At the November 1 rally in Milwaukee, Trump spreads falsehoods about the economy and climate change

On his last scheduled visit to the battleground state of Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump held a rally at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, the site where he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in July.

The November 1 rally, which lasted more than an hour and 40 minutes, featured repeated attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris (saying she was “low IQ” and “an idiot”) and was videotaped -Supercut shown showing how many times Harris mentioned his name during her October 29 speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC

Trump also insulted the governor of neighboring Illinois, Democrat JB Pritzker, saying: “You're not allowed to use the word 'fat,' so I won't, but this guy is disgusting.”

Trump made a lengthy reference to the venue's “broken fucking microphone” and asked the audience if they “wanted to see me beat the crap out of the people backstage responsible for the sound system failures.”

He made many false and misleading statements.

On the economy, Trump said the announcement earlier in the day that the U.S. added 12,000 jobs in October was “among the worst numbers ever in history.” However, during recessions, the economy typically loses jobs for months. Trump himself experienced a massive slump in April 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists said the slower-than-expected employment gain in October was at least partly due to the impact of the hurricane and a strike at Boeing Co.

Trump was more accurate when he said the economy had lost nearly 100,000 manufacturing jobs since the start of the year. The number is 93,000. However, he said today's economic situation is “like a depression,” which is wrong. The unemployment rate is 4.1%, compared to about 25% during the Great Depression, and the economy is growing at 2.8% annually.

Trump also described claims about climate change as alarming. He said: “The ocean will rise an eighth of an inch in 500 years. Who the hell cares?” This Pants on Fire claim vastly underestimates how quickly the oceans are rising. NASA data shows that current sea level rise is about 0.17 inches, or about an eighth of an inch per year, rather than every five centuries.

At one point, Trump said, “I don’t want your money. I want your vote.” But as he delivered his speech, his campaign sent out a mass email saying that tonight was a “critical” fundraising deadline and that “it would mean a lot to me If you could commit to donating again.”

Trump also said that illegal immigrant gangs are taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado (local officials disagree), that countries like Congo and Venezuela are emptying their prisons and “insane asylums” to send people to the U.S. (claims that are not supported become). , that he signed the largest tax cut in the country's history (False), that Americans will become “rich as hell” as a result of his plan to raise tariffs on imported goods by 10 to 20% (economists are almost unanimous on this agree) that “We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation in the world… including Saudi Arabia and Russia” (the US is ninth, behind the two countries he named), and even that he the was the first Republican to win all 77 Oklahoma counties (George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney preceded him).

While Trump spoke in Milwaukee, Harris spoke in nearby West Allis, Wisconsin. She largely repeated the closing arguments she had made in recent appearances. Before Harris took the stage, rapper Cardi B told the crowd that she had not planned to vote before Harris accepted President Joe Biden's nomination. She praised Harris as “not delusional.”

PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this report.