News Reporter: Fact Checker: One convention down, one to go

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The truth behind the rhetoric.

By Meg Kelly

One convention down, one to go

An it-could-only-happen-this-way-in-2020 version of the Democratic National Convention wrapped up on Thursday night. The pageantry and salesmanship of the convention persevered— if only re-framed as a four-night television event. Packed with performance and bite-sized speeches, we had few facts to check compared to four years ago. Let's review. (You can read the full fact checks from each night here.)

"Social Security beneficiaries count on the post office to get their checks."

— actress Eva Longoria Bastón

Actually, a relatively small percentage of Social Security beneficiaries still get their checks through the mail. The latest data shows that as of 2019, 99.1 percent of Social Security recipients get direct deposits electronically. It jumped from about 85 percent in 2008 as the Obama administration pushed to eliminate paper Social Security checks. Most recipients get their payments either deposited in their bank accounts or on a debit card that is filled automatically every month.

"Since this pandemic began, over 30 million people have lost their jobs, and many have lost their health insurance."

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

The 30 million figure is one way to measure job loss during early stages of the pandemic. It is based on jobless claims, but other metrics, such as the monthly employment numbers, suggest much lower numbers. More than 5 million people are estimated to have lost their health insurance. We will leave to the copy editors among our readers to decide whether "many" is the correct usage in this sentence.

"Five million Americans infected by covid. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation."

— Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden

Biden's claim is accurate when using raw numbers. The United States leads all other countries in deaths and infections from the novel coronavirus. However, to measure countries on a level playing field, public health experts look at cases or deaths per capita. By that metric, Peru, Spain, Chile and Brazil are higher.

"He breaks up with our allies and writes love letters to dictators."

—Former secretary of state John F. Kerry

Trump certainly has testy relations with many U.S. allies, but Kerry is making a bit of a leap to say he has written "love letters" to dictators.

Kerry appears to be referring to a 2018 comment from Trump about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un: "We fell in love, okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they're great letters. We fell in love."

That's certainly an unusual statement, but he's referring to letters written by Kim. We do not yet know what Trump wrote to Kim.

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More turmoil in the Trump-China trade tale

President Trump boasted about the success of his trade deal with China on Aug. 17. He told Fox News the Chinese "are more than living up" to their side of the bargain, claiming "they made the largest order of corn, the largest order of soybeans in history. They made the largest beef order that they've done in a long time."

The facts show the opposite. Instead of booming past 2017 levels, Chinese purchases of U.S. goods have declined when compared to the first six months of 2019. Six months of data show Chinese purchases are far behind the target for 2020, to say nothing of 2021. None of the analysts we surveyed thought these goals were realistic to begin with or plausible now, amid an economic slowdown and a pandemic.

In the first half of the year, China completed purchases for less than one-quarter of its annual target, and only 5 percent of the energy it committed to buy. Trump earns Three Pinocchios, as the Chinese are making some purchases. As for Trump's claim "they made the largest order of corn, the largest order of soybeans in history," there's no evidence yet to support that, and the White House declined to provide any. We'll be keeping an eye on the trade data to see if this fact check needs an increase in the Pinocchio rating.

To read the full fact check, click here.

A pre-RNC reading recommendation

If you are looking for a way to prepare for next week's Republican National Convention, dive into our new book "Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth." Published by Scribner, it explores the first three years of Trump's presidency, detailing need-to-know falsehoods that range from porn stars to policy; coronavirus to climate change.

Now a national bestseller, our book tells the story of a president who has a tenuous relationship to the truth, while offering an exhaustive guide to his most frequent and egregious claims. No other book is better suited as a guide to next week's convention. You can also purchase it as an e-book or an audio version which features the actual Trump quotes, as he made them.

We're always looking for fact-check suggestions.

You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22, @SarahCahlan) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here.

Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup.