Fact check at the Democratic National Convention: Harris' acceptance speech lacked detail but still strayed from facts

Photo by Nils Huenerfuers, Unsplash

Last week the Democratic National Convention rallied around Kamala Harris and her choice for vice president, Tim Walz of Minnesota. The four-day event culminated in Harris giving her 40-minute nomination acceptance speech, which included more rhetoric than checkable facts. 

Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post reviewed several claims from Harris' acceptance speech, which are edited and highlighted below. For the Post's complete fact-check story, click here.

Note: The Rural Blog previously posted a fact-check story on the Republican National Convention. 

“We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare.”
This is mostly false. . . . But that hasn’t stopped Democrats from asserting this all week. On Medicare, virtually all anticipated savings sought by Trump would have been wrung from health providers, not Medicare beneficiaries, as a way of holding down costs and improving the solvency of the old-age health program. Trump, in fact, borrowed many proposals from Barack Obama, who had failed to get them through Congress. . . . As for Social Security, Trump kept his promise not to touch retirement benefits, bucking longtime efforts by Republicans to raise the retirement age.

(Trump) doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends, and he will give them another round of tax breaks that will add up to $5 trillion to the national debt.
The numbers don’t tell the whole story. Harris’s $5 trillion figure reflects the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts. (The Congressional Budget Office estimated $4.6 trillion.) Because of the way the law was written, the tax cuts expire in 2027 and, unless Congress acts, Americans would face a steep tax increase. . . . By wanting to extend some of the tax cuts, Harris is acknowledging that a good chunk — as much as half — of Trump’s tax cuts benefited the middle class.

(Trump) intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax. Call it a Trump tax that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year.
This is a high estimate. Trump suggested he wants to impose a 10% tax on every imported good entering the United States and a 60 percent tax on every imported good from China. The Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that this would cost a typical U.S. household in the middle of the income distribution about $1,700 in after-tax income. . . . Harris is relying on an estimate from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund, which calculates the cost would be $3,900.

“As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Harris. . . has not put out detailed policy papers yet, but it’s worth noting that Biden repeatedly proposed budgets that have failed to keep military spending ahead of inflation.

“He encouraged [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to invade our allies, said Russia could, quote, do whatever the hell they want.”
This needs context. Harris carefully uses the word “encouraged” in this passage. Trump did not issue an invitation to Russia to invade U.S. allies, but (in his telling) was informing the leader of a NATO member country that he would not defend that country from a Russian attack if Trump deemed the nation was delinquent on payments to the military alliance. . . . NATO figures show that the defense expenditures for NATO countries other than the United States have been going up — in a consistent slope — since 2014. . . . When NATO decided to boost spending in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea.