A comparison of former President Donald J. Trump’s addresses before the Republican National Convention in 2016 and 2024 demonstrates how his relationship to the truth has changed.
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Former President Donald J. Trump on the final night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this month.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s penchant for fabrication and hyperbole has long been a core tenet of his bombastic persona and political messaging. Two campaigns, one term in the Oval Office and eight years later, Mr. Trump has loosened his grasp on the facts even more.
A comparison of his addresses before the Republican National Convention in 2016 and 2024 demonstrates how his relationship to the truth has changed, offering a glimpse of how he will likely cast himself on the campaign trail as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
In 2016, when he accepted the nomination after a bitter primary campaign, with doubts and skepticism lingering over his candidacy, Mr. Trump hewed closely to his prepared remarks and paid some heed to the facts.
Last Thursday, he stood before a party altered in his image, after four nights of allies, friends and former foes repeating falsehoods and exaggerations that have become a staple of his speeches, rallies and social media posts.
As a result, the address Mr. Trump gave in 2024 was akin to one he might deliver at a rally, and almost twice as long as his speech in 2016 by the amount of words. The number of inaccurate claims also doubled, according to a New York Times analysis. In the span of two minutes of his acceptance speech this year, he rattled off five exaggerated or false claims.
Here’s a breakdown.
Mr. Trump veered farther from the facts.
Whereas many of Mr. Trump’s claims eight years ago contained a kernel of truth or simply omitted context, many of his claims during his acceptance speech last week were flat-out false.
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Source: nytimes.com
