2024 DNC Night 3 fact-check: What speakers got right, wrong in Chicago speeches

CHICAGO — Climaxing a sudden ascent to the Democratic ticket, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted his party’s vice presidential nomination on the Democratic convention’s third night, leaning into his prepolitics persona as a no-nonsense high school football coach.

"Never underestimate a public school teacher," Walz said. He portrayed himself as someone with nuanced views, citing his background as a veteran and a hunter who believes in the Second Amendment and also in stricter gun laws. 

Walz attacked the policies of the Donald Trump-era Republican Party, reiterating the dismissive phrase he coined in the weeks between President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to choose Walz as her running mate. 

"Is it weird?" Walz said of the Republican agenda. "Absolutely. But it’s also wrong and it’s dangerous."

The convention’s third night featured speeches from former President Bill Clinton, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling and Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson, who spoofed aspects of the Project 2025 policy blueprint created by allies of former President Donald Trump.

RELATED: Live fact-checking Night 3 DNC speeches in Chicago

PolitiFact fact-checks politicians across the political spectrum. We also fact-checked the Republican National Convention in July. Read more about our process.

Here are several fact-checks of claims made from the podium.

Walz: In Minnesota, "we also protected reproductive freedom."

True. 

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Walz in 2023 signed bills to protect abortion rights in Minnesota. The state became the first in the nation to codify abortion rights after the 2022 court decision.

Walz signed a bill to enshrine abortion rights in state law. The bill says: "Every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth, or obtain an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise this fundamental right."

Walz signed another bill into law that made it harder for other states to prosecute women who get abortions and providers who perform them in Minnesota. The bill prevents the enforcement of a subpoena issued in Minnesota or another state, if it relates to a criminal or civil case restricting "a person’s ability to terminate a pregnancy."

Walz also signed legislation to remove abortion restrictions, including a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and wife, Gwen react Aug. 21, 2024, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Walz: "And we know if these guys get back in the White House … they'll repeal the Affordable Care Act, they'll gut Social Security and Medicare, and they will ban abortion across this country, with or without Congress."

These are standard lines in Harris’ and Walz’s stump speeches. Trump’s own words often make his position tough to pin down. But he isn’t actively campaigning on any of these positions.  Here’s the context:

On the Affordable Care Act: Trump worked unsuccessfully as a 2016 candidate and as president to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He maintained his position through campaigning in 2023.

But Trump flip-flopped in March 2024, writing on Truth Social that he "isn’t running to terminate" the ACA but to make it "better" and "less expensive." He’s given no details.

On Social Security and Medicare: Democrats have repeatedly claimed that Trump will cut them based on years-old statements.

In a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, "There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting." However, Trump quickly walked that statement back, and the CNBC comment stood at odds with essentially everything else he has said during the 2024 presidential campaign. Trump’s campaign website says that not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security, and he’s repeated similar lines in campaign rallies.

On Medicare, Trump released multiple annual budgets that proposed cutting Medicare. However, experts are divided on how much those cuts would have hurt beneficiaries, rather than saving money for the program by reducing payments to providers.

On banning abortion: Trump’s position has been something of a roller coaster.

As president, Trump endorsed a 20-week national abortion ban. Early in his 2024 presidential campaign, he floated support for 15- or 16-week federal abortion bans, news outlets reported. But since April, Trump has said he believes abortion legislation should be "left up to the states" and has told reporters that he wouldn’t sign a national ban.

Some Trump allies have discussed other executive actions outside of Congress that could limit abortion, such as enforcing the Comstock Act — a 19th century law that bans the mailing of "obscene" material — that could prohibit sending materials such as medication and surgical equipment used in abortions.

But Trump told CBS News on Aug. 19 that "generally speaking" he wouldn’t enforce the law to ban mailing abortion medication.

RELATED: Walz has conflated IVF and IUI when discussing his family. What’s the difference?

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg: "Crime was higher on (Trump’s) watch."

Half True.

The violent crime rate has decreased under Biden, although the most recent data isn’t official. But property crime increased in 2022, reversing a longtime trend, FBI data shows. 

The U.S. violent crime rate dropped for the first three years of Trump’s presidency before spiking in 2020. That spike was especially sharp for murders: The 2020 increase was nearly triple the previous record for any year dating back to at least 1961.

The official data from Biden’s term is incomplete (the last full year of FBI data is from 2022), but preliminary government estimates and independent measurements show significant declines in violent crime over the past year and a half. Official data from 2023 is to be released in October. 

If the full-year 2023 FBI data confirm the patterns, the 2023 violent crime rate is poised to fall not only below its peak in 2020 but also below its prepandemic level.

However, the data isn’t in yet, and property crime, as opposed to violent crime, increased in 2022 for the first time in more than two decades. Also, experts said 2020 was an outlier year because it included both a life-altering coronavirus pandemic and the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd by police, which triggered a national outcry and a reckoning on racial justice.

Former President Bill Clinton speaks Aug. 21, 2024, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Former President Bill Clinton: "Since the end of the Cold War, in 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. … What’s the score? Democrats 50 (million), Republicans 1 (million)."

Mostly True.

The number of jobs created from 1989 through March 2024 — under Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — was 50.6 million. Of that number, a bit over 1 million, or about 2.6%, were created during the Republican presidencies. 

Including the 617,000 jobs added since March, when we last fact-checked a claim like this, further tilts the Democratic advantage.

Some economic research supports the notion that the economy under Democrats has performed especially well, including a 2014 paper by Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson.

However, attributing job creation to policies or presidents isn’t clear cut. The Republican Congress of 1995 to 2001 might deserve some of the credit for the job growth under Clinton.

Also, if you go back to the 1950s, the partisan job creation divide is less dramatic, but still uneven: 70% of jobs emerged under Democratic presidents and 30% emerged under Republican presidents.

Emily’s List President Jessica Mackler: Project 2025 would give a Trump-Vance administration "the power to monitor your pregnancy and even prosecute doctors for mailing abortion medication."

Half True.

It’s accurate that Project 2025 recommends criminalizing mailing abortion medication, which could lead to the prosecution of doctors who mail them. It also would require states to report to the federal government additional maternal mortality statistics and how many abortions happen within their borders.

The statement leaves out important details: the Project 2025 recommendations are just that and do not carry the power of law; Trump has distanced himself from the project; and the project does not track all pregnant women.

The project recommends that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug medication abortion regimen. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for about 63% in 2023.

If the FDA doesn’t reverse approval of mifepristone, Project 2025 has several recommendations for the drug. One is implementing new rules for the medication, including returning to a policy that would require that it be provided in person, and outlaw its distribution by mail.

The project also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act — which bans the mailing of "obscene" materials — on mifepristone.

The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report how many abortions occur in their states to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also says the statistics should be separated by category, including spontaneous miscarriage, treatments that incidentally result in fetal death (such as chemotherapy), stillbirths and "induced abortion."

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis holds up a copy of Project 2025 on Aug. 21, 2024, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis: "On Page 455, Project 2025 says that states have to report miscarriages to the Trump administration."

True.

Project 2025 says the CDC abortion surveillance and maternal mortality reporting systems are inadequate and calls for "accurate and reliable statistical data."

Trump’s campaign was not involved in the document’s creation and has distanced itself from the project. The project manual is styled as recommendations for an incoming 2025 Republican administration.

Page 455 of the document calls for the Health and Human Services Department to "use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method."

It also says the statistics should be separated by category, including spontaneous miscarriage, treatments that incidentally result in fetal death (such as chemotherapy), stillbirths and "induced abortion."

Comedian Kenan Thompson: "Page 319 calls for the complete elimination of the Department of Education."

True.

Project 2025 says federal education policy "should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated." The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks Aug. 21, 2024, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.: "Trump was the mastermind of the GOP tax scam, where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% in America."

Half True. 

Jeffries’ claim focuses on a statistic about the 2017 tax law’s impact by 2027, not the impact for the nearly a decade leading up to then.

It will take a few more years to see whether the impact of the 2017 law reaches that imbalance, according to a 2017 analysis of the Republican tax law by the nonpartisan Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. And that assumes Congress does not act to renew several provisions set to expire.

The study said that by 2027, the tax bill would deliver 82.8% of its benefits to the top 1% of the income spectrum.

The distribution of the benefits looks different before 2027.

For instance, in 2018, according to the center’s analysis, the bill was projected to deliver 20.5% of the benefits to the top 1% — vastly less than the 83% figure that Jeffries cited. And as late as 2025, the center projected, 25.3% of the benefits would flow to the top 1%.

This is because unless Congress extends the tax cuts for middle-income families and people, many of the cuts will expire in 2025 and the remaining cuts will benefit top earners.

PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Asiedu, Madison Czopek, Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero and Maria Ramirez Uribe and Researcher Caryn Baird 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. 

CORRECTION, Aug. 23: Walz signed a bill to protect abortion rights in state law, not the state Constitution. This story has been corrected.