Fact-Checking Night 3 of the Republican National Convention

A team of New York Times reporters followed all the developments and fact-checked the speakers, providing context and explanation.

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President Trump walking into the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday to listen to First Lady Melania Trump’s speech.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
  • Republicans used the third night of their national convention to craft a portrait of President Trump as a fierce supporter of social conservatives, the military and women, often using exaggeration and hype that papered over Mr. Trump’s personal history and policy record during the last four years. Times correspondents provided context, analysis and fact-checking throughout the night.

  • In the wake of new violence in Wisconsin, Vice President Mike Pence gravely claimed that “you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America” as other speakers incorrectly asserted that Mr. Biden has said he would “defund the police.” He has not.

  • Several of the speakers focused on the president’s national security credentials, at times overstating Mr. Trump’s accomplishments on the world stage as they sought to counter Mr. Biden’s decades of foreign policy experience.

  • As they did during the first two days of the convention, the Republican speakers rarely mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, even though Mr. Pence has led the White House’s task force. When they did refer to the global crisis, the speakers largely downplayed the threat or misstated the government’s response, as one lawmaker did when he said the administration “authorized testing requests at blazing speed.” It did not.

Michael Croley
Aug. 27, 2020, 12:07 a.m. ET

“Joe Biden criticized President Trump following his decision to rid the world of both of those terrorists. But it’s not surprising because history records that Joe Biden even opposed the operation that took down Osama bin Laden.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is misleading.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has offered shifting accounts of how he counseled then President Barack Obama. It is clear that he was more skeptical than most other Obama officials about the May 2011 operation that killed the Osama bin Laden. But saying that he opposed the raid outright is at best a selective interpretation of the available evidence.

In the months after Mr. Obama ordered the risky mission, Mr. Biden said he had been skeptical of the unconfirmed intelligence showing that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Pakistan. In January 2012, he recalled having told Mr. Obama in a final Situation Room meeting when top officials were polled on their positions: “Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go.” But he implied that his view was subject to change, saying that more work should be done “to see if he’s there.”

A few months later, he added more detail to his account, saying that he spoke privately with Mr. Obama after that Situation Room meeting and told him, “Follow your instincts, Mr. President.” At the time, Mr. Biden recounted, “I knew he was going to go,” thus indicating that he was implicitly endorsing Mr. Obama’s decision to act.

In 2015, Mr. Biden offered a new account of his private exchange with Mr. Obama after the meeting. “I told him my opinion, that I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts,” Mr. Biden said. “Imagine if I had said in front of everyone, ‘Don’t go,’ or ‘Go,’ and his decision was a different decision. It undercuts that relationship.” That analysis conflicts with his first account of telling Mr. Obama to delay the operation.

Subsequent books by former Obama officials describe Mr. Biden as skeptical of the intelligence and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates recounted that “Biden’s primary concern was the political consequences of failure.” Mr. Biden’s own 2017 memoir does not mention the bin Laden raid, and Mr. Obama has not commented on the matter.

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Linda Qiu
Aug. 27, 2020, 12:06 a.m. ET

“People like Dave Patrick Underwood, an officer in the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is misleading.

Mr. Pence was making a point about the need to support law enforcement as protests occurred around the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. But he failed to mention that the man charged with killing Mr. Underwood was an Air Force sergeant linked to a far-right anti-government movement. The suspect, Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, had expressed his allegiance to the boogaloo, an extremist ideology that seeks to bring about a second civil war to overthrow the United States government. F.B.I. officials said that Sergeant Carrillo had traveled to Oakland to “kill cops.”

In its news release announcing the charges against Sergeant Carrillo and another man who participated, a Justice Department official said, “The Department of Justice stands in support of all Americans exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceable assembly and speech but we stand firmly against anyone who seeks to hijack the protests with acts of violence and destruction.”

Coral Davenport
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:35 p.m. ET

“Where Donald Trump achieved energy independence for the United States, Joe Biden would abolish fossil fuels, end fracking, and impose a regime of climate change regulations that would drastically increase the cost of living for American working families.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is misleading.

The phrase “energy independence” suggests that the United States does not depend on energy imports, but the United States still relies significantly on imports of oil and natural gas.

It is false to suggest that Mr. Biden would “end fracking.” Mr. Biden’s climate change plan would end new leases for hydraulic fracturing or fracking, for oil and gas on federal lands, but does not ban existing fracking on public lands or new or existing fracking on private land.

It is accurate that Mr. Biden is likely to reinstate many of the Obama-era climate change regulations that were rolled back or weakened by the Trump administration, including rules reining in greenhouse pollution from coal-fired power plants and vehicles. At the time those rules were put forth, the federal government’s cost-benefit analyses concluded that they would have a net benefit on the economy, but studies have also shown that they could disproportionately affect some regions and sectors, particularly coal mining.

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Jeanna Smialek
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:24 p.m. ET

“Because of the strong foundation that President Trump poured in our first three years, we’ve already gained back 9.3 million jobs over the last three months.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is mostly true.

Mr. Pence is right that the economy has gained back 9.3 million jobs through July. It is important to note that is only about 40 percent of the more than 22 million lost between February and April, though the rebound has actually marked a faster snapback than what many economists and analysts anticipated. It is probably unreasonable to pin those job gains squarely on Mr. Trump’s pre-pandemic policies: Many factors, including the government’s small business loans and broader pandemic relief package, have helped the labor market to recover.

Sharon LaFraniereKatherine J. Wu
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:20 p.m. ET

“We’re on track to have the world’s first safe, effective coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

Mostly True.

The race to develop a vaccine is well underway, but it is uncertain whether it will produce results by the end of the year. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, has repeatedly said it will likely be the end of 2020 or the start of 2021 before it is clear whether clinical trials were successful. Some researchers working on vaccine candidates have said getting data this year will be a real feat.

Mr. Trump has been pushing hard for a faster timetable. According to two people with knowledge of the discussion, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who sits on the coronavirus task force, suggested in a July 30 meeting with congressional leaders that the administration would likely grant emergency authorization for a vaccine before the end of phase three clinical trials in the United States.

Asked about that remark, a Treasury Department spokesman said that Mr. Mnuchin believes vaccine approval is wholly up to the Food and Drug Administration. Nonetheless, the promotion of overly optimistic scenarios by Mr. Trump and his aides has fostered deep concern that the White House will try to influence the vaccine approval process for political reasons.

And a vaccine approval is also only the first step. Even a safe, effective vaccine is useless unless it can be administered widely, and experts have begun to worry that many Americans will be unwilling to take the vaccine, or be unable to access it. A greenlit vaccine also won’t necessarily make people impervious to infection or even mild disease, which means that masking and distancing will likely need to continue for some time yet.

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Linda Qiu
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:11 p.m. ET

“Joe Biden wants to end school choice.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is misleading.

Mr. Biden has a different concept of “school choice” than the Trump administration. He opposes the administration’s support for voucher programs that use taxpayer funds to pay for private school tuition, according to a spokesman, but he supports continuing federal funding for high-performing public charter schools.

The Trump administration has in fact not succeeded in implementing its voucher programs because they have been blocked by Congress.

Sharon LaFraniere
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:09 p.m. ET

“We’re developing a growing number of treatments, known as therapeutics, including convalescent plasma, that are saving lives all across America.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

Mostly true.

The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued emergency use authorization that will expand the use of antibody-rich blood plasma to treat coronavirus patients. The decision will broaden use of a treatment that has already been administered to more than 70,000 patients.

The data suggests that the treatment is most likely to benefit patients less than 80 years old who receive plasma with a high level of virus-fighting antibodies within three days of diagnosis. But the extent of the benefits was exaggerated during a White House news conference. Research showed that about seven in 100 patients would survive because of the plasma treatment — not 35 in 100, as President Trump and other administration officials said. Dr. Stephen Hahn, who heads the Food and Drug Administration, later corrected his assertions of the benefits of the treatment, saying he misspoke.

Some experts have also sounded a note of caution, noting the data is preliminary and the results need to be verified by randomized clinical trials.

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Ana Swanson
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:07 p.m. ET

“Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for Communist China. He wants to repeal all the tariffs that are leveling the playing field for American workers.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is false.

Mr. Biden has not publicly committed to repealing all of the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on more than $360 billion of Chinese products in the course of the trade war. Mr. Biden actually appears reluctant to commit either way to fully keeping or eliminating the tariffs, and his aides have said that he plans to evaluate the tariffs once in office based on their impact on the American middle class. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden had a confusing exchange about the tariffs with the NPR reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Mr. Biden appeared to respond “no” when asked if he would keep the tariffs on China. The Trump campaign seized on the statement to say Mr. Biden would “scrap tariffs without any concessions.” But an aide said that Mr. Biden was actually responding to an earlier assertion by the reporter, that Mr. Trump’s stance was a “good one, to counter China’s influence.”

Linda Qiu
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:07 p.m. ET

“And when asked whether he’d support cutting funding to law enforcement, and he replied, ‘Yes, absolutely.’”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is misleading.

Vice President Mike Pence is taking Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s comments out of context. In a July discussion, the prominent liberal activist Ady Barkan asked Mr. Biden whether he would support redirecting “some of the funding for police into social services, mental health counseling and affordable housing.”

Mr. Biden agreed and listed his proposals to increase funding for mental health clinics, more federal oversight of police departments, and restricting military equipment sold to the police.

“But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?” Mr. Barkan asked.

“Yes, absolutely,” Mr. Biden responded.

The published version of that conversation edited out some of Mr. Biden’s remarks that made his positions clearer. In the full version, provided to The Times by the Biden campaign, Mr. Biden emphasized that his proposals were “not the same as getting rid of or defunding all the police” and repeated that he believed federal grants to departments should be “conditioned.”

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Coral Davenport
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:02 p.m. ET

“Our country became a net exporter of energy for the first time in 70 years.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is exaggerated.

The United States has been a net exporter of coal since at least 1949. It became a net exporter of natural gas in 2017 for the first time in 59 years. In September 2019, it briefly became a net exporter of petroleum for the first time since monthly records began being kept in 1973, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency projected that the United States could become a sustained net exporter of oil by late 2020 or 2021.

Mark Mazzetti
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:01 p.m. ET

“Former Vice President Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming national security adviser three weeks before the inauguration.”

— Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence

This is misleading.

When American surveillance aimed at gathering foreign intelligence information picks up information about an American — either because a target is speaking with an American, or because foreign targets are talking to other foreigners about an American — it is routine, for privacy reasons, to mask that American’s name in intelligence reports. It is lawful for officials to ask to “unmask” the names when it is necessary to understand the intelligence report.

Documents that Mr. Grenell declassified earlier this year show that, during the presidential transition in 2017, someone in Mr. Biden’s office requested to know who an American was whose name had been redacted in an intelligence report. It turned out to be Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s incoming national security adviser.

The request logged under Mr. Biden’s name came on Jan. 12, not “three weeks before the inauguration” as Mr. Grenell said. And contrary to Mr. Grenell’s claim that Mr. Biden made this request, it could instead have been an adviser working in his office, because such requests are logged in the name of senior officials. Rather than a request to unmask Mr. Flynn, as Mr. Grenell put it, by definition the request was instead to learn who the unnamed person was.

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Katherine J. Wu
Aug. 26, 2020, 11:00 p.m. ET

“No one who required a ventilator was ever denied a ventilator in the United States.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

False.

Hospitals across the nation experienced ventilator shortages when inundated with coronavirus cases in the spring, prompting local leaders to plead with the federal government for assistance.

President Trump initially expressed skepticism about surging demand for hospital supplies. In March, for example, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York openly called for tens of thousands of ventilators from the federal government, Mr. Trump questioned the volume of the request. Some hospitals resorted to pairing two patients on one ventilator — a desperate and risky measure to alleviate shortages.

Lara JakesEric Schmitt
Aug. 26, 2020, 10:59 p.m. ET

“It is no wonder that the secretary of defense under the Obama-Biden administration once said that Joe Biden has been, and I quote, ‘wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.’”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is mostly true.

In his 2014 book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” the former Pentagon chief and C.I.A. director Robert M. Gates offered a scathing assessment of how the Obama administration handled the war in Afghanistan. Of Mr. Biden in particular, Mr. Gates said, “I think he’s been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades. ”

But Mr. Pence did not mention what Mr. Gates had written immediately before his criticism of Mr. Biden. “He’s a man of integrity, incapable of hiding what he really thinks, and one of those rare people you know you could turn to for help in a personal crisis,” Mr. Gates wrote of the then-vice president.

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Edward Wong
Aug. 26, 2020, 10:55 p.m. ET

“Before the first case of the coronavirus spread within the United States, the president took unprecedented action and suspending all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world. That action saved untold number of American lives.”

— Vice President Mike Pence

This is false.

Mr. Trump did not suspend all travel from China in his Jan. 31 announcement. There were notable exceptions to the ban. For example, American citizens and permanent residents were allowed to enter the United States even if they had been in China within 14 days before arrival. Close family members of American citizens were also allowed to enter the United States. Moreover, the travel ban had only a limited effect in stopping or lessening the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States. The ban was porous — a New York Times analysis of data determined that nearly 40,000 travelers arrived in the United States on direct flights from China in the two months after Mr. Trump imposed his ban. Scientists have also found that the strain of the virus that began circulating in New York around mid-February was one that spread earlier in Europe, indicating it was carried by travelers from there. In any case, even with Mr. Trump’s partial travel ban on China, the United States has had one of the worst pandemic outcomes in the world, with deaths estimated to be as high as 200,000, about a quarter of the total worldwide.

Jeanna Smialek
Aug. 26, 2020, 10:51 p.m. ET

“Under President Trump’s leadership women’s unemployment hit the lowest level since World War II. 4.3 million new jobs have been created for women — in 2019 alone, women took over 70 percent of those new jobs.”

— Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law

This is exaggerated.

It is true that women’s unemployment hit the lowest level since roughly World World II before the pandemic, and it is also true that women took more than 70 percent of jobs added to the economy last year. Ms. Trump is right that women gained more than 4 million jobs between November 2016 and early 2020, but that was pre-pandemic: Since February, they have lost all of those jobs, and their employment is back at 2015 levels, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

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