Fact-checking at Donald Trump’s Town Hall in Oaks, PA

Donald Trump’s Monday town hall in Oaks, Pa., made headlines for his impromptu 30-minute listening party and multiple medical emergencies that halted conversation with supporters.

Moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, proceedings were halted while two attendees received medical attention, at which point Trump jokingly asked if “anyone else would like to pass out?” Then he said, “No more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”

The Republican presidential candidate stopped taking questions from the audience about an hour after arriving and played music for 39 minutes.

There were also multiple false and misleading claims throughout the night, which Newsweek’s The fact-checking team has analyzed.

Newsweek A Trump representative was reached by email for comment.

“We didn’t lose a soldier in 18 months until this catastrophe happened when they took over.”

It refers to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Trump often mentions in his speeches. The last US troops left Afghanistan in late August 2021, days after an ISIS-K suicide bombing at Kabul airport killed 13 US service members and 170 Afghan civilians. .

Your claim about “not losing a soldier in 18 months” before the withdrawal is not true. The Department of Defense’s Defense Casualty Analysis System shows there were two hostile deaths in the 18 months leading up to the withdrawal in August 2021 and five non-hostile or pending deaths.

“We had interest rates at 2 percent, and now they’re 10 percent.”

Trump claimed that mortgage interest rates have reached 10 percent. This is not true. During Trump’s presidency, the lowest average interest rates on record for 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages were 2.65 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

Now they are not at 10 percent. Freddie Mac data, presented by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, they say the average 30-year fixed mortgage in the United States as of October 10, 2024 was 6.32 percent. The 15-year rate was 5.41 percent.

“They added 818,000 fake jobs, and they padded the job numbers a couple of months ago to make the jobs look better… they were fake.”

Trump claimed that the Biden administration had recently added 818,000 “fake jobs” to its economic projections, which is not true. There were no “fake jobs”.

As noted in a Poynter fact check, in August 2024, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced a “benchmark revision” of employment statistics for March 2024 .Using unemployment insurance tax records, the BLS reviewed the previous numbers on 818,000 jobs. The jobs that were downgraded were not “fake” jobs; they were part of recalculations of estimates. The final review will be published in February 2025.

“People are going to come into our country legally. You know it’s so unfair that you have people who are waiting … they’re tested, and then people will come, I’m actually like, ‘Why don’t you come in?'”

Trump suggested that it would be easier to become a US citizen by crossing the border than to apply for naturalization. It’s an inflammatory, but nonetheless misleading, comparison between those applying to become American citizens through naturalization, with Trump referring to the English and civics “tests” taken as part of this process, and those who enter the country without documentation.

Noncitizens who enter the country without establishing a legal basis to remain in the United States are deported to their country of origin or a third country, face a re-entry ban of at least five years, and may be charged with a crime

“Migrants who are caught crossing the border illegally will face arrest, possible detention, and deportation from the United States by the Department of Homeland Security,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“Springfield, Ohio, a city of 50,000, just added 32,000 people (who are) illegal immigrants.”

There is no evidence of this. A statement from the city of Springfield, Ohio says that Clark County (the county seat where Springfield is located) has an immigrant population of approximately 12,000-15,000.

“Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS),” the statement said.

“Haiti is designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security for TPS. Current TPS is granted until February 3, 2026.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services states that once TPS is granted, DHS cannot detain a person based on their immigration status in the United States.

“Kamala Harris has also facilitated the loss of 300,000 children.”

Kristi Noem, who joined Trump on stage, made that claim. Trump seemed to agree with this and has repeated a version of it before.

It is false, as he previously denied Newsweek. It was based on an audit by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which found that ICE had not issued warrants for 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children to appear in court. More than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children had failed to appear in court for immigration proceedings.

However, Trump and others have incorrectly said these numbers show that more than 300,000 children are missing. Migrant children are placed in foster care or with a sponsor by the Department of Health and Human Services, which aims to monitor placements.

The audit oversaw reporting under the Trump and Biden administrations.

“In Butler, Pennsylvania … we had 101,000 people.”

Trump was addressing the crowd at a recent rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of his first assassination attempt in July. This claim has been refuted by Newsweek. Estimates for Newsweek and others place the real figure below 59,000.