S. economy is “not growing,” when it is.
• Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm wrongly said that “America now has more oil than Saudi Arabia or Russia.” The U.S. is now producing more petroleum, but the other two countries have much larger proved crude oil reserves.
• Texas Sen. Ted Cruz claimed Iran had “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” holidays. It doesn’t have such named holidays, but demonstrators are known to chant those messages on certain occasions.
• Both Cruz and Pence took a Hillary Clinton quote on the Benghazi terrorist attacks out of context, leaving the false impression that she didn’t care about the deaths of four Americans.
• Pastor Darrell Scott falsely claimed that there was “higher minority unemployment” under President Obama, when, in fact, the unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians were all down.

For the full story and all of our convention coverage go to FactCheck.org.