Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president on the last night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday.
Harris outlined her biography and warned that her opponent, former President Donald Trump, was an “unserious man” who was seeking to return to power and bring the United States back to the past. Like the speakers who preceded her Thursday night and earlier this week, Harris focused largely on aspirations and ideals and generally did not stray far from the facts.
Here’s an assessment of a few claims made by Harris and other speakers.
What was said
“He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends. And he will give them another round of tax breaks that will add up to $5 trillion to the national debt.” — Vice President Kamala Harris
This is misleading.
Former President Donald Trump has called for a number of tax cuts during his presidential campaign, including extending the cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that will expire next year. Continuing those tax cuts beyond 2025 would cost about $4.6 trillion in lower tax revenue and greater interest costs over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
But those tax cuts — including a larger standard deduction — benefit middle-income Americans, not just billionaires. Trump has also called for other costly tax cuts on the campaign trail, including cutting the corporate tax rate to 15%, exempting tips from taxes and not taxing Social Security benefits. Those tax cuts would not exclusively benefit billionaires and would not cost $5 trillion. — ANDREW DUEHREN
What was said
“He intends to enact what is, in effect, a national sales tax — call it a Trump tax — that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year.” — Harris
This needs context.
Harris was referring to Trump’s proposals to place a 10% to 20% tariff on most imports, and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods. She accurately cited one estimate of the cost. Other estimates are lower, while some are higher.
An analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal think tank, found that tariffs at those levels would cost the average family $3,900 annually.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that the proposals would cost the average middle-class household $2,600 annually under a 20% tariff and $1,700 annually under a 10% tariff. The Tax Policy Center estimated $320 more annually for the lowest-income households and $1,350 more for middle class households under a 10% tariff. And the right-leaning American Action Forum put the cost of the broad tariff at $1,700 to $2,350 annually, and the China-specific one at $1,950.
Trump has also suggested that he would replace income taxes with tariffs to minimize their impact, though tax policy experts say this is impossible as tariff levels would have to be implausibly high to replace the revenue from income taxes. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“Donald Trump was asked what he would do about Social Security and Medicare, and he said, and I quote, ‘There is a lot you can do in terms of cutting.’” — Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.
This needs context.
Baldwin referred accurately to comments Trump made in a March interview with CNBC, in which he said, “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, and that he was speaking about “waste.” In rallies and other interviews during this campaign season, he has said that if he is elected president again he will not make cuts to either program.
A few days after the CNBC interview, he told the right-wing website Breitbart that he would “never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare.” In a campaign event Thursday, he vowed to “not touch Social Security.”
Still, Trump has not outlined a clear plan for keeping the programs solvent. And 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. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“A serial liar, cheater, thief who looked soldiers in the eye, then turned around and called fallen heroes suckers and losers.” — Rep. Pat Ryan, DN.Y.
This needs context.
The claim that Trump, as president, called veterans “suckers” and “losers” stems from a 2020 article in The Atlantic about his relationship to the military.
Trump has emphatically denied making the remarks since the article was published. While it relied on anonymous sources, many of the accounts it contained have been corroborated by other outlets, including The New York Times, and by John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff. — LINDA QIU
What was said
“He invited Russia to do — and these are his words, not mine — ‘whatever the hell they want.’” — Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.
This needs context.
Kelly omitted a caveat in quoting Trump, who, as president, said he told a NATO member nation that Russia could do “whatever the hell they want” to any country that did not meet the alliance’s military spending targets. But the remark was not a blanket invitation for Russia to act with abandon.
Trump, at a campaign rally in February, repeated his misleading claim that some members of NATO “owed” money to the alliance, referring to informal commitments made by member nations to spend 2% of their gross domestic products on their own militaries. In Trump’s telling, after he had delivered a speech urging members to “pay out,” the president of “one of the big countries” asked if the United States would come to its defense if President Vladimir Putin of Russia invaded, but it had failed to meet that 2% target. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ ‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want,’” Trump said.
When criticized for his remarks, Trump repeated his stance later that month at another rally: “Look, if they’re not going to pay, we’re not going to protect.”
More than 20 member nations currently meet the 2% target, the secretary-general of the alliance recently announced. — LINDA QIU
What was said
Harris “has achieved the lowest veteran unemployment rate in history.” — Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.
True.
The unemployment rate for veterans reached 2.2% in April 2023, under the Biden-Harris administration. That is indeed the lowest rate recorded since 2003, the earliest year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has available data. The rate has since increased; it was 3% in July. — LINDA QIU
