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Night four of the Democratic National Convention is underway in Chicago.
Here is a list of fact checks from CNN’s Facts First team. We will update this list throughout the night.
Harris on the Supreme Court immunity decision
In her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned the Supreme Court’s July decision on presidential immunity while warning about the “consequences” of giving former President Donald Trump another term.
“Consider the power he will have – especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution,” Harris said. “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”
Facts First: This needs context. The Supreme Court ruling last month did not grant Trump or former presidents in general total immunity from criminal prosecution, though it did grant them immunity for many of their activities in office.
The court ruled that a former president has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and is “entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts” – but also ruled that “there is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
It’s fair for Harris to frame the ruling as an expansion of presidential power. But the ruling did not kill the ongoing criminal prosecutions against Trump, let alone prohibit any future criminal prosecutions against him.
A federal prosecution over Trump’s attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 election is back in the hands of a district court judge, who must decide which of the alleged Trump acts at issue are official and which are unofficial. And a state-level election subversion prosecution against Trump is also alive in Georgia, though it is on hold amid a battle over whether the district attorney leading the case should be disqualified.
In May, before the Supreme Court ruling, Trump was found guilty of felony falsification of business records in a state-level prosecution in New York. The presiding judge is now considering how the ruling applies to that case, in which Trump is awaiting sentencing.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Harris on Trump raising prices for families by $4,000 a year
Vice President Kamala Harris claimed in her Thursday speech at the Democratic National Convention that former President Donald Trump’s proposed policies would raise prices for American families. “He 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,” she said.
Facts First: The claim is reasonable enough, but it’s worth explaining that Harris is referring to Trump’s proposal to implement new tariffs if he returns to the White House.
Trump has called for adding a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports from all countries, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports.
Together, a 20% across-the-board tariff with a 60% tariff on Chinese-made goods would amount to about a $3,900 annual tax increase for a middle-income family, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal think tank.
If the 20% tariff was just 10%, as Trump sometimes suggests, the total impact for middle-class families could be $2,500 a year, according to CAP.
Separate studies estimate that the impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs would also raise prices for families, but by a lower amount. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated the new duties would cost the average middle-class household about $1,700 annually. And the Tax Policy Center said the impact could be $1,350 a year for middle-income households.
From CNN’s Katie Lobosco
Sen. Casey overstates the role corporations have played in driving inflation
Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey highlighted Vice President Kamala Harris’ recently announced plan to put in place anti-price gouging laws in an effort to lower the cost of food, saying Thursday at the Democratic National Convention, “Prices are up because these corporations are scheming to drive them up.”
Facts First: Casey’s remark lacks key context and overstates the role corporations have played in driving inflation, according to two papers published by regional Federal Reserve banks.
The papers published by the two banks suggest corporations contributed to the inflation Americans have experienced in recent years; however, their pricing actions weren’t the primary driver of inflation when it peaked at a four-decade high in 2022.
Research published by the Kansas City Fed last year found that corporate profits, which grew significantly in the first half of 2021 as firms raised prices at a faster pace than their costs were increasing, could have accounted for more than half the inflation Americans experienced that year. But by 2022, the rate at which corporations raised prices compared with their costs declined.
The researchers concluded that corporations likely raised prices in 2020 and the early part of 2021 in anticipation of rising future costs. But price hikes corporations put forth then were not the main source of inflation in 2022.
Research published by the San Francisco Fed earlier this year reached a similar conclusion: that alleged corporate price gouging was not a primary catalyst for the inflation surge that occurred in 2021 and 2022.
Ultimately, the inflation Americans have had to contend with over the past few years is the product of a confluence of events, including the war in Ukraine, government spending and pandemic-related disruptions across the economy. The unprecedented stress on supply chains in the thick of the pandemic, for example, contributed significantly to inflation’s rise in early 2021.
However, research from progressive think tanks, such as Groundwork Collaborative, suggests there’s a more direct link between corporation raising prices and higher inflation.
From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald
