GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With all the visits and attention Michigan has been getting, there's been a lot of claims from a lot of high-profile people.
As we've continued to VERIFY presidential candidates' visits we've covered in Michigan, we're now set to look at some of the claims made by former President Donald Trump to Michigan voters at his rally in Grand Rapids on Saturday.
So, let's VERIFY!
CLAIM #1
First, Trump made a claim about how much was being spent for a certain number of electric vehicle chargers in our region among others.
"You know, in the Midwest, they opened up chargers," Trump said. "They opened up eight chargers. You read about this, $9 billion they spent for eight chargers."
WHAT WE FOUND
We didn't find anything to suggest a $9 billion price tag for only 8 chargers, as Trump seemingly suggests. What we did find was $7.5 billion in spending from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for a national network of E-V chargers that aims to help get half a million chargers up by 2030.
But the progress has been slow. According to Politifact, the Federal Highway Administration had told them that, as of April, seven stations funded by that money had opened.
The number eight may come from when the chair of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee in the U.S. House said in April that only eight charging stations had opened up to that point in the two and a half years since the act was passed.
CLAIM #2
Trump claimed that Biden had been untruthful about a certain economic circumstance to which he entered office in 2021.
"And when you hear [Biden], that low IQ guy, get up and say, 'I inherited 9% inflation,' false," Trump said. "He inherited 1.4, but really nothing."
WHAT WE FOUND
While 1.4% isn't entirely nothing, Trump is correct.
Where Biden had claimed he inherited a 9% inflation rate when he entered office, Bureau of Labor and Statistics data showed a 1.4% 12-month increase in January of 2021 in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is the rate that is commonly cited as the rate of inflation.
This rate did not reach the 9% mark until June of 2022, over a year into Biden's term.
CLAIM #3
Trump also made a claim about the husband of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
"Nobody else could do anything but [Whitmer's] husband," he said. "Her husband was sailing in the middle of your lake, your beautiful lake. He's out there sailing, and everybody else had to be locked up, right?"
WHAT WE FOUND
Here, Trump was likely referencing a controversy from back in April of 2020 during the height of the pandemic, when Whitmer's husband reportedly tried to use his position to convince a local business to be quicker in getting his boat in the water for memorial day weekend.
Whitmer later responded, saying it was a failed attempt at humor. By that point in the year, restrictions on motorized boating were no longer in place, as long as other social distancing guidelines were still followed.