Democrats’ messaging all through the 4 days of the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago was one in all exuberance and dedication that culminated with Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepting the presidential nomination.
Harris rallied her base on points together with abortion rights, voting rights and the economic system. However she additionally requested all People “no matter occasion, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks” to “chart a brand new means ahead.”
Vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz leaned into his former position as a highschool soccer coach and touted his document as lawmaker and governor.
The DNC speaker checklist featured a number of different high-profile Democrats, together with President Joe Biden, former Presidents Barack Obama and Invoice Clinton, former first girl Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
PolitiFact fact-checks politicians throughout the political spectrum. We additionally fact-checked the Republican Nationwide Conference in July. Learn extra about our course of.
Right here’s a wrap-up of the claims we fact-checked in the course of the DNC, day-to-day.
President Joe Biden speaks Aug. 19, 2024, in the course of the first day of Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. (AP)
Day 1: Monday, Aug. 19
Biden was the evening’s most notable speaker. All through the evening, attendees chanted, “Thanks, Joe” as audio system praised Biden’s time period and warned about reelecting Donald Trump as president.
Biden: “As an alternative of paying $400 a month for insulin, seniors with diabetes can pay $35 a month.”
Half True.
The Inflation Discount Act, which Biden signed in 2022, capped out-of-pocket insulin prices at $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries. However pharmaceutical specialists informed PolitiFact that the majority beneficiaries have been probably not paying greater than $400 earlier than the legislation.
Prices and different components range, specialists mentioned, so it’s attainable that some Medicare beneficiaries may need paid as a lot as $400 for insulin in a given month.
Biden: The typical semiconductor trade wage “might be over $100,000 a 12 months, and you do not want a university diploma.”
Largely False.
Though the typical semiconductor trade wage is round $170,000, that determine contains salaries for jobs that require faculty levels. Essentially the most an individual makes with out a faculty diploma is about $70,000, based on a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Business Affiliation and Oxford Economics, an trade group.
Learn all our Day 1 fact-checks right here.
Former President Barack Obama speaks Aug. 20, 2024, on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. (AP)
Day 2: Tuesday, Aug. 20
The Obamas have been the evening’s star audio system. Michelle Obama rallied the conference with chants of “Do one thing” for the Harris-Walz marketing campaign, whereas Barack Obama lauded Biden’s achievements.
Michelle Obama: Considered one of Trump’s proposals is “shutting down the Division of Training.”
True.
Trump has proposed to shut the federal Division of Training.
The company’s duties would go to states beneath Trump’s plans. “In reference to completely refocusing colleges on succeeding on the planet of labor, President Trump pledges to shut the Division of Training in Washington, D.C., and to ship all training work and desires again to the states,” based on his marketing campaign web site.
Barack Obama: Underneath Joe Biden, the U.S. produced “15 million jobs, increased wages, decrease well being care prices.”
Half True.
The U.S. has added 15.8 million jobs beneath Biden’s presidency however some have been jobs regained after pandemic-induced unemployment. Though wages are additionally increased, they haven’t at all times saved up with excessive inflation. Well being care prices hinge on a number of components, together with insurance coverage. However, U.S. well being care expenditures as a share of gross home product peaked in the course of the pandemic in 2020 and have since fallen roughly to prepandemic ranges.
Learn all our Day 2 fact-checks right here.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks Aug. 21, 2024, after accepting the Democratic vice presidential nomination on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. (AP)
Day 3: Wednesday, Aug. 21
Walz took the stage on Evening 3, highlighting his background as a public faculty trainer, highschool soccer coach and Nationwide Guard veteran, and his document in Congress and as governor.
The Democratic vice presidential nominee additionally attacked Trump and his insurance policies, calling them “bizarre” but additionally “fallacious” and “harmful.” One other key Evening 3 speaker was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Walz: “And we all know if these guys get again within the White Home … they’ll repeal the Reasonably priced Care Act.”
It is a normal line in Harris’ and Walz’s stump speeches. Trump’s personal phrases typically make his place robust to discern. However he isn’t actively campaigning on this place.
Trump labored unsuccessfully as president to repeal and change the Reasonably priced Care Act. He maintained his place via campaigning in 2023.
However Trump flip-flopped in March 2024, writing on Fact Social that he “isn’t operating to terminate” the ACA however to make it “higher” and “cheaper.” He hasn’t detailed how he’d try this.
Buttigieg: “Crime was increased on (Trump’s) watch.”
Half True.
The violent crime charge has decreased beneath Biden, though the latest knowledge isn’t official. However property crime elevated in 2022, reversing a longtime pattern, FBI knowledge exhibits.
The U.S. violent crime charge dropped for the primary three years of Trump’s presidency earlier than spiking in 2020. That spike was particularly sharp for murders: The 2020 enhance was practically triple the earlier document for any 12 months courting again to at the least 1961.
The official knowledge from Biden’s time period is incomplete (the final full 12 months of FBI knowledge is from 2022), however preliminary authorities estimates and unbiased measurements present vital declines in violent crime over the previous 12 months and a half. Official knowledge from 2023 is predicted in October.
Learn all our Day 3 fact-checks right here.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks Aug. 22, 2024, on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. (AP)
Day 4: Thursday, Aug. 22
On the DNC’s ultimate evening, Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, turning into the second girl, second Black particular person and first Asian American to take action. Harris shared her story as a daughter of immigrants — her father coming to the U.S. from Jamaica and her mom from India — and the way that formed her journey to the highest of the Democratic ticket.
She additionally leaned into a number of key coverage themes: abortion rights, voting rights, overseas coverage, the economic system and immigration.
Listed here are a few of Harris’ statements that we fact-checked.
Trump “plans to create a nationwide anti-abortion coordinator and drive states to report on girls’s miscarriages and abortions.”
Largely False.
What Harris describes is Mission 2025, a 900-page coverage guide produced by a few of Trump’s allies, however is just not one thing Trump himself has claimed. Mission 2025 doesn’t point out a “nationwide anti-abortion coordinator.” The doc requires a “pro-life politically appointed Senior Coordinator of the Workplace of Girls, Kids, and Households.”
It says the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s abortion surveillance and maternal mortality reporting programs are insufficient and proposes withholding federal cash from states that don’t report back to the CDC what number of abortions occur of their states.
In an April interview with Time journal, Trump mentioned some states “would possibly” select to watch and punish girls for unlawful abortions. However, when requested concerning the subject, he informed the reporter to “communicate to the person states” about it.
“I … helped go a home-owner invoice of rights, one of many first of its type within the nation.”
True.
As California’s lawyer common, Harris was a part of a multistate settlement that gained debt reduction for owners affected by the 2007-10 housing disaster. When a settlement settlement was reached in 2012, California gained a mixed $20 billion for its owners.
In July 2012, the California Legislature handed the California Home-owner Invoice of Rights, a set of legal guidelines to guard owners from foreclosures. The legal guidelines, which have been modeled largely after the foreclosures lawsuit, took impact in January 2013. Harris endorsed them.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Occasions reported that the laws made California the primary state to ban this apply. And The Related Press wrote that California would change into the primary state to put in writing the components of the mortgage settlement into legislation.
Learn all our Day 4 fact-checks right here.
Reality-checking misinformation about Harris, DNC
No, social media movies don’t present Kamala Harris intoxicated at public occasions
Viral posts falsely claimed Harris couldn’t rise up on the DNC as a result of she was inebriated. However Harris stood and applauded a number of instances and the clip of her seated was when delegates cheered for her.
No, the DNC hasn’t canceled girls’s restrooms
When social media posts falsely claimed the DNC had no girls’s restrooms on the press submitting heart, PolitiFact’s on-the-ground journalists went counting. We discovered that there have been a number of girls’s loos all through the occasion area, far outnumbering gender-neutral loos.
Associated tales
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Reality-checking Tim Walz earlier than his 2024 DNC speech – plus the assaults on his document
Walz has conflated IVF and IUI when discussing his household. What’s the distinction?
Ask PolitiFact: Are Democrats providing ‘free abortions and vasectomies’ at their Chicago conference?
Learn our DNC protection in Spanish
Verificamos los discursos del primer día de la Convención Nacional Demócrata
Verificamos lo que dijeron Barack Obama y otros demócratas el día 2 de la convención en Chicago
¿Qué tan ciertos fueron los discursos de Tim Walz y otros durante la Convención Nacional Demócrata?
Esto es lo que verificamos del discurso de aceptación de Kamala Harria en la convención demócrata
PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Employees Writers Grace Abels, Madison Czopek, Samantha Putterman, Loreben Tuquero and Maria Ramirez Uribe and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.
