Trump abandons unity pledge minutes into RNC speech, repeats fact-checked falsehoods

Accepting the Republican nomination in Milwaukee on July 18, 2024, days after surviving an assassination attempt, Trump opened by declaring "I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America" and called for healing the nation's "discord and division." Coverage of the speech noted the unifying tone "didn't last very long at all" before Trump pivoted to attacking Democrats over his criminal prosecutions and repeating false claims later catalogued by PolitiFact. Among them: that crime in Caracas, Venezuela was "down 72%" (independent data showed roughly 25%) and that El Salvador's murder rate fell because the country was "sending their murderers to the United States," a claim fact-checkers found no evidentiary basis for. He also claimed his presidency saw "no inflation" and had "the most secure" border in U.S. history, both rated false or mostly false by PolitiFact.