Check out 5 things Trump said during Georgia visit

Former President Donald Trump appeared in Middle Georgia on Wednesday as campaigning on both sides of the political aisle ramped up ahead of the Nov. 5 event.

Trump’s visit, which was to hold a town hall at the Zebulon Chapel of Christ, was ostensibly to discuss religion, but it also veered into border security, inflation and other major campaign issues he has repeatedly stressed occasions

However, not everything Trump said was accurate. Here’s a look at some of the claims he made and what the facts say.

Gas and energy prices

Inflation and energy have been key features of Trump’s campaign, often appearing together in his catchphrase, “Drill, baby, drill,” referring to his desire to produce more oil in the US.

During his Zebulon town hall, Trump said he would lower energy prices by increasing US drilling in response to a question about inflation. Trump claimed this would lower energy prices and help lower costs for businesses and homeowners.

However, experts say that cutting costs is not that simple. The coronavirus pandemic disrupted supply chains for sand and steel, according to NPR, which are essential to oil production. This caused gas prices to hit record highs in 2022.

Also, oil is an internationally traded commodity, meaning its price is determined by a wide variety of factors that are often beyond the president’s control, according to the NPR report.

The international market does not want the price of oil to fall too much for fear of losing money, and experts say that if the US increases its oil production, other oil-producing countries may reduce their supply. That would mean very little change in gas prices.

On the topic of gas prices, Trump claimed at his town hall in Zebulon that average gas prices were higher than “five, six, seven dollars” a gallon under President Joe Biden, and that under him the average price of gasoline was $1.40 a gallon.

According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, the highest gas prices under Biden occurred in June 2022, when the average US gas price reached $5.03 a gallon. Gasoline prices never went above six or seven dollars. The current average price of gas is about $3.34.

Those same statistics show that the lowest average gas price under Trump was $2.34 in January 2019. Prices haven’t even been under $1.40 since March 2002.

border security

Border security featured prominently during Trump’s visit to Zebulon, with the former president saying border security is “the most important issue.”

“They’re letting murderers into our country, they’re letting prisoners into our country, they’re emptying their prisons into our country from all over the world,” Trump said, referring to what he sees as President Joe Biden’s approach to border security. “And to me it’s the biggest issue, I think it’s number one, and we’re going to do something to stop it.”

Trump claimed his administration built “hundreds of miles of wall.”

The total number of miles of border wall built under Donald Trump varies depending on how it’s counted. According to data from US Customs and Border Protection, the Trump administration built a total of 458 miles. However, these same data show that the vast majority of these miles were replacing existing barriers that were small and dilapidated, and did not add to the total length of barriers along the border.

The Trump administration built about 52 miles of new primary border barriers, or the first barriers people come to if they are trying to cross the southern border.

Trump also claimed during his remarks that his administration was “the most successful” in reducing illegal border crossings, and presented a chart to the audience that has been repeatedly disputed and that fact checkers have proven to have misleading information.

As he presented the chart to the crowd, he boasted of a low point in illegal border crossings that he said was his last day in office. There were 16,182 apprehensions at the border that day, but it wasn’t Trump’s last day in office. The statistic is from April 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when most of the world came to a standstill.

Illegal border crossings actually increased under Trump. In fiscal year 2017, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection, the total number of apprehensions at the border was about 415,500. By fiscal year 2019, that number had more than doubled to about 977,500.

Christians voting

Turning to religion, Trump said Christians vote at low rates in response to a question about what he would tell Christians before they go to the polls.

“Christians are not extraordinary voters,” Trump said. “If they were, we would never lose an election.”

According to an analysis by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, practicing Christians are more likely to vote compared to other eligible voters.

While white evangelical Christians tend to vote Republican, with 8 in 10 white evangelicals supporting Trump in his 2020 bid, other Christian groups are trickier.

Of people who attended church services for any denomination monthly or more often, the Pew Research Center found that 59% supported Trump while 40% supported Biden in 2020. These data also showed that black Christians overwhelmingly supported Biden, with 90% of blacks attending. monthly services or more often voting for the president.