Fact-checking Donald Trump in Chicago at National Association of Black Journalists conference

In a contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in Chicago, former President Donald Trump argued with moderators and opened the conversation by baselessly accusing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, of only recently identifying as Black.

Asked whether he agreed with some Republicans characterizing Harris as a "DEI hire," Trump said, "She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?" 

The crowd gasped, and Trump went on to make more dubious assertions, some borrowed from his campaign rallies, during the 34-minute interview conducted by ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Kadia Goba and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner. After a late start, Trump took umbrage when Scott read a series of statements Trump had made over the years about Black people, including the "birther" conspiracy that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and that certain Black journalists are "losers" and ask "stupid" questions.

"You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’" Trump said to Scott, later adding, "I love the Black population of this country."

Harris was invited to address NABJ attendees but did not come because of scheduling conflicts, NABJ leaders said, though they were working on an in-person or virtual appearance in September.

PolitiFact partnered with NABJ to fact-check his statements.

Trump: Kamala Harris was "Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person."

Pants on Fire! 

Harris has long identified as a Black woman who grew up in a multicultural household.

Her father, Donald Harris, immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica after he got into the University of California, Berkeley, Kamala Harris wrote in her 2019 autobiography. Her mother, Shyamala Harris, was born in Chennai, India, and moved to California after graduating from the University of Delhi to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkeley. 

Harris attended college at Howard University, an historically Black university, in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings in 1989. Harris pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically Black sorority. As a U.S. senator from California, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

In 2010, when Harris was months from being elected as California’s attorney general, one story described her as being raised in a Black neighborhood, where she attended Black churches and also worshiped in her mother’s Hindu temple and had visited her family in India.

"Running for office, you have to simplify or condense or put into preexisting boxes who you are, so people will have a sense of you based on what they easily and quickly identify," Harris said. "I grew up in a family where I had a strong sense of my culture and who I am, and I never felt insecure about that at all. Slowly, perhaps, with each of us taking on more prominent positions, people will start to understand the diversity of the people."

Trump, upon being asked whether he would take a cognitive test: Harris "didn’t pass her bar exam."

Half True.

Harris didn’t pass her bar exam the first time, according to a 2016 New York Times profile. When she retook it, she passed and was admitted to the California state bar in June 1990. Harris graduated from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly known as University of California, Hastings) in 1989. She served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. 

Trump: Of Harris, "She's the border czar. She's the worst border czar in the history of the world."

We’ve rated claims that Harris oversaw efforts to stop illegal immigration in a "border czar" role Mostly False.

In March 2021, Biden assigned Harris to work alongside officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to address the issues driving people to leave those countries and come to the United States. These issues include economic insecurity, corruption, human rights and violence. Border security and management is the Homeland Security secretary’s responsibility.

In June 2021, Harris visited El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They outlined their responsibilities to reporters. Harris said she was addressing "the root causes of migration, predominantly out of Central America." 

Mayorkas said, "It is my responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to address the security and management of our border."

Former President Donald Trump talks with ABC’s Rachel Scott on July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (Sylvia Powers)

Trump: "I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln."

Historians generally agree that Abraham Lincoln accomplished the most for Black Americans, by prosecuting the Civil War to end slavery. But a more recent president who accomplished a lot for Black Americans was Lyndon B. Johnson.

"His accomplishments on behalf of African Americans — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act — were historic," University of Texas historian H.W. Brands told PolitiFact in 2019. Johnson, a skilled legislator from his years in the Senate, deliberately crafted his agenda and pushed it through Congress with personal persuasion, to a far greater degree than Trump, historians say. (Republicans played a key role in passing the Democratic Johnson’s agenda.)

Harry Truman, who moved to desegregate the military, was also ahead of his time on racial equality.

In June, we extensively analyzed a wide variety of economic metrics during the Trump and Biden presidencies and — excluding the pandemic period — we found that Black Americans fared well by historical standards during Trump’s presidency but fared even better under Biden across almost every metric. However, no president is all-powerful in shaping economic or other policy outcomes, making it hard to rate who "accomplished more."

Trump said: "Historically Black Colleges and Universities were out of money. They were stone-cold broke and I saved them, and I gave them long term financing, and nobody else was doing it."

We rated Trump's campaign promise to ensure funding for HBCUs a Promise Kept after Trump signed the FUTURE Act in 2019. The act ensured that the original science, technology, engineering and math funding for HBCUs from then-President George W. Bush's 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act would continue to be awarded without having to go back to Congress annually. The act ensured that HBCUs would receive an annual $255 million in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)  funding for the next 10 years.

It’s an exaggeration, however, to say that "nobody else was doing it." In the House, Democrats were unanimous in their support, while two more Republicans voted against the bill than for it. And Biden has taken financial support for HBCUs further, including investments in the 2021 American Rescue Plan and new research grants.

Former President Donald Trump shakes hands with panel moderators ABC’s Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Nadia Goba and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, on July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (Sylvia Powers)

Trump: "They're invading. It's an invasion of millions of people, probably 15, 16, 17 million people. I have a feeling it's much more than that."

False.  

During Biden’s presidency, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border nearly 10 million times. When accounting for "got aways" — people whom border officials don’t stop — the number rises to about 11.6 million. 

Encounters don’t equal admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let in. The Homeland Security Department estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.

About 3.3 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings under Biden’s administration, Department of Homeland Security data shows. About 415,000 children who crossed the border alone were also let in.

Experts have told PolitiFact that it is wrong to describe illegal immigration as an invasion. Many immigrants crossing the border illegally turn themselves into Border Patrol agents voluntarily.

Trump: "Right now, you have illegal aliens coming into our country, many from prisons, and many from mental institutions, and they want to give them votes."

Pants on Fire!

When Trump made a similar comment in January, his campaign did not provide evidence of this scheme. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, and proven incidents of noncitizens casting ballots are rare. Even immigrants who arrive now and eventually become U.S. citizens won’t be able to vote this election year, because of the lengthy citizenship process.

Some municipalities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, such as for school board positions. But they don’t allow them to vote in state or federal elections.

Trump didn’t specify who he meant by "they," but he was answering a question about Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s comments that people with children should be able to cast votes on their children’s behalf.

On his claim that immigrants are coming from prisons and mental institutions, experts have told PolitiFact there’s no evidence that countries are deliberately doing this.

When Trump said earlier this year that Biden is letting in "millions" of immigrants from jails and mental institutions we rated it Pants on Fire. Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.

Not everyone was let in. "Noncitizens" includes people who may have legal immigration status in the U.S., but are not U.S. citizens.

Trump: "Coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs." 

When ABC News’ Scott asked what he meant by "Black jobs," Trump responded, "A Black job is anybody that has a job, that's what it is. Anybody that has it."

It does not make the claim accurate. Commonly used employment data does not include information specific enough to confirm or deny this pattern, but broader economic statistics cast doubt.

Foreign-born workers — many of whom are U.S. citizens and immigrants here legally — have made unusually fast employment gains during Biden’s tenure. But native-born workers, including Black workers, have made gains, too. (The category "foreign-born workers" in federal statistics counts anyone who was born in a foreign country.)

Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million.

If foreign-born workers were eating into Black workers’ opportunities, it would reflect in unemployment rates. But the unemployment rate for Black Americans is low by historical standards; it hit a record low under Biden, although it has risen since then. Also, the unemployment rate for native-born workers overall under Biden is comparable to what it was during the final two prepandemic years of Trump’s presidency.

Trump: "Unions are being very badly affected by all of the millions of people that are pouring into our country."

Mostly False.

Economy and labor experts told PolitiFact that immigrants who recently crossed the U.S. border illegally are unlikely to take union jobs because these jobs are highly competitive. Instead, they tend to work in nonunion jobs that Americans don’t want, such as day laborers.   

Experts agreed that immigration and union membership numbers move in concert: As immigration rises, unionization drops. As union membership has fallen, some experts said immigrants have filled jobs left by union workers who disagreed with their employers’ labor practices.

Former President Donald Trump walks onstage July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (AP)

Trump: "Inflation is the worst it's been, I think, in over 100 years. And they'll fact-check it, they'll say it's only 58, whatever it may be."

False.

In summer 2022, year-over-year inflation was around 9%, the highest since the 1970s and early 1980s, when the annual price increase sometimes hovered between 12% and 15%. That’s not 100 years.

Since then, inflation has fallen. It was at 3% year over year in June 2024, the most recent month with available data. That’s higher than the Federal Reserve would like, but it’s down by two-thirds from its 2022 peak.

Trump said, "We have more liquid gold — gasoline, oil — under our feet than any other country. More than Saudi Arabia. More than Russia. More than any other country."

False.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Venezuela ranked first in 2021 with 304 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, followed by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Russia. The U.S. ranked ninth internationally, with 61 billion barrels.

The U.S. ranks higher internationally in coal reserves (No. 1) and natural gas (No. 4),  administration data shows.

Trump: "Your grocery bills are up 40%, 50%, 60%, right?"

Mostly False. 

Food prices have risen on Biden’s watch, by 21.5% since he was inaugurated. That’s about a 6% rise per year, and it’s higher than recent presidents have witnessed on their watch.

But 21.5% is about half the lowest figure Trump cited. 

Trump: Democrats "are allowing the death of a baby after the baby is born."

False.

Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state, as the moderators pointed out. Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this have said they support abortion under Roe v. Wade’s standard, which provided abortion access up to fetal viability. This is typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside of the womb. Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.

Medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare — less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks — and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer them palliative care. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ survival to minutes or days after delivery.

Trump: "Everybody wanted abortion brought back. They didn't want Roe v. Wade in the federal government."

False. 

Roe v. Wade was a contentious legal issue that inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before the ruling to overturn it came down from the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the Supreme Court to uphold Roe. 

Some legal scholars who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s legal underpinnings, saying that different constitutional arguments, based on equal protection, would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who held this view, say those scholars would not have advocated for overturning Roe on this basis.

Polling since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 shows support for Roe has outpaced support for dismantling it.

Trump, when asked whether he would pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters: "What about the police that are ushering, ushering everybody into the Capitol? ‘Go in. Go in. Go in.’ What about that?"

We have looked into similar claims that police willingly let Trump supporters into the Capitol and found no basis for that description. Rioters attacked police, destroyed windows and doors, and ransacked offices. The Justice Department charged more than 1,200 people in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, 452 of whom were charged with "assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees."

Online, some people circulated footage that appeared to show police letting rioters past barricades, but it was misrepresented. Journalist Marcus Diapola, who shot some of the footage, said pro-Trump rioters "made a fist like they were going to punch the cops," which made the police back off.

PolitiFact Staff Writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Madison Czopek, Mia Penner, Josie Hollingsworth and Loreben Tuquero and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed reporting.