DNC FACT CHECK – NIGHT 4

Biden continues to rewrite history and spread disinformation

Joe Biden claims he wants to restore the soul of our nation, but in doing so trafficked in fear and division last night. He perpetuated the Charlottesville hoax, misrepresented the President’s inclusive policy agenda, and blatantly lied about the federal government’s coronavirus response and economic recovery.

Biden has continued throughout his campaign rewritten his own record – and why wouldn’t he? After spending 47 years in Washington all Biden has achieved is a mountain of failures.

Since we can’t rely on the mainstream media to fact-check Biden’s fear-mongering and disinformation, we will:

LIE: Joe Biden: “Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of events in Charlottesville. Close your eyes. Remember what you saw on television. Remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen coming out of fields with torches, spewing the same anti-Semitic vile that came out in the 30s, and remember those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. Remember what the president said when asked? He said they were, quote, very fine people on both sides."

• FACT: After Charlottesville, President Trump specifically and “totally” condemned “neo-Nazis and white nationalists.” Joe Biden, who honored a former KKK Exalted Cyclops and repeatedly used the N-word, is lying again.
• As CNN’s Jake Tapper has said, President Trump did not call neo-Nazis or white supremacists “very fine people.” Jake Tapper: "Elsewhere in those remarks the President did condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists. So he’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people”
• President Trump, August 15, 2017: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally.”
• President Trump has repeatedly and specifically denounced racism, extremism, anti-Semitism, and white supremacists. Here are just a few examples:
  • TRUMP: “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” (February 21, 2017)
  • TRUMP: “Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.” (April 11, 2017)
  • TRUMP: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.” (August 14, 2017)
  • TRUMP: “The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division… I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence.” (August 11, 2018)
  • TRUMP: “We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate. It must be defeated.” (April 27, 2019)

LIE: Biden accused the President of fanning the “flames of hate and division.” Now that we’ve debunked the Charlottesville hoax, let’s look at President Trump’s inclusive record:

• FACT: President Trump has done more to advance the rights of gays and lesbians in three years than Biden did in 40-plus years in Washington. For four decades, Biden has attacked the LGBT community; as a U.S. senator, Biden supported ‘Don't Ask; Don't Tell' and the Defense of Marriage Act. Biden voted to cut off federal funds to any school that teaches acceptance of homosexuality. Biden said again and again that he was against marriage equality.
• President Trump appointed America’s first openly gay Cabinet member, Ric Grenell.
• President Trump began a historic campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the globe at the United Nations, where he publicly challenged the 69 countries who make being gay a crime to change their laws. 
• President Trump has long worked with charities to combat the AIDS crisis, he supported amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation, and he was an early supporter of gay couples having the same rights and protections as straight couples. He is likely even the first private club owner in Palm Beach, Florida, to admit an openly gay couple.
• As President, Trump announced the “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America” initiative, in which the administration provides pre-exposure prophylaxis medication for uninsured, high-risk HIV individuals with a focus on communities in need. This medication, which could run up to as much as $20,000 per patient, per year, would be distributed to up to 200,000 individuals each year through at least Dec. 31, 2025.

LIE: Julia Louis Dreyfus said, "Just remember, Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesn't even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there." Perhaps this was supposed to be funny, however, Biden’s policy stances betray his faith:

• FACT: The Biden-Harris administration would allow unlimited, taxpayer-funded abortions, even post-birth. A Catholic priest denied Biden communion because of this radical stance.
• Biden does not respect religious freedom. Tonight, he pledged he would continue his lawsuit against Little Sisters of the Poor to remove their freedom of conscience protections which exempt the sisters from being required to offer contraceptive coverage under their health plans.
• Biden’s running-mate Kamala Harris thinks being a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization, disqualifies you from being a judge.

LIE: Biden said he “sounded the alarm” about the coronavirus in January about the coronavirus pandemic. He falsely said he was first to lay out specific steps the Trump Administration should take to prepare:

• FACT: Biden held dozens and dozens of events in January and February. He spoke for hours and hours. Yet his campaign can’t point to a single statement from Biden about the need to social distance, invoke the Defense Production Act, increase the production of PPE or ventilators, set up temporary hospitals, or implement travel restrictions. At the vast majority of his events, the coronavirus was not mentioned at all. For a timeline on exactly what Biden said and when click here.

LIE: Biden falsely stated the U.S. leads the world in coronavirus deaths.

• FACT: According to the Washington Post: To measure countries on a level playing field, public health experts look at cases or deaths per capita. According to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University, the United States has the fifth-highest coronavirus mortality rate per 100,000 people when looking at the 20 countries currently most affected. Peru, Spain, Chile, and Brazil are higher.
• Per capita, the U.S. is conducting 50% more tests than Europe with nearly 3x as many tests as all the other countries in the Western hemisphere combined.

LIE: Biden linked our nation’s economic distress to President Trump’s economic policies – a blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

• FACT: Everybody knows the reason the economy is underwater is because President Trump listed to the science closed down our economy for two months so the federal government could ramp up on testing, PPE, and hospital capacity due to the coronavirus. Now, as capacity has ramped up, many Democratically run cities and states refuse to reopen, furthering our economic decline.
• While the Trump Administration issued science-based guidelines and worked with governors of both parties to safely reopen their economies, Biden ignored the experts and refused to voice support for any state reopening. Even after The Washington Post reported that coronavirus testing was “widely available” and that misconceptions about supply and cost were discouraging people from being tested, Biden continued to spread misleading and harmful talking points and lies.
• According to The Wall Street Journal, the states with the highest unemployment rates are run by Democrats who were slow to take steps to reopen.
• President Trump is renewing, restoring, and rebuilding America’s economy after the Chinese virus pandemic, and the country is off to a good start. We’ve seen record job creation and the single biggest surge in retail sales in American history. 

LIE: Biden falsely claimed again that Trump's tax plan rewards the wealthy more than it does working Americans. "We can pay for these investments by ending loopholes, unnecessary loopholes, and the president's $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1% and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of which do not pay any tax at all. Because we don't need a tax code that rewards wealth more than it rewards work."

• FACT: Trump delivered tax cuts to middle-class Americans with a historic overhaul of the tax code. It provided more than $2,000 in tax cuts for an average family of four, doubled the standard deduction, allowing middle-income families to exempt more of their income from taxes, doubled the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and made the credit available to more middle-income families.
• Reported by Market Watch: “Americans paid almost $64 billion less in federal income taxes during the first year under the Republican tax overhaul signed into law in late 2017 by President Donald Trump, with some of the sharpest drops clustered among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year." 
• Joe Biden’s tax plan would cost American taxpayers $4 trillion, decimating the potential for economic gains and making it impossible for American families and workers to recover from the Coronavirus. 

LIE: Biden falsely stated of Trump "He's proposing to eliminate a tax that pays for almost half the social security without any way of making up for that revenue, resulting in cuts. I will not let that happen."

• FACT: Trump promised he will protect social security during an August press briefing. For the future of social security, the President said, "We'll be paying into Social Security through the general fund."
• Biden has repeatedly said he would cut social security. The Intercept reported: "Placed in context, however, Biden’s record on Social Security is far worse than one offhand remark. Indeed, Biden has been advocating for cuts to Social Security for roughly 40 years.”

LIE: Biden said under his administration "cozying up to dictators is over," but Joe Biden had weak leadership towards America's adversaries in office. 

• FACT: Iranian terrorist Soleimani was permitted to plot attacks on American troops in the Middle East while Obama and Biden delivered pallets of cash to the Iranian regime as part of a terrible deal that would have allowed them to acquire nuclear weapons. 
• Biden first suggested the failed "reset with Russia." 
• Biden failed to provide lethal aid to Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion of Crimea. 
• Biden failed to effectively counter Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, with even his fellow Democrats admitting Biden “choked.”
• Biden supported the Iran nuclear deal that sent pallets of unmarked cash to the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. 
• Biden continues to underestimate the threat China poses to the U.S. and said, "It is in our self-interest that China continues to prosper."  
• When asked by Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR if Biden would keep the tariffs President Trump rightfully 

LIE: Democrats continued to push the post office conspiracy and obfuscate the difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting, saying “there is absolutely zero difference between voting by mail and voting absentee."

• FACT: Anyone can vote by requesting an absentee ballot, universal vote by mail however is when state governments send ballots to ALL registered voters, meaning active, inactive, dead, moved away, or otherwise leaving room for voter fraud and ballot harvesting.