Gas prices, midterms: Fact-checking Trump’s 2024 announcement

(NewsNation) — Former President Donald Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday, highlighting certain issues on which he plans to focus.

In his speech, during which he introduced a plan called the “National Greatness Agenda,” Trump discussed everything from domestic and international issues to his own political power.

NewsNation fact-checked some of what he said, and this is what we found:

Endorsements

Trump claimed that he endorsed 232 winning candidates and 22 who lost during the midterm elections, which would give him an 80% success rate.

However, data from Ballotopedia cited by the Washington Post shows Trump endorsed more people who lost than he claimed in the primary and general midterms. This statement is also missing some key context: Many of his candidates were running in safe red districts, so they weren’t competitive races.

Out of nearly 30 Senate candidates Trump endorsed, six lost. Even high-profile names — like Blake Masters, who ran for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, Adam Laxalt, who made a bid for Nevada’s Senate seat; and Mehmet Oz, who ran for the Senate in Pennsylvania Senate — lost their races.

In fact, some Republicans are even blaming Trump for the party’s failure to bring an expected “red wave” to Congress.

“This was definitely a bad midterm election for former President Trump, there’s no doubt about it,” The Hill columnist Niall Stanage told “Morning in America.”

Gas prices

In his speech, Trump touted that gas was $1.87 during his presidency, and said that now, “it’s hitting $5, $6, $7 and even $8.”

This statement is misleading.

During the early months of the pandemic, gas prices dropped to $1.87 or lower, but that’s because people were largely staying at home and demand plummeted. The current average, according to AAA, was about $3.74 for one gallon of regular gas as of Wednesday afternoon. California averages out at the highest, at about $5.40 per gallon, because of state rules and taxes.

Border Wall

Trump, in his remarks, said that the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border that he campaigned on in 2016, is finished.

“We built the wall and now we will add to it. Now, we built the wall. We completed the wall, and then we said let’s do more. We did a lot more. As we were doing it, we had an election that came up. When they came in, they had three more weeks to complete the additions to the wall, which would’ve been great. But they said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that,’” Trump said in his speech.

Saying that it is complete would be false.

According to Customs and Border Protection, more than 450 miles of the wall had been completed under Trump, but 280 more miles had not been.

His administration, according to U.S News, appropriated $15 billion for the controversial wall’s construction.

Green New Deal

“The socialist disaster known as the Green New Deal, which is destroying our country, and the many crippling regulations that it has spawned, will be immediately terminated so that our country can again breathe and grow and thrive like it should,” Trump said.

Trump cannot terminate the Green New Deal, a legislative proposal that calls for public policies to address climate change, as it did not pass Congress and has not been enacted.