At a rally in Montana on Saturday, President Trump inaccurately accused the state’s Democratic senator of supporting an “open borders” bill, falsely said the economy was “going down” before he took office and repeated a number of misleading claims.
What Trump Said
A bill sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, did receive the support of all Senate Democrats, including Jon Tester of Montana. But it did not open the border; rather, it sought to stop the separation of children from their families at the border.
The bill does not prevent deportations, as the president has said, nor does it halt prosecution of migrants for illegally entering the country. It also does not prevent family members from being detained together.
The Republican Party criticized the bill for being careless, because it was not specific to immigration enforcement. Mr. Trump’s characterization, however, distorts what the bill actually proposes.
What Trump Said
Regardless of which president deserves more credit for the healthy economy, Mr. Trump is wrong that the economy was declining until he took over.
Since the peak of the Great Recession, metrics show the economy had steadily improved under President Barack Obama’s second term. Unemployment declined to 4.8 percent in January 2017, when Mr. Trump took office, from 10 percent in October 2009. Gross domestic product has risen every year for the past nine years. And the stock market climbed steadily, too.
Other Claims
Mr. Trump also repeated a number of other claims The New York Times has previously debunked:
