By Robert Farley, D’Angelo Gore, Lori Robertson and Eugene Kiely
On the second night of the convention, which featured former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as the headliners, fact-based claims took a back seat to hopeful pronouncements about the future. We still found some political spin:
- Obama claimed that former President Donald Trump “wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends.” But most of the tax cuts Trump has proposed would benefit taxpayers at all income levels.
- Barack Obama credited President Joe Biden with delivering “higher wages” for American workers. Wages have gone up since 2020, but not as fast as inflation. The administration argues 2019 is a better comparison due to effects from the pandemic.
- Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that “Trump’s Project 2025” is “putting forth budgets to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” Trump has disavowed the conservative project, which does not call for cutting Social Security.
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer misleadingly claimed that Donald Trump “issued a Muslim ban as president.” Executive orders that Trump issued in 2017 did not block all Muslims from entering the U.S., as Schumer suggested.
- New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said that Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, “want to … repeal the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for preexisting conditions.” It’s unclear what Trump would do, since he hasn’t released a plan to replace the ACA. He said he would do so, if “we can come up with something that’s better.”
