Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday underscored the Democratic Party’s desire for a shift from the old guard to the new, delivering an address in which he warned against complacency and overconfidence. The speakers on the third night of the Democratic National Convention largely hewed close to the facts, but repeated a few attacks on former President Donald Trump that were inaccurate or omitted context.
Here’s a look.
What was said
“Trump was the mastermind of the GOP tax scam where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% in America.” — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
This is misleading. Jeffries is referring to an analysis of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut taxes across income levels, by the Tax Policy Center, a think tank. This misleading statistic reflects the fact that many of those tax cuts, including the cuts that benefit the working class, expire after 2025, but does not account for whether Congress will opt to renew them.
The Tax Policy Center analyzed the distribution of the tax benefits of the law over time, including in 2027. At that point, under current law, many of the tax cuts will have expired, but the law’s tax cuts for corporations will remain in effect.
Because corporate tax cuts benefit wealthy Americans, 83% of benefits will flow to the top 1% in 2027. But Congress is expected to renew many of the tax cuts that benefit Americans up and down the income ladder before then.
What was said
“Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans 1.” — Former President Bill Clinton
True. This figure is accurate when looking at net jobs — that is subtracting jobs that were destroyed from the jobs that were created.
From 1989 to July 2024, 51.6 million nonfarm jobs were created in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Republican administrations created a net 1.3 million jobs, while Democratic administrations created a net 50.3 million jobs. The difference is most likely in large part a reflection of boom-bust economic cycles and external events, including the Great Recession during George W. Bush’s presidency and the coronavirus pandemic during Trump’s. Under the Trump administration, about 2,700 net jobs were lost.
What was said
“Crime was higher under his watch.” — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
This is exaggerated. Violent crime did increase in 2020, the last year of Trump’s presidency, but that rise followed three consecutive years of declines. According to the FBI, the violent crime rate was 397.5 per 100,000 people in 2016, 394.9 in 2017, 383.4 in 2018, 380.8 in 2019 and 398.5 in 2020.
And while the rate fell to 387 per 100,000 people in 2021 under President Joe Biden, and continued to fall, that 2021 rate was still higher than the rates during two years of the Trump administration. Property crime declined in all four years that Trump was in office, and continued to do so under Biden in 2021 and 2022. (Data for 2023 has not yet been finalized.)
Fact-checking Gov. JB Pritzker’s speech and more on Day 2 of the DNC
What was said
“They’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act.” — Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota
This needs context. In warning against electing Trump, Walz reprised a common attack line. Still, whether or not a Trump-Vance administration will repeal the Affordable Care Act is a prediction. But it is worth noting that Trump’s statements about the health care law have been vague and ambiguous this campaign. He continues to criticize the health care law as an expensive “disaster,” but has at times said he would not repeal it.
At a January rally in Iowa, Trump promised “much better health care at a lower price for you, and that will be either working on Obamacare or doing something new.”
“I’m not running to terminate the ACA,” Trump wrote on social media in March, adding that he would make the health care law “much, much, much better for far less money.” He echoed that message in a video in April.
Trump has not released any specific details on what this would entail.
Fact-checking Joe Biden’s speech and more on Day 1 of the DNC
What was said
“Page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father where only the father works.” — Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado
This needs context. Polis was referring to Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals conceived by a right-wing think tank for a Republican administration. The page Polis referred to does promote families with a “a married mother, father, and their children” and “working fathers,” but it does not directly discourage mothers from working.
The document criticizes the Biden administration’s family policies that focus on the LGBTQ community “subsidizing single motherhood, disincentivizing work and penalizing marriage.”
“Working fathers are essential,” it reads, arguing that the country is experiencing a “crisis of fatherlessness” and that a future administration should prioritize engaging married fathers. It makes no mention of whether mothers should work.
Other passages in Project 2025 argue that a future administration should encourage “marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood and nuclear families.” The document also encourages that “workplace accommodations for mothers” be promoted as an anti-abortion measure.
