Fact-Checking Trump’s Speech and More: Night 4 of the Republican National Convention
— President Trump
False.
This figure, which calculates the number of people known to have the coronavirus who ultimately die from the disease, is currently just above 3 percent in the United States, putting it in roughly the top third of countries afflicted by the coronavirus.
The United States has the 51st highest observed case fatality rate out of 170 countries, according to Johns Hopkins University, and has the 22nd highest of the 37 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The United States also has a relatively high death rate when calculated as deaths per capita, registering more than 50 deaths per 100,000 people over the course of the pandemic. That puts the country squarely in the top 10 countries with the most deaths per capita, when excluding countries like Andorra and San Marino, which have had relatively few coronavirus cases. And the U.S. still leads the world in absolute death counts, with more than 180,000 dead as of Thursday evening, according to a New York Times database.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:44 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is exaggerated.
President Trump has pushed to “decouple” the American economy from China’s, imposing hefty tariffs on Chinese products that have encouraged companies to move their operations. Trade with China fell sharply last year, and Chinese investment in the United States declined. But trade data suggests that most companies that have left China have relocated to other low-cost countries, like Vietnam and Mexico.
Other companies have decided to remain in China despite the tariffs, drawn by China’s massive consumer market and factory sector. American investment in China actually edged up slightly last year. Most economists and business leaders believe the world’s two largest economies will remain significantly intertwined. And in some industries, the Trump administration has actually worked to strengthen ties between the countries.
Much of the limited trade deal that the president signed with China in January was aimed at opening certain Chinese markets for American business, especially finance and agriculture.
— President Trump
This is mostly true.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, the United States surpassed Russia to become the world’s largest producer of natural gas in 2011. The United States became the worlds’ largest producer of oil and natural gas combined in 2014. And it surpassed Saudi Arabia in 2018 to become the world’s largest producer of petroleum.
However, the phrase “energy independence” suggests that the United States is not reliant on imported energy sources. In fact, 2019, nearly half the oil consumed by the United States — about 9 million barrels per day — was imported, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:40 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is misleading.
Some cities have been moving to cut police department budgets in recent weeks. Mr. Trump implies here that Mr. Biden is a supporter of such cuts, but Mr. Biden has made clear that he opposes defunding and instead has proposed “to get police more money.” Mr. Biden has also expressed support for the Second Amendment, saying that he himself is a gun owner. Mr. Biden does propose some firearm restrictions, such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He also supports background checks and other regulations.
— President Trump
This is false.
As temperatures rose in California last week, the manager of much of the state’s electric grid called on utilities to cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers. But the state’s energy experts also said that the utilities had plenty of power available and that the blackouts weren’t necessary. California has not banned production of oil and gas, and is one of the nation’s top 10 oil-producing states.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:32 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is misleading.
In July 2016, the F.B.I. opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s covert operation to tilt that year’s election in Mr. Trump’s favor, including whether anyone associated with his campaign cooperated with that effort, wittingly or unwittingly.
The F.B.I. used several confidential human informants to approach Trump campaign associates to see what they would say about any advance knowledge of Russia’s hacking and release of Democratic emails. It also wiretapped Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russian intelligence officials; Mr. Page had left the campaign by the time a court approve the warrant, but wiretap orders permit the F.B.I. to look at any older emails in a target’s account.
The purpose of this investigation was to understand the scope and nature of an effort by a foreign adversary to manipulate an American election. Calling it spying on his campaign connotes trying to gain an electoral advantage, but there is no evidence that any information gathered by the inquiry was provided to the Clinton campaign or leaked to affect the vote.
— President Trump
This is misleading.
The Affordable Care Act, signed by Barack Obama in 2010, established protections for Americans with pre-existing health conditions, requiring insurers to sell them the sam plans offered to people without prior health problems. Though President Trump often says he supports the idea, he has taken numerous actions which would weaken those protections. He supported legislation early in his term that would have overturned the Affordable Care Act and undermined the comprehensiveness of health benefits. He has expanded the availability of skimpy insurance that does not need to offer plans to people with pre-existing conditions. And his Justice Department is involved in a lawsuit, currently before the Supreme Court, that would overturn the health law in its entirety. The president has provided no details about what policy would replace the health law — and help patients with pre-existing conditions — if he prevails in that suit.
— President Trump
The is misleading.
The Democratic National Convention recited the Pledge of Allegiance on all four nights including the words “under God.” So did most of its caucuses, which took place before the prime-time programming. Several smaller meetings — two meetings of the L.G.B.T.Q. Caucus and one gathering of the Muslim Assembly — recited the Pledge of Allegiance omitting the words “under God.”
Earl D. Fowlkes Jr., chairman of the L.G. B. T. Q Caucus, said the decision to omit the words was made by two separate individuals who were asked to lead the pledge and was not a policy decision. “It was a personal preference,” Mr. Fowlkes said. “I was just as surprised as everyone else.”
But the central programming of the convention featured the entire pledge, complete with “under God,” on each of its four nights. On the first night, Mr. Biden’s grandchildren said the pledge, followed by the convention’s chorus of “The Star Spangled Banner.” On the second night, a pledge was recited by a diverse group of Americans, as it was again on the third night. On the fourth night Cedric Richmond Jr., the son of Representative Cedric Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana, said the pledge. Each night, the pledge included the words “under God.”
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:28 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is exaggerated.
Mr. Biden has emphasized the importance of deferring to science when it comes to responding to the coronavirus. In an interview last week, he expressed a willingness to shut down the country if recommended by scientists, but he is not promising a shutdown no matter what.
In the interview, ABC’s David Muir asked Mr. Biden, “If you’re sworn in come January and we have coronavirus and the flu combining, which many scientists have said is a real possibility, would you be prepared to shut this country down again?”
Mr. Biden responded: “I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration’s thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing and people employed, you have to fix the virus. You have to deal with the virus.”
Pressed on what he would do “if the scientists say shut it down,” as Mr. Muir put it, Mr. Biden responded: “I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists.”
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:25 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is mostly true.
Mr. Biden did vote to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which occurred in December 2001. Since then, the number of American workers employed in manufacturing shrank from 15.7 million to 12.1 million, a loss of a little less than 1 in 4 jobs.
Many economists believe that the entry of such a massive country as China into the global marketplace created a shock that was responsible for some of this job loss, though many economic studies have found that Nafta had little to no effect on net American employment. But other major economic trends have also contributed to the shedding of American manufacturing jobs, including increasing automation, globalization and the rise of international supply chains, and the information technology revolution, which allowed companies to separate their operations for designing and manufacturing goods.
— President Trump
This is exaggerated.
Democrats support abortion rights, but that does not mean they call for women to have an unfettered right to terminate pregnancies up until the point of birth. Mr. Trump may have been referring to a debate over a bill proposed last year by Democrats in the Virginia legislature that would have made it easier for women to obtain abortions late in pregnancy if the mother’s physical health or safety were at risk.
The proposed legislation prompted Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, to falsely claim that Democrats support “abortion up until the moment of birth and even, horrifically, after that.” Other Republicans have echoed the claim.
Democrats support codifying Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that held states could prohibit abortion after fetal viability — the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb. The current Supreme Court standard holds that states may prohibit abortion after fetal viability so long as there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
“Like the majority of Americans, Democrats believe that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion,” the party’s draft 2020 platform states, adding, “Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to women’s reproductive health and rights.”
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:17 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is false.
Mr. Biden did not say those words about Mr. Trump’s partial travel ban on China, which was aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. Mr. Trump announced the ban on Jan. 31. Mr. Biden wrote the next day on Twitter that Mr. Trump has a “record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.” But he did not say that specifically about the travel ban. Mr. Biden’s aides later said he supports travel bans based on science. Mr. Trump did not announce the partial ban “very early” relative to other nations. The United States was in the third wave of nations that enacted some form of travel ban on China in January.
— President Trump
This is false.
Mr. Biden has made no such promise, nor do his policy proposals ban production of those energy sources. Mr. Biden’s climate change plan would end new leases for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas on federal lands, but does not ban existing fracking on public lands or new or existing fracking on private land.
— President Trump
This is exaggerated.
The Trump administration has built roughly 300 miles of new border wall, although nearly all of it is in areas where dilapidated barriers existed or vehicle barriers once stood. The administration is on track to just barely meet Mr. Trump’s mandate of constructing 450 miles of border wall by the end of the year. But much of it will not be in the Rio Grande Valley, an area historically prone to illegal crossings where private landowners have fought in court against the construction project. The border wall is also not working as Mr. Trump promised. Migrants have used power tools to cut through it and ladders to climb over it.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:10 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is misleading.
It is true that the United States economy gained more than 9 million jobs between April and June, but it had lost more than 20 million between February and April. The bounce back was rapid in part because many people had been only temporarily laid off as states shut down to control the spread of the coronavirus and were then quickly rehired. It’s an open question how robustly the remaining lost jobs will come back as the recovery progresses.
— President Trump
This is misleading.
A report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services in the early days of the pandemic found serious problems with the supplies shipped from the strategic national stockpile. “Some hospitals noted that at the time of our interview they had not received supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, or that the supplies that they had received were not sufficient in quantity or quality,” the inspector general wrote. One administrator stated that getting supplies from the stockpile was a major challenge, saying that the supplies the hospital received “won’t even last a day. We need gloves, we need masks with fluid shields on — N95 masks — and we need gowns.”
— President Trump
This is true.
Mr. Biden suggested that the senior Iranian commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, deserved to be killed — but doubted the intelligence that Mr. Trump used to justify the strike and warned it could lead to dangerous military escalation.
Hours after the Jan. 2 missile strike that killed Mr. Soleimani, Mr. Biden issued a statement highly critical of the operation. Although he said that Mr. Soleimani “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region,” Mr. Biden called the strike “a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region.” In a Democratic debate the next month, Mr. Biden implied that he might have supported the killing if he believed that Mr. Soleimani was plotting an imminent attack on Americans in the Middle East as Mr. Trump claimed. But, he said, “the reason I wouldn’t have ordered the strike is there isn’t any evidence yet of an imminent strike that was going to come from him.” Mr. Biden has also said that Mr. Trump “flat-out lied” about the underlying intelligence, which has never been made public and which members of Congress who have seen it have also questioned. In his initial statement, Mr. Biden warned that “we could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East,” but that has not materialized.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:07 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is exaggerated.
President Trump has consistently tried to distance the trade deals he has updated or revised from their earlier iterations that were written by other administrations. But the revised trade deal with South Korea that Mr. Trump signed in 2018 is a minor update to what he refers to as “the horrendous South Korea trade deal.”
That pact included steps to open up the Korean market to increased American exports, most notably for automobiles, but there were few other fundamental changes to the existing agreement.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was a more significant transformation of its predecessor, the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. But while the 2,082-page pact includes some important changes in key areas, like incentives to make cars in North America and reforms to Mexican labor rules, it’s also fair to describe it as an update of the original NAFTA pact.
Much of the new agreement simply updates the pre-existing deal with new laws on the internet, intellectual property protection, state-owned enterprises and currency. And much of that updated language was itself taken from the negotiated text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Mr. Trump derides.
Aug. 27, 2020, 11:02 p.m. ET
By
— President Trump
This is misleading.
The Veterans Choice Program was created in 2014 after the scandal of hidden waiting lists at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals. In 2018, Mr. Trump signed a law that overhauled and consolidated Veterans Choice and other existing programs into a single Veterans Community Care Program. It is unclear what poll Mr. Trump is referring to, but 57 percent of veterans approved of Mr. Trump’s handling of his duties as commander-in-chief and 92 percent of Republican veterans approved, according a 2019 poll from the Pew Research Center.
— President Trump
False.
While President Trump did withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change agreement — a move that was not legally initiated until 2019 — the pact, which includes nearly every other nation on earth, remains intact without the participation of the United States.
It is not accurate to say that the United States is “energy independent,” a phrase that suggests that the United States is independent of reliance on imported energy sources. In 2019, nearly half the oil consumed by the United States was imported — about 9 million barrels per day were imported of the roughly 20 million barrels per day that were consumed, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department.
