FACT CHECK: Three Checks On Trump’s Claims From His Las Vegas Rally
President Donald Trump held a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, Thursday night in support of Republican Sen. Dean Heller’s reelection campaign.
Here are three checks on his claims.
Claim 1: “Poverty is plummet– you see it. Poverty is plummeting.”
The nationwide poverty rate declined by 0.6 percent, from 14 percent in 2016 to 13.4 percent in 2017, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. While the poverty rate declined in 20 states, it increased in two states: Delaware and West Virginia.
The poverty rate declined at a faster rate in the previous two years. It fell 0.7 percent from 2015 to 2016 and 0.8 percent from 2014 to 2015.
The Census Bureau calculates a poverty rate using income thresholds that vary depending upon family size and composition. A household with two parents and two children, for example, that earned less than $24,858 in 2017 would have been considered in poverty.
Claim 2: Rep. Jacky Rosen “represents the extreme liberal values of her out-of-state donors funding almost 90 percent of her campaign.”
Rosen, Heller’s Democratic challenger in the midterms, has raised about $5.9 million in contributions over $200 from individual donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The center reported on OpenSecrets.org that 86 percent of those contributions, about $5.1 million, came from individuals outside of Nevada. Much of the out-of-state money came from the metropolitan areas of New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles-Long Beach and San Francisco.
The $5.9 million in large individual donations are only part of the total donations to Rosen’s campaign, though. The figure does not count small individual donations under $200 or contributions from political action committees.
The majority of Heller’s individual contributions over $200 are from out-of-state individuals as well. Of nearly $5.5 million in donations, $3.2 million – 59 percent – came from out of state.
Claim 3: “The stock market today just hit another all-time high.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Thursday at an all-time high of 26,656.98, and the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 2,930.75.
It was the 100th time the Dow closed at an all-time high since Trump was elected and its first record high since January. The Dow plunged by 1,175 points on Feb. 5, the sharpest one-day point decline in history.
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