CHICAGO — PolitiFact is live fact-checking the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, including a speech by President Joe Biden.
PolitiFact fact-checks politicians across the political spectrum. We also fact-checked the Republican National Convention in July. Read more about our process.
Please continue to check back as we update this story.
Abortion
Biden: “And you know, Trump will do everything to ban abortion nationwide.”
Since April, Trump has repeatedly said he believes abortion legislation should be “left up to the states.” Trump also told reporters in April that he wouldn’t sign a national ban.
As president, he endorsed a 20-week national abortion ban that House Republicans backed. Earlier in this election year, Trump floated support for 15- or 16-week federal abortion bans, news outlets reported.
Trump hasn’t weighed in on whether he supports other ways abortion could be restricted across the country, including using the Comstock Act to ban mailing abortion pills or other materials used in abortion procedures.
DNC video advertisement: Trump said, “There has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
Mostly False.
Trump made this comment during a March 2016 MSNBC town hall, but the ad failed to acknowledge that Trump walked back the comment the same day after facing criticism. He said it was doctors, not women, who should be punished for performing outlawed abortions.
In the years since he made that statement, we found no evidence that Trump has repeated it or that he currently supports penalties for women who get abortions.
Economy
Biden: The average semiconductor industry salary “will be over $100,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree.”
Mostly False.
The average salary in the semiconductor industry is around $170,000, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, and Oxford Economics. This figure includes all jobs within the industry and not only those that don’t require a college degree.
The most a person makes without a four-year degree is about $70,000, according to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics.
Biden: During his tenure there has been the “smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years.”
Half True.
Biden referred to 2022 Federal Reserve data that showed a modest decrease in the wealth ratio between white and Black Americans. For every $100 the average white family had in wealth, the average Black family had $15.75.
That was the smallest gap in 20 years. However, economists use two measures to assess the racial wealth gap. By a different measure — the dollar amount difference in wealth — the gap widened between white and Black Americans to its largest disparity since 1989.
Trump’s felony convictions
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Trump “fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up, he made his own kind of history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”
It’s unclear whether Trump fell asleep during the Manhattan trial that ended with the former president found guilty on all counts. Trump and his team have pushed back on the sleeping claim. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported that Trump “appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.”
Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t prevent Trump from running for president following his conviction. Convicted felons have run for president in the past.
Project 2025
U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio: J.D. Vance has “been busy writing the foreword to the book from the Project 2025 guy.”
True.
Before Trump selected him as his running mate, Vance, R-Ohio, wrote on X in June that he was “thrilled to write the foreword” for Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ forthcoming book, “Dawn’s Early Light.” Marketing materials for the book also feature Vance’s name on the cover as foreword author.
The Heritage Foundation spearheaded Project 2025 and Roberts, who has promoted the work, has often been described as the project’s leader and architect. The Trump-Vance campaign has sought to distance itself from Project 2025, and Vance has said Roberts doesn’t speak for him or the campaign.
COVID-19 pandemic
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif.: “While schools closed, and dead bodies filled morgues, Donald Trump downplayed the virus. He told us to inject bleach into our bodies.”
Mostly False.
At a 2020 White House press briefing, Trump asked William Bryan, an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security, to study whether ultraviolet light could be effective “inside the body” to treat COVID-19 or whether disinfectants could combat the virus “by injection inside.”
After Bryan said his lab did not study disinfectant injection, Trump clarified that using disinfectants “would not be through injection.” Trump later told reporters he was being “sarcastic” when referring to injections.
Garcia’s statement contains an element of truth; Trump did suggest studying these possibilities. However, Trump never instructed Americans to inject disinfectants to combat COVID-19.
PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero and Maria Ramirez Uribe contributed to this story.
Our convention fact-checks rely on both new and previously reported work. We link to past work whenever possible. In some cases, a fact-check rating may be different tonight than in past versions. In those cases, either details of what the candidate said, or how the candidate said it, differed enough that we evaluated it anew.