Highlights from the final night of the Republican National Convention

President Donald Trump ends his acceptance speech for the Republican candidate for President and fireworks explode in Washington on Thursday. Republican National Committee

President Trump closed out the fourth and final day of the Republican National Convention with a promise to make America "safer" and "stronger."

Following Trump's closing remarks, Trump was joined on stage by his family as fireworks went off over the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Watch:

President Trump spoke at length about his law and order message during his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, claiming Joe Biden’s platform is an “attack on public safety.”

“Make no mistake, if you give power to Joe Biden, the radical left will defund police departments all across America,” Trump said. “They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No one will be safe in Biden's America.”

Biden has said that he does not support calls to defund police.

The President also said he stands with the men and women of law enforcement, saying “the overwhelming majority of police officers in this country are noble, courageous and honorable.” 

President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday in Washington. Alex Wong/Getty Images

During his speech, President Donald Trump claimed that he has "very good information" that China wants Biden to win because Biden cheers for China.

Facts First: While we don’t know what information Trump may have, a recent assessment from the intelligence community reported that China preferred Trump lose the election because he was "unpredictable" and because of the many actions he has taken against China.  

William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in a statement on August 7 updating the election threat landscape heading into the election, noted that "China prefers that President Trump -- whom Beijing sees as unpredictable — does not win reelection. The statement went on to note that China has been critical of Trump's "COVID-19 response, closure of China's Houston Consulate" and "actions on Hong Kong, TikTok, the legal status of the South China Sea, and China's efforts to dominate the 5G market." 

Evanina's report makes no mention of China preferring Biden because he would weaken the US economy.

Trump claimed the US economy has gained a record nine million jobs over the past three months. 

Facts First: This is highly misleading. The economy did add about 9.3 million jobs combined in May, June and July -- but that record increase immediately followed a much bigger record loss of about 22.2 million jobs in March and April.  

 In other words, the economy is still down nearly 13 million jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. (Also, many of the jobs added were simply people returning to work after temporary layoffs.)  

You can read a longer fact check here. 

President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. Evan Vucci/AP

President Donald Trump doubled down on his support of law enforcement tonight during the Republican National Convention with promises to grow their ranks if elected to a second term.

Trump's remarks come as protests continue after Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday.

Two Kenosha officers were placed on administrative leave, state officials said.

Officials identified Officer Rusten Sheskey as the person who shot Blake when he tried to enter his vehicle. The officer, who has been employed by Kenosha police for seven years, was placed on administrative leave, DCI said.

The local police union has urged the public to withhold judgment until a state investigation is complete.

President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. Evan Vucci/AP

President Trump claimed that he has done more for the African American community than any other president since Abraham Lincoln.

Facts First: While we give Trump lots of latitude to express opinions, this one is simply ridiculous even if he is comparing himself only to previous presidents and excluding other Black heroes. It's absurd to say Lincoln is a "possible" exception; emancipating the slaves was obviously more important for Black Americans than anything Trump has done. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, monumental bills whose impact dwarfed the impact of any legislation Trump has signed.

You can make an argument that numerous additional presidents did more for Black Americans than Trump, but we'll stop there. It's worth noting, though, that Black people themselves do not, on the whole, agree with Trump's self-assessment. Trump has had a consistently abysmal approval rating with Black citizens -- just 4% in one recent Quinnipiac University poll, for example, versus 93% disapproval.

President Trump falsely claimed he passed the Veterans Choice program.

Facts First: The Veterans Choice bill, a bipartisan initiative led by Sens. Bernie Sanders and the late John McCain was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014. In 2018, Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which expanded and changed the Choice program.

Trump has told this lie more than 150 times.

President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on Thursday, Aug. 27, in Washington. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Like Vice President Mike Pence a night before him, President Donald Trump restated his commitment to law enforcement and condemned the "rioting, looting, arson and violence" occurring in "Democrat-run cities."

He included Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the list of those cities. Kenosha has been gripped with protests and ongoing unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake — a 29-year-old Black man that was shot seven times in the back Sunday by an officer as he tried to enter an SUV where three of his children were waiting. 

The President was expected, in some form, to address the unrest in Kenosha in his speech tonight. It was unclear if he would make any statement of sympathy to Blake's family or Black Americans once again angered by police brutality. So far Trump has refused to answer questions about the incidents in Wisconsin or to say whether he watched the video of Blake being shot by police.

"There is violence and danger in the streets of many Democrat-run cities throughout America. This problem could easily be fixed if they wanted to. Just call, we're ready to go in, and we will take care of you, in a matter of hours. We have to wait for the call. It's too bad we have to, but we have to wait for the call," Trump said. "We must always have law and order. All federal crimes are being investigated, prosecuted, and punished to the fullest extent of the law," he continued.

Trump slammed Joe Biden, saying that last week during the Democratic National Convention, he and his supporters "remained completely silent about the rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-run cities."

Trump used a portion of his speech to tout the work of law enforcement.

"We must remember that the overwhelming majority of police officers in this country, and that's the overwhelming majority, are noble, courageous, and honorable. We have to give law enforcement, our police, back their power," Trump said.

Watch:

President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on Thursday in Washington. Alex Brandon/AP

During his Thursday speech accepting the Republican nomination, President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, and at one point implied it could be available sooner.

“We are delivering lifesaving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner,” Trump said at one point. “We will defeat the virus, end the pandemic, and emerge stronger than ever before.”

Later, Trump again touted the progress of vaccine development, saying the US is “years ahead of what that been achieved before.”

“Nobody thought it could ever be done this fast,” Trump said. “We are producing them in advance, so that hundreds of millions of doses will be quickly available.”

“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year,” Trump assured, “and together we will crush the virus.”

Vice President Mike Pence made similar claims. 

Facts First: Though there are several vaccine candidates in different phases of testing, there is no guarantee that the Food and Drug Administration will have approved a vaccine by the end of the year. And even once one is approved, it will likely still be many months before it's widely available across the US.

A vaccine developed by the biotechnology company Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is in the final phase of its clinical trial, after promising initial results.

In interviews last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID, made clear that while a vaccine could be approved by or possibly before November, as the President has previously proposed, it would likely not be available widely until "several months" into 2021.

You can read more about the proposed timeline and plans for a vaccine here.