President Joe Biden praised his administration’s accomplishments and declared his vice president a worthy successor on the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday.
Biden’s speech capped a night in which Democratic lawmakers and party stalwarts praised Vice President Kamala Harris, warned repeatedly that former President Donald Trump was unfit for office and celebrated Biden’s legacy.
Here’s a look at some of their claims.
What was said
“While schools closed and dead bodies filled morgues, Donald Trump downplayed the virus. He told us to inject bleach into our bodies. He peddled conspiracy theories across the country. We lost hundreds of thousands of Americans, and our economy collapsed.” — Rep. Robert Garcia of California
This is exaggerated. Trump’s comments, in April 2020, about the efficacy of disinfectants and light as treatments for the coronavirus elicited uproar and confusion. He did not literally instruct people to inject bleach, but raised the suggestion as an “interesting” concept to test out.
At the April 2020 news conference, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force said that the virus dies under direct sunlight and that applying bleach in indoor spaces kills the virus in five minutes and isopropyl alcohol does so in 30 seconds.
Trump responded: “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that, too.”
He added: “And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.” — LINDA QIU
What was said
“Trump talks big about bringing back manufacturing jobs, but you know who actually did it? President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.” — Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York
This needs context. It is true that manufacturing employment is up sharply under the Biden administration, but much of the gains are simply a recovery from job losses early in the coronavirus pandemic. Manufacturing employment is just slightly above its 2019 level. And factory employment also climbed somewhat from when Trump took office in early 2017 and the onset of the pandemic in 2020. — JEANNA SMIALEK
What was said
“Thanks to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we reopened our schools.” — Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina
This needs context. Trump and Biden took different approaches to school reopenings during the coronavirus pandemic, with Trump encouraging schools to stay open and Biden emphasizing the need to contain the virus before reopening classroom doors. While they could signal policy preferences, developments in how the virus spread and how states and school districts reacted were sometimes out of their control.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned schools to prepare for disruption in February 2020, and a high school in Washington state became the first to close its doors that month. More schools across the country followed in adopting online instruction, but by the fall of 2020, some schools — often in states with Republican governors — returned to in-person instruction.
One audit found that by the fall of 2020 more schools had reverted to a traditional or hybrid model than remained virtual. A CDC study found that school closures peaked in 2021, under the Biden administration, when the omicron variant spread. By the fall of 2021, though, 98% of public schools were offering in-person instruction full time, according to the Education Department. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“Donald Trump wants to put our 1787 constitution through his Project 2025 paper shredder.” — Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas
This needs context. Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals assembled by a Washington think tank for a Republican presidential administration, does not directly come from Trump or his campaign.
Still, CNN documented instances where 140 people who worked for the Trump administration had a role in Project 2025. Some were top advisers to Trump in his first term and are all but certain to step into prominent posts should he win a second term.
Trump has also supported some of the proposals, with even some overlap between Project 2025 and his own campaign plans. Among the similarities: undercutting the independence of the Justice Department and pressing to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And he enacted other initiatives mentioned in Project 2025 in his first term, such as levying tariffs on China and making it easier to fire federal workers.
But Trump has criticized some elements as “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” though he has not specified which proposals he opposes. When the director of the project departed the think tank, Trump’s campaign released a statement that stated: “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.” — LINDA QIU
What was said
“JD Vance says women should stay in violent marriages and pregnancies resulting from rape are simply inconvenient.” — Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky
This is exaggerated. Beshear was referring to comments Vance made during his 2022 campaign for Senate. Vance has rejected such interpretations.
In remarks to a Christian high school in California in September 2021, Vance spoke of his grandparents’ marriage, which he described in his memoir as violent.
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term,” he said.
Asked by Vice News about his remarks in 2022, Vance said, “Any fair person would recognize I was criticizing the progressive frame on this issue, not embracing it.”
He also told Fox News that Democrats had “twisted my words here” and that “it’s not what I believe, it’s not what I said.”
And regarding pregnancies resulting from rape, Vance told Fox News that he was criticizing the view that such pregnancies are “inconvenient.”
In a 2021 interview, Vance was asked whether abortion bans should have exceptions for rape or incest. He responded, “At the end of the day, we’re talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?” — LINDA QIU
What was said
“Instead of paying $400 a month for insulin, seniors with diabetes will pay $35 a month.” — Biden
This needs context. Biden signed a law that places a cap of $35 a month on insulin for all Medicare Part D beneficiaries. But he is overstating the average cost before the law.
Patients’ out-of-pocket spending on insulin was $434 on average for all of 2019 — not per month — and $449 per year for Medicare enrollees, according to the Health and Human Services Department. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“The smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years.” — Biden
This needs context. As a percentage of wealth held by white families, Black and Latino families did grow to the largest amounts in 2022 in two decades. But the disparity in absolute dollar value actually increased. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“He called them ‘suckers and losers.’” — Biden
This needs context. The claim that, as president, Trump called veterans “suckers” and “losers” stems from a 2020 article in The Atlantic about his relationship to the military.
The article relied on anonymous sources, but many of the accounts have been corroborated by other outlets, including The New York Times, and by John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff. Trump has emphatically denied making the remarks since the article was published. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“Trump wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.” — Biden
This is misleading. Trump has said repeatedly during his 2024 presidential campaign that he would not cut Social Security or Medicare, though he had previously shown brief and vague support for such proposals.
Asked about his position on the programs in relation to the national debt, Trump told CNBC in March, “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”
But Trump and his campaign clarified that he would not seek to cut the programs. Trump told the website Breitbart, “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare.” And during a July rally in Minnesota, he again vowed, “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare, and I will not raise the retirement age by one day, not by one day.”
Still, Trump has not outlined a clear plan for keeping the programs solvent. During his time in office, Trump did propose some cuts to Medicare — though experts said the cost reductions would not have significantly affected benefits — and to Social Security’s programs for people with disabilities. They were not enacted by Congress. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“He created the largest debt any president had in four years with his $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy.” — Biden
This is misleading. Looking at a single presidential term, Trump’s administration did rack up more debt than any other in raw dollars — about $7.9 trillion. But the debt rose more under President Barack Obama’s eight years than under Trump’s four years. Also, when viewed as a percentage increase, the national debt rose more under President George H.W. Bush’s single term than under Trump’s.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s tax cuts — which passed in December 2017 with no Democrats in support — roughly added another $1 trillion to the federal deficit from 2018 to 2021, even after factoring in economic growth spurred by the tax cuts. But other drivers of the deficit include several sweeping measures that had bipartisan approval. The first coronavirus stimulus package, which received near unanimous support in Congress, added $2 trillion to the deficit over the next two fiscal years. Three additional spending measures contending with the coronavirus pandemic and its economic ramifications added another $1.4 trillion.
It is also important to note that presidents do not hold unilateral responsibility for the debt increase under their time in office. Policies from previous administrations — and programs such as Social Security and Medicare — continue to drive up debt, as do unexpected circumstances. — LINDA QIU
