Editor’s note: This fact check is part of Lee Montana’s exclusive print partnership with PolitiFact for the 2024 U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy.
In his first campaign rally since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump attacked Walz and rallied support for a crucial Senate seat in Montana.
“If Comrade Walz and Comrade Harris win this November, the people cheering will be the pink-haired Marxists, the looters, the perverts, the flag burners,” Trump said, invoking a common but misleading line of attack that seeks to paint Democrats’ policies as socialist.
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Trump took the stage later than expected at his Friday night rally in Bozeman, Montana, after a mechanical problem forced his plane to divert 140 miles east to Billings. The plane landed without incident. Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, did not attend.
In his speech, Trump zeroed in on the state’s Democratic senator, Jon Tester, criticizing the votes Tester took to support major legislation passed under President Joe Biden’s administration, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. Tim Sheehy, the Republican running to unseat Tester, spoke alongside Trump.
Trump also criticized Harris and Biden on issues such as immigration and the economy. We fact-checked five of his claims.
Trump: I handed Biden ‘a surging economy with no inflation’
This is inaccurate. Trump has made this claim before.
Although inflation was lower during Trump’s presidency than it has been under Biden’s, the Consumer Price Index 12-month change was never at zero percent.
It fell close to zero in April and May 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset. The lowest inflation rate was 0.1% in May 2020.
That’s because the American economy took a major hit as the demand for goods and services plunged during the pandemic’s initial lockdowns. Trump claiming credit for the low inflation at that time ignores that the rate dropped because of economic crisis, not success.
For much of Trump’s presidency until the pandemic, inflation ranged from 1.5% to 3%. When Biden entered office in January 2021, inflation was at 1.4%.
Trump: ‘By the millions and millions, (immigrants are) coming from prisons, they’re coming from jails’
Trump’s claim that immigrants are flowing across the border from prisons and mental institutions lacks evidence, and data and expert analysis reveal his description of them coming by the “millions and millions” to be so implausible as to be ridiculous.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that officials have arrested just more than 110,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions, whether in the U.S. or abroad. Not all were let into the country. The data reflects numbers the federal government knows about, but it isn’t exhaustive.
There have been about 8 million encounters at the border since Biden took office. But encounters data represents events, not people. For example, if one person tries to cross the border three times and is stopped each time, that would count as three encounters.
