The first day of the Republican National Convention saw at least thirty misleading or exaggerated claims being pushed by speakers, according to a tally from the New York Times. According to the newspaper’s live fact checking blog, speakers repeatedly offered sometimes wild mischaracterizations of the president’s rival Joe Biden as a “socialist” and “radical” who would destroy the economy. Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the UN, wrongly claimed that Biden would ban fracking as president, whereas President Donald Trump’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr. falsely claimed the Biden supports “open border policies” and want “more illegal immigrants to take jobs from American citizens.” President Trump also boldly tried to paint himself as the savior of the U.S. Postal Service, falsely saying that, if anyone was “getting rid” of postal workers, “it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans.” Trump also repeated one of his favorite false claims that the novel coronavirus pandemic is simply “going away.”
