Opening Night of the Democratic National Convention

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Summary

In a torch-passing speech, President Joe Biden vowed that he would be “the best volunteer” to help the campaign of his vice president, Kamala Harris. Biden also touted his accomplishments and took shots at the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Several claims by Biden, and some from other Democrats at the Chicago convention, missed the mark.

• Biden misleadingly cited “historic joblessness” in talking about his Inauguration Day in 2021. The economy was still struggling then, but many of the jobs lost in the early months of the pandemic had been regained.

• Sen. Dick Durbin claimed that former President Trump “lost millions of jobs in America.” But that ignores the reason for the job losses: a global pandemic.

• Biden said he created “a record 16 million new jobs.” That’s a record number increase for any president in their first 43 months. But on a percentage basis, which accounts for population growth, there was a slightly larger increase in employment under President Jimmy Carter.

• Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said Trump is “threatening to slash Medicare,” while Biden claimed that Trump wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. But Trump has consistently said he will not cut either program.

• Biden claimed that Trump “will do everything to ban abortion nationwide,” even though Trump said in April that he would not sign a national abortion ban if Congress passed one.

• Durbin suggested that in “Trump’s America,” in vitro fertilization treatment would be “shut down.” But Trump has said that he “strongly” supports “the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.”

• Biden misleadingly suggested his administration had prompted a drop in the murder rate. Experts say presidents have little to do with the changes in murder or violent crime while they are in office.

• Biden boasted that “inflation [is] down, way down, and continuing to go down.” Growth in inflation has been steadily declining from its peak of 9.1% for the 12 months ending in June 2022, but overall, it is still up 19.4% since the start of Biden’s presidency.

• The president claimed that his administration is “removing every lead pipe in schools and homes.” That’s a goal of the administration, and it has made progress — but it doesn’t have the funding to complete the job.

• Biden claimed that Trump “created the largest debt any president had in four years with his $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy.” But Trump alone was not responsible for all the debt added during his presidency.

• The president misleadingly claimed that investments in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States will create factory jobs that pay $100,000 a year for those without a college degree.

• Raising the specter of Jan. 6, Biden said Trump is “promising a bloodbath if he loses” the upcoming election. But in context, Trump seemed to be talking about the possibility of an economic bloodbath if he is not elected.

• Biden claimed that Trump said he wants to be a dictator on “Day 1.” Trump said he wouldn’t be a dictator — “except for Day 1,” when he would close the southern border and drill for oil. Trump later said he was joking.

• Biden boasted that “border encounters have dropped over 50%” and that “there are fewer border crossings today than when Donald Trump left office.” Apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally plummeted in July, but illegal border crossings skyrocketed for most of Biden’s presidency.

• The president repeated his misleading claim that billionaires pay an average federal tax rate of 8.2%, which is a White House calculations that factors in earnings on unsold stock as income.

• Rep. Robert Garcia wrongly claimed that Trump “told us to inject bleach into our bodies.” Trump suggested having scientists test whether using “very powerful light” and “disinfectant” in the body could kill the virus.

The Democratic National Convention kicked off on Aug. 19 and lasts until Aug. 22. Just as we did for the Republican National Convention, we will fact-check the speeches on each night.

Analysis

Pandemic Joblessness

In speaking about his Inauguration Day in 2021, Biden described the challenges then facing the country and mentioned “historic joblessness.” The economy was still struggling at that time, but many of the jobs lost in the early months of the pandemic had been regained.

“It was, as I told you then, a winter of peril and possibility, of peril and possibility,” Biden said. “We were in the grip of a once in a century pandemic, historic joblessness, a call for racial justice long overdue, clear and present threats to our very democracy.”

The economy lost 21.9 million jobs in March and April 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread business closures and layoffs, but it regained 12.3 million from May through November. That job growth stalled in December, when the economy lost 243,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So there was still plenty of ground to make up from those pandemic-fueled job losses — but the “historic joblessness” had occurred several months before Biden was sworn in.

The unemployment rate was 6.4% the month of Biden’s inauguration, above the historical norm of 5.6%, which is the median rate for all months since 1948.

As we’ve noted before, that rate would have been higher if millions of people hadn’t stopped looking for work and therefore were no longer counted as part of the labor force. There were 4.4 million fewer people in the labor force in January 2021, compared with February 2020. The unemployment rate is the percentage of adults in the labor force who have looked for work in the previous four weeks.

The pandemic peak for the unemployment rate was 14.8% in April 2020.

Job Losses Under Trump

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip, claimed that Trump “lost millions of jobs in America,” adding that Trump was one of the few presidents to leave office with fewer Americans working than when he took office. But that ignores the reason for the job losses: a global pandemic.

In Trump’s first 37 months as president, the U.S. economy added nearly 6.7 million jobs, or 180,000 jobs a month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of February 2020. But over the next two months, as we said, the U.S. lost a staggering 21.9 million jobs in March and April, as restaurants, stores, schools and manufacturing plants worldwide shut down in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19.

“In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered job loss in the labor market on a scale not seen since the Great Depression,” BLS economists said in a report. “A year later, the economic situation had improved. Approximately 60 percent of jobs lost had returned, but employment was still down compared to pre pandemic levels.”

When Trump left office in January 2021, the U.S. had 2.7 million fewer jobs than it did in January 2017, when Trump was sworn in.

“Presidents deserve very little credit, and presidents typically deserve very little blame” for the employment figures on their watch, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist, president of the “center-right” American Action Forum and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, told us for an article in February.

Job Gains Under Biden

Biden said he created “a record 16 million new jobs.”

As of July, total nonfarm employment in the U.S. was up by almost 15.8 million since he was inaugurated in January 2021, according to BLS data. In raw numbers, that is a record increase for any president in their first 43 months in office, based on BLS data that go back to January 1939. But on a percentage basis, which accounts for population growth, there was a slightly larger increase in employment under Jimmy Carter (11.3%) than Biden (11.1%).

Also, the employment gains under Biden are skewed by the loss of 21.9 million jobs at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. When Biden took office, about 57% of those jobs had come back amid the ongoing economic recovery, but there was still room for a lot of job growth. As of July, total nonfarm employment had gone up about 6.4 million from the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020.

Social Security and Medicare

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said Trump is “threatening to slash Medicare,” while Biden claimed that “Trump wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.” But Trump has consistently said he will not cut either program, and he has advised Republicans not to cut those programs as well.

Earlier this year, Biden and his campaign based the claim on Trump saying in a March 11 CNBC interview that “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.” As we’ve said, in context, instead of reducing benefits, Trump was talking about cutting waste and fraud in those programs.

“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Trump later said in a March 13 Breitbart interview. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”

During the GOP presidential primary, Trump also criticized some of his Republican opponents for proposing to raise the retirement age for Social Security, which budget experts have said would reduce scheduled benefits for those affected.

Some critics of Trump have argued that he cannot be expected to keep his promise because of his past budget proposals. As we’ve written, Trump proposed cuts to the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs, but not to Social Security retirement benefits. And his budgets included only bipartisan ideas to reduce the growth of Medicare spending.

Trump has proposed one policy that could reduce benefits in the future. He has said he would repeal the income tax on Social Security benefits. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that would cost the government $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion in revenues over 10 years and could result in both Social Security and Medicare becoming insolvent sooner than scheduled. Future benefits would be reduced unless Trump provides a plan to replace the lost revenues or a future Congress and president act to replace the lost funds.

Trump on Abortion Bans

Biden claimed that “Trump will do everything to ban abortion nationwide,” which contradicts what Trump has said in recent months.

In a video posted on April 8, Trump said that abortion laws should be left up to the states.

“The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” Trump said in the video. “In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.”

And when asked on April 10 if he would sign a national abortion ban if Congress passed one, Trump answered “no.”

As we’ve written, Trump has changed course since his days as president and as a presidential candidate in 2016, when he said that he would support a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Trump Supports IVF

Durbin gave the false impression that Trump does not support in vitro fertilization treatments.

“Want to have a child but need IVF? Too bad, that’s shut down, too,” in “Trump’s America,” Durbin said.

However, Trump has said that he favors access to in vitro fertilization treatments to help families conceive. “I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby,” Trump said in a video he posted to social media on April.

That was also after he spoke out in February against a ruling by the all Republican Alabama Supreme Court, which said that frozen embryos used in IVF are children, and that couples could sue for the wrongful death of a minor when test tubes with frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. In response to the ruling, some clinics said they would stop providing IVF services rather than risk facing criminal or civil charges.

After the ruling, Trump said in a Feb. 23 social media post: “Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder! That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America.”

In that post, Trump called on the Alabama Legislature “to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama.” In March, Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill that the Legislature passed protecting IVF in the state.

Crime

In pushing back against Trump’s false claims about crime during the Biden administration, the president misleadingly took credit for a drop in the number and rate of murders under his term.

Biden said that under Trump, “the murder rate went up 30%, the biggest increase in history. Meanwhile, we made the largest investment, Kamala and I, in public safety ever. Now, the murder rate is falling faster than any time in history.”

As of 2019, the number and rate of murders had gone down under Trump’s administration, but 2020 changed that.

The murder rate went up 30.8% in a single year — from 5.2 murders per 100,000 population in 2019 to 6.8 in 2020, according to the latest nationwide figures available from the FBI. The number of murders went up 32.2%. News articles from 2021 reported that the increase in the number was the largest for a single year.

Experts have told us before that several factors were likely behind the increase in murders in 2020 and a smaller increase in 2021, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a loss of jobs and disproportionately affected vulnerable populations.

Now, under Biden, the number and rate have gone down. The rate was down to 6.3 in 2022, the latest year for the final FBI annual reports. Preliminary FBI data for 2023 and for the first quarter of this year show continued declines. The Justice Department called a 26.4% drop in the number of murders in the first quarter of this year, compared with the first quarter of 2023, “historic.”

Crime analyst Jeff Asher, co-founder of the New Orleans firm AH Datalytics, echoed that assessment, telling us last week that the trend in murders is “a historic decline in 2023 and 2024.”

But Biden suggests that an investment in “public safety” led to the declines. Experts say presidents have little to do with the changes in murder or violent crime while they are in office.

The late criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, who wrote about crime trends for the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, told us in 2021 that presidents “can facilitate a response,” citing an initiative by Biden at the time to work with cities to reduce gun violence. “But no president, in my memory, has ever single-handedly been responsible for a sharp crime increase or for that matter a sharp crime decline. Crime is driven by other factors and the president has little control over those factors.”

“Who is in the White House has little to no direct connection to what is inherently a state/local crime problem,” John L. Worrall, a criminal justice professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, also told us.

Inflation

Ticking off a series of accomplishments since he took office, Biden boasted that “inflation [is] down, way down, and continuing to go down.” Biden is right about the year-over-year increase in inflation, but that’s not the whole story.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose by 2.9% for the 12 months ending in July, the most recent figure available. That’s the smallest 12-month increase since March 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. And it is markedly lower than the 9.1% increase for 12 months ending in June 2022, which the BLS said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

But looking at the entirety of Biden’s time in office, the CPI has risen by 19.4%. By comparison, the CPI rose by a total of 7.8% in the four years under Trump.

As we have written, there were a number of factors driving higher inflation early in Biden’s presidency, including global supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic, as well as post-pandemic consumer spending. Economists told us federal stimulus spending in response to the pandemic — both by Trump and Biden — also contributed, in part, to inflation. But regardless of the causes, high inflation has been a problem during most of the Biden presidency.

Lead Pipe Removal

When talking about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Biden claimed that his administration is “removing every lead pipe in schools and homes, so every child can drink clean water.”

“We’re modernizing our roads, our bridges, our ports, our airports, our trains, our buses,” Biden said. “Removing every lead pipe from schools and homes, so every child can drink clean water.”

As we have written before, it is a goal of the administration to remove all lead pipes in the U.S., but the infrastructure law didn’t include the money to finish the job.

The legislation includes $15 billion in direct funding for lead pipe replacement. So far, the $9 billion in funding announced to date is “expected to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes nationwide,” the Environmental Protection Agency said in a June 20 press release.

However, the EPA estimates that there are 9 million lead service lines in the United States, according to the agency’s Updated 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey & Assessment issued in May. As we’ve written before, the EPA estimated the average cost for full lead service line replacement at $4,700 per line. Using that estimate, it would cost more than $42 billion to replace 9 million lead pipes.

Debt Under Trump

Biden claimed that Trump wants to give more tax cuts to corporations, adding to what Biden said was already a record increase in debt during Trump’s presidency.

“He created the largest debt any president had in four years with his $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy,” Biden said of Trump. “Well, Trump has a new plan. He wants to provide a $5 billion tax cut for corporations that are very wealthy … put us further in debt.” (He apparently meant to say $5 trillion.)

When Trump was president, the total national debt increased by $7.8 trillion, and the debt held by the public, which excludes money the federal government owes to itself, increased by about $7.2 trillion. Both are records for any four-year presidential term.

But Trump alone was not responsible for all that debt. As we’ve noted before, the debt added during a president’s term includes the fiscal impact of actions that predate the administration. Just days after Trump took office in January 2017, the Congressional Budget Office was already estimating that the publicly held debt would rise from almost $14.2 trillion to more than $16.8 trillion in fiscal year 2020 and to more than $20.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024.

Trump did sign laws that helped increase the public debt, which was $21.6 trillion when he left office. But he could not have done it without Congress. Republicans passed that 2017 tax cuts legislation that reduced federal revenue and grew the deficit. Also, budget experts previously told us that Democrats helped pass bipartisan budget bills and authorize COVID-19 spending that tacked on more debt.

For comparison, under Biden, the public debt has increased by about $6.4 trillion, and the total debt is up by more than $7.4 trillion. But Biden is not responsible for all that debt, either.

As for Biden’s claim that Trump plans to add $5 trillion more to the debt with tax cuts for corporations, that is a 10-year cost estimate and much of it would be tax cuts for people earning less than $400,000 — a policy that Biden himself has proposed, as we’ve written.

Semiconductor Factory Jobs

In August 2022, Biden signed the CHIPS Act, which includes $39 billion in financial incentives to encourage semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. and $11 billion for semiconductor research and development.

Once again, Biden misleadingly claimed that investments in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States will create jobs at semiconductor factories, known as “fabs,” that pay $100,000 a year for those without a college degree.

“And guess what?” he said. “The average salary of those fabs — the size of a football field — will be over $100,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree.”

As we’ve written before, workers will probably need a college degree to make that kind of money.

The Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, and Oxford Economics published a report on the U.S. industry in 2021. The report said that industry “workers consistently earn more than the U.S. average at all education attainment levels” and included a chart showing the “wage premium” workers could expect based on their level of education. Those with a high school education or less could expect to earn a little more than $40,000. Those with some college attendance could earn $60,000, while an associate’s degree could increase that to $70,000.

The wages only topped six figures for those with a bachelor’s degree ($120,000) or a graduate degree (a little more than $160,000).

Trump’s ‘Bloodbath’ Comment in Context

“This will be the first presidential election since Jan. 6,” Biden said. “On that day, we almost lost everything about who we are as a country. And that threat — this is not hyperbole — that threat is still very much alive. Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again. Think about that. He means it. Think about that. He’s promising a bloodbath if he loses, in his words.”

Biden has frequently cited Trump’s “bloodbath” quote as evidence that Trump would incite violence if the 2024 election results don’t go his way. But Trump’s comments came during a March 16 rally in Ohio as he was talking about the potential loss of U.S. auto manufacturing jobs to foreign countries.

Trump said that over the last three decades, Mexico has siphoned off U.S. auto manufacturing jobs, and he accused China of building car manufacturing plants in Mexico that will cost U.S. autoworkers their jobs. “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected,” Trump said. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.”

On Truth Social on March 18, Trump wrote that Biden and others were purposely misconstruing his words.

“The Fake News Media, and their Democrat Partners in the destruction of our Nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,” Trump wrote.

The Trump campaign also noted — rightly — that one of the definitions of “bloodbath,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a major economic disaster.”

Given Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, it is fair game for Biden to speculate about Trump’s potential actions should he lose the election. But as we have written, the explanation Trump provided for his use of the term bloodbath seems the most plausible, given the context of his comments.

Trump’s ‘Dictator’ Remark

Biden claimed that Trump said he wants to be a dictator on “Day 1.”

The president is referring to comments that Trump made in a December town hall hosted by Fox News. Sean Hannity, who was interviewing Trump, gave the former president the opportunity to promise Americans that, if elected, he would “never abuse power as retribution against anybody.” Trump’s response was, “Except for Day 1.”

He then explained what he planned to do as a “dictator” on the first day of a potential second term as president. “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” he said.

About two months later, when Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo was interviewing Trump and asked about his remarks, Trump claimed that he had been kidding.

He said: “It was with Sean Hannity, and we were having fun, and I said ‘I’m going to be a dictator,’ because he asked me, ‘Are you really going to be a dictator?’ I said ‘Absolutely, I’m going to be a dictator for one day.’ I didn’t say from Day 1.”

After Bartiromo prompted him to be more specific, Trump again said that he only intended to close the border and drill. “That’s all. And then after that, I’m not going to be a dictator,’ Trump said, adding that his original comments were “said in jest.”

Illegal Border Crossings

Biden said that as a “result of the executive action I took, border encounters have dropped over 50%. In fact, there are fewer border crossings today than when Donald Trump left office.”

It’s true that apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally plummeted to 56,408 in July, the lowest number of the Biden presidency, according to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Aug. 16. That figure is also, as Biden noted, lower than Trump’s last month in office, December 2020, when there were just over 71,000 such apprehensions. But Biden’s comment glosses over the fact that prior to July, illegal border crossings had skyrocketed for most of his presidency.

Not only was July’s number the lowest monthly total along the southwest border since September 2020, CBP reported, but the number of apprehensions of people trying to cross the border illegally between ports of entry in July was “lower than the monthly average for all of 2019, the last comparable year prior to the pandemic,” CBP said.

July was the first full month of data since Biden imposed a new set of policies aimed at dramatically reducing illegal immigration.

On June 4, Biden announced a series of executive actions designed to address “substantial levels of migration” due to “global conditions” including “failing regimes and dire economic conditions,” “violence linked to transnational criminal organizations” and “natural disasters” in some countries in Central and South America. Specifically, the proclamation directed border officials to temporarily restrict asylum eligibility and promptly remove many who cross the border illegally between ports of entry when the daily average of encounters reaches 2,500 or more for seven straight days. The policy was immediately implemented on June 5 because levels were already well above that. (For more on the policy, see our story “Q&A on Biden’s Border Order.”)

But we should note that July’s apprehension figure is just one month of data in three and a half years of the Biden administration. And as we have written, the number of apprehensions at the border with Mexico soared after Biden took office. Experts at the Migration Policy Institute told us there were a number of factors driving the surge in illegal immigration to the U.S. — including a worldwide increase in migration as a result of political turmoil and pandemic upheaval — but that part was also due to “the perception that President Biden would treat immigrants more leniently,” which in turn encouraged more people to attempt to come to the U.S.

In our quarterly reports on Biden’s Numbers, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year before Biden took office. And for the past 12 months ending in June — the latest data available for our July update and one month before the July drop — apprehensions totaled 1,894,715, according to CBP. That was 273% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

Billionaires’ Tax Rate

Biden repeated his misleading claim that billionaires pay an average federal tax rate of 8.2%.

That’s not the average rate in the current tax system. It’s a figure calculated by the White House, and it factors in earnings on unsold stock as income. When only considering income, the top-earning taxpayers, on average, pay higher tax rates than those in lower income groups, as we’ve written before.

Biden is referring to earnings on assets, such as stocks, not being taxed until that asset is sold, which is when the earnings become subject to capital gains taxes. Until stocks and assets are sold, the earnings are referred to as “unrealized” gains. Unrealized gains, the White House has argued, could go untaxed forever if wealthy people hold on to them and transfer them on to heirs when they die.

Trump’s ‘Disinfectant’ Comments

Rep. Robert Garcia claimed that Trump “told us to inject bleach into our bodies,” which is a distortion of comments the former president made early in the pandemic.

In April 2020, Trump suggested that scientists test the use of “very powerful light” and “disinfectant” in the body to kill the virus. He did not mention bleach, or say that people should put disinfectants into their bodies, which is dangerous.

During that press briefing, an official discussed Department of Homeland Security research on the ways heat, humidity, sunlight and disinfectant affected the coronavirus on nonporous surfaces. Then Trump, talking to the DHS official, said: “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’d be interesting to check that.”

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