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Trump said Biden "indicted me because I was his opponent."

When Trump made that statement about his New York trial — which led to a jury convicting him on 34 felonies — we rated it False. The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s business records began before Biden was president, but Biden was president by the time Trump was charged in 2023.

After Michael Cohen, who had been an attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. opened an investigation into the payments, Politico reported. That was before Biden was president. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired a former Justice Department prosecutor in 2022. But experts told us that doesn’t prove Biden was involved.

Trump has also been indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury and two federal grand juries. Biden is not responsible for decisions by state or federal prosecutors to present cases to grand juries.

Trump said, “We now have the largest deficit in the history of our country.”

False. The largest deficit in the history of the United States happened in Fiscal Year 2020, when Trump was president. The pandemic was an extraordinary historical occurrence that prompted an aggressive, and temporary, government response.

Trump wrong to say Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times”
False. Biden proposed a tax increase of about 7% over the next decade, which is far lower than the 300% increase that former Trump claimed.

About 83% of the proposed Biden tax increase would be borne by the top 1% of taxpayers, a level that starts at just under $1 million a year in income.

Taxpayers earning up to $60,400 would see their yearly taxes decline on average, and taxpayers earning $60,400 to $107,300 would see an annual increase of $20 on average.

Trump said Biden called Black Americans “super predators.”

False. In a 1993 Senate floor speech, Biden spoke about doing something for young people who did not have supervision, structure or opportunities. He said the country needed to focus on them, because otherwise, a portion of them would "become the predators 15 years from now."

Trump repeats false story about Pelosi failing to call National Guard on Jan. 6
When Trump was asked about his actions on Jan. 6, he pivoted to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, falsely describing what she said in recently released footage filmed by her daughter. Trump said: “And Nancy Pelosi, if you just watched the news from two days ago on tape, to her daughter, Pelosi is saying, ‘Oh no, it's my responsibility. I was responsible for this,’ because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard, and she turned them down.”

This remains False. In a brief video, Pelosi said, "I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more," referring to U.S. Capitol security, not the National Guard.

No member of Congress has the authority to activate the District of Columbia National Guard. Only the president, defense secretary and U.S. Army secretary do. Records show that Pelosi approved a Jan. 6, 2021, request to seek support from the National Guard and pushed to get National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol when their deployment was delayed by hours that day.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, not Trump, called in National Guardsmen for riots

During an exchange on the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Trump pivoted to the quick action he says he took to stop rioting in Minneapolis after George Floyd was killed in the custody of a Minneapolis police officer. “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”

False.

It was Gov. Tim Walz who activated 500 Minnesota National Guardsmen to provide support to local law enforcement in Minneapolis.

Trump falsely dismisses Biden’s jobs tally as “illegal immigrants” and from COVID-19 “bounceback jobs”

False.

Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million. (There are many more native-born Americans than foreign-born Americans, so on a percentage basis, the increase for foreign-born Americans is about 22%, compared with 6% for native-born Americans.)

It’s also wrong to say that all the foreign-born employment gains (much less all the employment gains, period) stem from migrants here illegally. The data for foreign-born Americans includes anyone born outside the U.S., including immigrants who have been in the United States legally for decades.

Employment on Biden’s watch passed its prepandemic level by June 2022, about a year and a half into his term. Since then, the U.S. economy has created an additional 6.2 million jobs.

Trump claims he left Biden “safest border in history," but spike began in 2020

Mostly False. There is no simple metric to determine if Biden inherited the safest border. Some cite miles of barriers, while others use various apprehension figures.

While Trump presents the border surge as a "disaster" under Biden, the spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in the spring of 2020 during the Trump administration and generally continued to climb each month.

Besides U.S. policy, factors that drive migrants to leave their home countries have included economic havoc caused by hurricanes and the pandemic, and yearslong problems associated with violence. The numbers of migrants arriving at the border also tend to spike in the spring and summer months.

Trump falsely says Democratic policies allow killing of babies after birth

Asked about abortion, Trump said Democrats will “take the life” of a child in the “eight month, ninth month, and after birth.”

Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state. We've rated claims about post-birth abortions False.

Situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare, and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening medical emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. The majority of elected Democrats support abortion access up to fetal viability, when the fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer palliative care to make the newborn as comfortable as possible. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ post-birth survival to just minutes or days after delivery, reproductive health experts said.

Trump is wrong that "all" legal scholars wanted Roe v. Wade overturned

When asked what kind of abortion restrictions he supports, Trump — who appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 — argued that “all legal scholars” from across “the world” wanted it gone.

False. The Roe v. Wade decision inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before the ruling, two years ago this week, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the Supreme Court to uphold the ruling.

Some legal scholars who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s legal underpinnings, saying that different constitutional arguments, based on equal protection, would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who held this view, said those scholars would not have advocated for overturning Roe on this basis.