Tag: United States

Chicago’s United Center, where the Democratic National Convention’s main programming is taking place, seats 23,500 people. But some social media users have shared images of the event with most of those seats unoccupied. 

“The DNC is nearly empty,” one person wrote Aug. 19 on Instagram Threads. “The difference between the RNC and DNC is apparent. All the internet and media hype was fake.” 

The post was accompanied with a video of Minyon Moore, the DNC convention committee chair, and Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, speaking to a sparsely populated venue on the convention’s first day. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

This video was taken at the beginning of opening night remarks, but the claim ignores that as time passed, the crowd became larger. 

Moore and Harrison gave opening remarks at about 6:30 p.m. EDT Aug. 19 to a venue at which people were still arriving. The crowd grew as the evening progressed. The Wall Street Journal reported that there were empty seats when the DNC began because protesters opposing the war in Gaza delayed buses and security screenings.

The security screening line Aug. 19 went on for blocks. It took one delegate from Ohio two and a half hours to get into the event, USA Today reported. 

The venue appeared to be filled by the time Vice President Kamala Harris gave a surprise speech at around 9 p.m. EDT, a C-SPAN livestream shows. 

We reached out to the DNC to ask about first-night attendance numbers but did not receive a response. 

Video footage of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden’s DNC speeches also shows a full crowd by the end of the night. 

We rate the claim that the DNC was “nearly empty” during its first day False.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ critics on social media have long shared video clips of the Democratic presidential nominee speaking and insinuating she may be drunk or high.

Many of the social media posts shared clips of Harris’ comments that have gone viral and said they show Harris was drunk — such as when Harris described her mother asking, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”

Two social media posts shared recently claim to show Harris was intoxicated at public events One is from the Democratic National Convention’s first night. The other is from a March visit by Harris to Madison, Wisconsin.

The first post shared a video of Harris remaining seated on the first night of the DNC in Chicago as those around her stood and applauded.

“Kamala Harris appears to be too intoxicated to stand up. This is getting bad,” the Aug. 19 X post said.

An Aug. 18 Instagram post shared a video of Harris speaking in Madison with text that said, “BREAKING: Multiple police officers have come forward stating that Kamala is 100% intoxicated in this clip and she would’ve been charged with a DUI if she had been behind the wheel of a car.”

PolitiFact has examined similar claims before about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whom critics often accused of being drunk at public events — even though she doesn’t drink alcohol.

We decided to look closer at these two videos to see whether there’s any evidence to back the claims Harris was drunk at these events.

Harris at the DNC

In the shortened DNC video clip shared on X, Ashley Biden, President Joe Biden’s daughter, spoke before introducing her father. Ashley Biden praised Harris, who was sitting, and said, “She will beat Donald Trump again.”

The camera showed a smiling Harris sitting in the audience. Harris stayed seated, patted her chest and mouthed “thank you” as those around her, including running mate Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., stood and applauded for her.

A PBS video of her speech, seen below, shows Ashley Biden praising Harris shortly before introducing her father, saying, “In 2020, my dad selected Kamala Harris to beat Donald Trump. And he knows, in 2024, she will beat Donald Trump again.”

Harris remained seated as the crowd cheered. But, minutes later, another video shows Harris stood and cheered as Joe Biden took the stage. After Biden’s speech, Harris walked onstage to greet him.

Does sitting while others stood mean Harris was too drunk to stand? No. It’s not unusual for someone who is being applauded to remain seated, and the cheers were for Harris. 

The full video of the DNC’s first night, as you’ll see in the clips below, shows Harris standing to applaud others several times.

About three hours into the video, Harris appeared onstage briefly to greet the crowd and praise Joe Biden. She stood steadily and did not appear to stumble or slurring her words.

Later in the evening, Harris again stood and applauded as Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., praised Joe Biden.

Harris again stood and applauded as former first lady Jill Biden took the stage.

Harris in Madison

The second video we’re examining is from Harris’ visit in March to Madison, Wisconsin, where she promoted a Biden executive order aimed at expanding apprenticeship programs and union jobs.

In the Aug. 18 Instagram video, Harris discusses democracy as ominous music plays in the background. Text above the video said police officers had determined that Harris was intoxicated. We traced the video to an X account with more than 311,000 followers, where it had been viewed 11 million times, according to X.

Neither post shared any evidence that police officers have “come forward” to say that Harris was intoxicated. 

The same X account, run by a self-described Trump supporter, shared another video that claimed Pelosi dropped a bag of cocaine onstage Aug. 21 at the DNC. It appeared to be a piece of paper that fell.

In searching Google and the Nexis news database, we found no legitimate news stories about police officers making the Harris-was-intoxicated claim.

The full video, which was from remarks Harris gave to Biden-Harris campaign workers in Madison, is below. Harris first appears at the 6:17 mark; the part seen in the Instagram video begins at the 12:40 mark.

Harris’ visit was widely covered by local media outlets, none of which mentioned that Harris seemed intoxicated. 

According to a press pool report, Harris arrived at about 11:30 a.m. CDT at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison and headed to the future Madison Metro Transit Facility site, where she spoke. She then visited her childhood home in Madison, where she lived from age 3 to age 5,  before stopping at the Wisconsin Democrats’ headquarters, where she spoke to campaign workers. 

Our ruling

Two social media posts claimed Harris was intoxicated at public events. One said she was too drunk to stand on the DNC’s first night. Another said without evidence that police officers came forward to say Harris was intoxicated at a visit to Madison, Wisconsin, in March.

While acknowledging that we would have no way to know Harris’ blood alcohol level in either instance, we found no evidence to support the claims. They are False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.

The federal agency that calculates how many people are working handed Democrats an unwelcome present during the week of their national convention in Chicago: a downward adjustment of the past year’s employment gains by 818,000 jobs.

The job gains during the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been a bright spot in the economy despite stubbornly high inflation.

Former President Donald Trump, at an event Aug. 22 in Cochise County, Arizona, used the talking point to hit Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, over the economy:

“I want to address the fake job numbers the Harris-Biden administration has been reporting for the last year. … They claimed falsely that they created 818,000 jobs,” Trump said. 

On Aug. 21 Trump shared a Truth Social post that went further, alleging malfeasance by the administration:

“MASSIVE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America. New Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Administration PADDED THE NUMBERS with an extra 818,000 Jobs that DO NOT EXIST, AND NEVER DID.”

The past year’s job numbers were recalibrated this week in a way that shows 818,000 fewer positions than were initially recorded. That’s down by half a percentage point for all jobs in the economy. 

However, economists across the ideological spectrum rejected Trump’s allegation that the administration was cooking the books. Rather, the process is an effort undertaken annually to fine-tune initial data the agency acknowledges is imperfect.

“There is zero validity to Trump’s claims,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum. “This is a standard, regular revision to the jobs data.”

What happened this week?

On Aug. 21, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced an annual “benchmarking” adjustment based on a sweep of state-based unemployment insurance data. This is considered more precise than the employer-based data the agency uses to assemble its closely watched monthly employment reports.

Using this more precise unemployment insurance data, the agency found that there were 818,000 fewer jobs in March 2024 than had been initially announced. That was the largest downward revision to employment in 15 years, and it prompted some concern among economists that the economy could be weakening. This could bolster arguments that the Federal Reserve should lower interest rates at its September meeting.

When we contacted the Republican National Committee, spokesperson Anna Kelly said the Biden-Harris administration was passing “blame on the economic crisis she created.”

But the RNC provided no evidence to support Trump’s allegation that the administration had been “caught fraudulently manipulating job statistics.”

This recalculation was not a ploy

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is staffed by trained civil servants and has not been credibly charged with political bias in the past. The procedures the agency uses for the recalibration are well-defined and have been used for years. 

It’s not a “conspiracy,” said Dean Baker, co-founder of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “This is all a completely standard process that happens every year.”

Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist and former deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics in the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy, said the equivalent revisions released in 2019, when Trump was president, also “showed a notable reduction.” 

Economists “want complete information, but that takes more time, and it’s released on a regularly planned schedule,” Sinclair said.

The recently announced adjustment is preliminary and could change again, either up or down, before it becomes official in February 2025.

Our ruling

Trump said, “The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.”

There’s no doubt that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ routine revision of jobs numbers dampens Harris’ economic rhetoric. But there is zero evidence that the administration was playing with the job numbers. Civil servants have compiled the data with the same methods on the same schedule for years.

Economists from across the ideological spectrum said they have seen no evidence of political meddling with the data.

Trump’s assertion is false and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!