---
source_url: https://politifact.com/article/2026/sep/10/trump-rnc-midterm-fact-check-speech/
---

Fact-check: Trump misleads on midterm candidates Talarico and El-Sayed, affordability at RNC
President Donald Trump headlined the first night of the Republicans’ first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, spotlighting policies about transgender people, illegal immigration and opponents who align with democratic socialism.
“We’re going to prove that America does not belong to those who hate it. America belongs to those who love it,” Trump said.
First-night speakers largely avoided the topic polls show is top of mind for voters: the cost of living. The Iran war — and a resulting gasoline-price spike — also received little mention.
Trump and other speakers mocked high-profile Democratic Senate candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas.
The gathering aired opposite the NFL season opener between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. The major networks did not carry the president’s speech live.
Here, we fact-check claims around two of the night’s major themes.
RELATED: [Live fact-checking: Night 1 of Donald Trump at RNC Midterm Convention in Dallas](https://politifact.com/article/2026/sep/09/live-fact-check-trump-rnc-convention/)
Attacks on Democratic Senate candidates
In the night’s opening moments, a narrator hinted at what was to come, mentioning El-Sayed and Talarico within seconds.
El-Sayed
Trump made a slew of accusations against El-Sayed, a former Michigan public health official, saying:
- El-Sayed “wants to pack the Supreme Court with 23 far-left lunatic justices.”
- El-Sayed’s sister “celebrated the terrorist slaughter of babies on October 7. She thought it was a great day.”
- El-Sayed’s mother “worked for an organization that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to people that follow Osama bin Laden.”
- And El-Sayed “campaigns with a Marxist agitator who says that America deserved 9/11.”
El-Sayed has called for term limits on Supreme Court justices and allowing each president to appoint the same number of justices. The plan doesn’t specifically call for increasing the [court to 23 justices](https://abdulforsenate.com/priority/money-out-of-politics/#h-supreme-court-reform), but in [response to a Trump Truth Social post](https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/2085466914982150174) mentioning that number, El-Sayed said, “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
El-Sayed’s half sister, Eman Abdelhadi, a University of Chicago professor, [posted](https://www.adl.org/resources/article/some-us-professors-praise-hamass-october-7-terror-attacks) on X “Morning Freedom” alongside a Palestinian flag emoji on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023 — the day Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. One year later, Abdelhadi [posted](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/el-sayeds-half-sister-offered-oct-7-blessing-one-year-after-hamas-attack-allahu-akbar) an “October 7th blessing” on[ Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/DA087rruRBn/?hl=en&img_index=1), describing it as a reminder that “the horizon of justice is just around the corner.” We did not find that she used the words Trump described.
El-Sayed’s mother, Fatten Fathy Elkomy, worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency from 1999 to 2004, the conservative Michigan publication [The Midwesterner reported](https://www.themidwesterner.news/2026/08/docs-abdul-el-sayeds-mother-worked-for-designated-terror-group-iara-that-provided-direct-financial-support-to-osama-bin-laden-taliban-hamas/). In 2004, [the U.S. Treasury Department](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/js2025) designated the organization and five senior officials for supporting terrorism, including providing financial support for bin Laden. No evidence shows Elkomy was involved in the alleged activity, and she was not charged with a crime. El-Sayed’s father and Elkomy [divorced when he was young](https://enjoyer.com/abdul-el-sayed-parents-childhood/), and his father remarried.
Several convention speakers talked about El-Sayed’s campaigning alongside Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has described himself as a [Marxist](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/style/hasan-piker-charlie-kirk.html) and socialist. [Piker said](https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/aug/07/mike-rogers/abdul-el-sayed-9-11-hasan-piker-michigan/) in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11” and has since walked it back.
El-Sayed [called it](https://youtu.be/wacRksAPl4s?si=ORpDdXk7R8-Z4CwV&t=937) “a dumb statement” and said he doesn’t agree with it. He said he has no plans to [campaign with Piker again](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/26/2026/el-sayed-says-no-plans-to-campaign-with-piker). He hasn’t severed ties with Piker. He recently told [interviewer Stephen A. Smith](https://news.grabien.com/story/abdul-el-sayed-on-hasan-piker-doesn-t-make-sense-to-just-categorically) that he doesn’t want to “categorically disavow” anyone, and that he wants to offer Piker’s audience a pathway into politics.
Talarico
Trump reserved a fiery diatribe for Talarico, a Texas House member running against state Attorney General Ken Paxton, at the event in his home state. Trump told a baseless story about Talarico vomiting after eating meat and said he wanted to end Texas’ oil and gas industry.
On gender identity: Trump said Talarico “says that God is transgender.”
Talarico, a seminarian and aspiring Presbyterian minister, [said](https://x.com/jamestalarico/status/1449100589380538377?s=20) on the Texas House floor in 2021 that Christians used “Scripture to justify hurting children” on a trans athletes bill. He said the Bible’s book of Genesis uses different Hebrew words to describe God; one is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity and the second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit.
“God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between,” he said then. “God is non-binary.”
He told [Fox News this week](https://www.foxnews.com/video/6404839214112), “I was being provocative. … You can’t use human categories to define God.”
Oil and gas: Trump said Talarico “authored a plan to annihilate Texas oil and gas.” Talarico’s campaign platform says Texas is the world’s “energy leader” and that he wants the state to keep that position.
As a House member in 2021, Talarico proposed the Texas Climate Action Act, a bill to combat climate change by establishing greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. The bill called for emissions to be at least 90% below 1990 levels by 2050 and at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2030. It stalled in a House committee.
In a Sept. 6 CBS News Texas [interview](https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/talarico-slams-paxton-data-centers-defends-filing-2021-bill-require-reductions-greenhouse-gas-emissions/), a reporter asked Talarico whether the bill could hurt the state’s oil and gas industry. He said he supports the industry while limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2020, while seeking reelection for the Texas House, he [compared](https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/01/politics/james-talarico-progressive-comments-kfile) Texas’ leadership in the oil and gas industry to “being the leader in cassette tapes in the 1980s,” saying “that industry is not gonna last.” JT Ennis, a spokesperson for Talarico’s campaign, [told CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/01/politics/james-talarico-progressive-comments-kfile) Talarico has acknowledged some of his past comments “missed the mark,” and that he wants to protect oil and gas jobs.
Meat: Trump took [false claims](https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/may/27/ken-paxton/in-texas-senate-race-ken-paxton-falsely-claims-jam/) about Talarico being vegan a step further, saying, “He was recently seen having a barbecue and eating a lot of meat … he ate it and then he was seen running backstage to a room and throwing up all over the place.” The White House did not respond to our request for evidence to support the story.
In a 2022 speech, Talarico advocated for reducing meat consumption and said his Texas House reelection campaign had become a “non-meat campaign.” In his 2026 Senate campaign, Talarico said he eats meat.
Affordability
Convention speakers generally sidestepped the economy and living expenses. Trump called affordability a “fake” issue created by Democrats, shifted blame for public dissatisfaction to the policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and exaggerated his own record.
“Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.”
This is [Mostly False](https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/aug/10/donald-trump/inflation-consumer-prices-groceries-gasoline-iran-war/).
Overall, prices have increased by about 4.3% since Trump began his second term in late January 2025. Groceries have risen by about 3.4%. The Iran war has particularly boosted energy prices; gasoline is up by 31% and fuel oil and natural gas have also risen. Electricity is up by more than 8%.
Car prices have gone down during this period. Also down are eggs, bacon and bread prices. But other common items in consumers’ carts, such as coffee, ground beef and chicken breasts, are up.
“The typical American’s 401k has gone up by almost $50,000.”
Data shows 401ks have gone up in value, but not by that much.
In late June, we [reported](https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/jun/25/donald-trump/401k-second-term-balance-stock-market/) that Fidelity Investments found that during the majority of Trump’s second term, average 401(k) account balances had risen by $9,454. An additional two months of stock gains since late June would not account for an additional $40,000-plus in gains.
In addition, the balance increase doesn’t stem only from stock market gains. Some of the increase comes from account holders’ contributions and potentially those of their employers.
“I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” paid from tariff revenue.
Trump also said the payout would come if Republicans win the midterm elections. He has [made similar promises before](https://politifact.com/article/2025/nov/10/trump-tariff-dividend-2000-stimulus/), telling Americans in 2025 they would receive a $2,000 dividend from the “trillions of dollars” in tariff revenue he said his administration has collected.
There are no formal proposals for a dividend at any amount and experts say the math doesn’t work out.
One reason is that Trump’s “trillions” in tariff revenue is [exaggerated](https://politifact.com/article/2026/aug/25/trump-trade-tariffs-supreme-court/). Federal data collected by the Tax Foundation think tank shows the federal government collected almost $363 billion in tariff duties from January 2025 to April 2026. Much of that will need to be refunded to American companies because the U.S. Supreme Court struck down tariffs Trump imposed using the main law he used as justification. Those refunds are now in process.
A payout would also have to be approved by Congress, and lawmakers declined to do so when they passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025.
CLARIFICATION, Sept. 10, 12:15 p.m. ET: We revised a line in the story comparing remarks from El-Sayed’s half sister and Trump.
Our Sources
Sources linked in story.