Quick Take

When Vice President Kamala Harris was the attorney general of California in 2014, she announced a program to help young people transitioning out of the criminal justice system. She glibly referred to the 18-24 age group as “stupid,” saying people that age “make really bad decisions.” But social media posts have taken her words out of context.

Full Story

Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, online posts have begun to focus on comments she has made in various settings over the years.

One popular video clip that’s been circulating came from a 2014 speech Harris gave at a symposium hosted by the Ford Foundation. At the time, Harris was California’s attorney general, and she was announcing a new program, “Back on Track,” aimed at reducing recidivism among young, nonviolent offenders.

Harris described it as “a new approach to criminal justice policy.” The program was based, in part, on an initiative she had implemented in 2005 as the district attorney in San Francisco. In explaining that initiative, she pointed out the difference in how young people who go to college are characterized compared with how young people in the criminal justice system are characterized.

“When I was at Howard University,” Harris said, “we were 18 through 24 and you know what we were called? College kids. But when you turn 18 and you’re in the [criminal justice] system, you are considered an adult — period — without any regard to the fact that that is the very phase of life in which we have invested billions of dollars in colleges and universities knowing that is the prime phase of life during which we mold and shape and direct someone to become a productive adult.”

Harris continued, “What’s the other thing we know about this population? And it’s a specific phase of life — remember, age is more than a chronological fact. What else do we know about this population, 18 through 24? They are stupid.” The audience laughed, and Harris continued, “That is why we put them in dormitories and they have a resident assistant! They make really bad decisions.”

She then explained how the San Francisco initiative had worked — bringing in social workers and financial literacy teachers to help direct young offenders who were leaving prison toward jobs as a way to keep them from reoffending.

But social media posts have used clips of Harris’ speech that include only the last paragraph above and highlight the phrase, “They are stupid,” suggesting that she was insulting the intelligence of that age group as a whole.

Not only do those posts take her words out of context, but they also ignore an underlying issue reflected in Harris’ remarks — brain development isn’t complete until around age 24. Young people may continue to need some guidance until then.

“The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s,” according to the National Institute of Mental Health. “The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions.”

So, Harris may have been a little glib in her 2014 speech. But she was addressing the fact that young people who are in the criminal justice system are still developing, and she was advocating programs that would help them develop responsible skills. The posts circulating online take her words out of context and miss the larger point she was making.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Ford Foundation. “California State Attorney General Kamala D. Harris on the importance of prison education.” 8 May 2014.

California Office of the Attorney General. Press release. “Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Los Angeles Recidivism Reduction Pilot Program.” 8 May 2014.

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance. “Back on Track: A Problem-Solving Reentry Court.” Sep 2009.

Sawyer, Susan, et al. “The age of adolescence.” Lancet, Child & Adolescent Health. 17 Jan 2018.

Garner, Andrew. “What’s Going On in the Teenage Brain?” American Academy of Pediatrics. Updated 27 Sep 2023.

National Institute of Mental Health. The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know. Accessed 25 Jul 2024.

The post Social Media Posts Misrepresent Harris’ 2014 Remarks About Young People appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In his first two solo rallies as the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance took aim at Vice President Kamala Harris. But in several instances, Vance twisted Harris’ words or her record.

• Vance said Harris “supported abolishing ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].” Back in 2018, Harris said elected leaders should “critically reexamine ICE and its role” but she did not call for abolishing the agency and all its functions.

• He said Harris “wanted to defund the police.” Harris talked repeatedly about “reimagining public safety and how we achieve it” but she never advocated slashing or cutting police budgets altogether.

• Vance said Harris had failed as “America’s border czar,” but Harris’ role in the Biden administration was to address the “root causes” of immigration in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

• Vance said Harris “called Joe Biden a racist and then ran with him two months later.” During a Democratic primary debate in 2019, Harris criticized Biden’s position on two race-related issues, but she began her comments, “I do not believe you are a racist.”

• Vance said that Harris “voted to eliminate the filibuster and pass the green new scam.” Harris said in 2019 that she was “prepared to get rid of” the procedural rule to pass the so-called “Green New Deal,” but that nonbinding resolution never received a vote.

In back-to-back solo rallies on July 22, Vance spoke in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, and then in Radford, Virginia. Many of Vance’s attack lines parroted the talking points contained in a National Republican Senatorial Committee memo that paints Harris as “an avowed radical.”

Harris on ICE

In his speech in Virginia, Vance distorted the facts in claiming that Harris “supported abolishing ICE.” He’s referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security agency charged with “enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”

Back in 2018, several Democratic leaders were making calls to abolish ICE. On her campaign website when she ran for a House seat in New York in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote that ICE represented “part of an unchecked expansion of executive powers that led to the widespread erosion of Americans’ civil rights.” In calling for abolishment of the agency, Ocasio-Cortez claimed ICE “operates with virtually no accountability, ripping apart families and holding our friends and neighbors indefinitely in inhumane detention centers scattered across the United States.”

While serving as a senator in June 2018, Harris was also critical of the way ICE operated during former President Donald Trump administration — such as its enforcement of Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy that resulted in children being separated from their parents who were detained for entering the U.S. illegally. Harris said the government should “critically reexamine” ICE’s role, adding that might mean “starting from scratch.” Here’s the relevant part of a June 2018 interview with MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt (starting at the 8:55 mark).

Hunt, MSNBC, June 24, 2018: A lot of the signs at the rally you just held were people standing there saying, ‘Abolish ICE.’ Is that a position that you agree with?

Harris: Listen, I think there’s no question that we’ve got to critically reexamine ICE and its role and the way it is being administered and the work it is doing. And we need to probably think about starting from scratch, because there’s a lot that is wrong with the way that it’s conducting itself. And we need to deal with that.

Hunt: What do you think should be the alternative to ICE?

Harris: Well, first of all, I don’t think that the government should be in the position of separating families. And that is clearly what is part of what’s happening at ICE and DHS. You look at what’s happening, again, in terms of how they’re conducting their perspective on asylum seekers. That is a real problem and is contrary to all of the spirit and the reason that we even have the asylum rules and laws in the first place. So their mission, I think, is very much in question, and has to be reexamined.

In an interview on “The View” in July 2019, Harris was asked if she would get rid of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

“I would not,” Harris said. “We need to restructure and reform it. … We need to deal with it and fix it, but I do not believe in getting rid of it.” Several times, Harris added, “I believe in border security.”

So Harris called for reexamining the way ICE was functioning under the Trump administration, and she talked about the possibility of “starting from scratch.” But she never called for abolishing the agency and its functions altogether.

Harris on Defunding the Police

Vance said Harris “wanted to defund the police,” adding, “even Joe Biden never went so far as to say he wanted to defund the police.” Neither did Harris.

Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, speaks at a campaign rally on July 22 in Radford, Virginia. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Rather, in a series of interviews in mid-June 2020, Harris carefully drew out her position on the “defund the police” movement that arose in the wake of protests and riots in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man, after a white police officer kneeled on his neck during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

In her interviews, Harris talked about “reimagining public safety and how we achieve it.” The answer, she said, is not “more police on the streets” but rather investing more in struggling communities — in things such as education, job creation, affordable housing and health care — as a way to make them safer. She never agreed that that meant slashing or eliminating police budgets.

As we have written, there is no agreed upon definition for the term “defund the police.” Some critics of the police, who believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement, really do want to abolish police forces and replace them with other community safety entities. Others advocate shifting some money and functions away from police departments to social service agencies.

Amid the Floyd protests, Harris put herself at the forefront of the debate about police conduct. On June 8, 2020, she co-sponsored a bill that sought to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct and to eliminate discriminatory policing practices. At that time, Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. Harris was picked as Biden’s vice presidential running mate until August.

In an interview on ABC’s “The View” the same day, June 8, 2020, Meghan McCain asked if Harris supported “defunding and removing police from American communities.”

Harris, ABC’s “The View,” June 8, 2020: I think that a big part of this conversation really is about reimagining how we do public safety in America. Which I support, which is this: We have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses and access to health care regardless of how much money people have. That’s how you achieve safe and healthy communities. …

Here’s the other thing, when I talk to law enforcement, they know that they don’t want to be nor are they skilled to be the ones who are responding to someone with mental illness or substance abuse or–or the homeless population, but in many cities, that’s what’s happening because we are not directing those resources, those public resources to where they need to go, which is addressing mental health, homelessness, substance abuse, so that we don’t have to have a police response because we are smarter.  

McCain: … Are you for defunding the police?  

Harris: How are you defining “defund the police”?  

McCain: Well, I’m not for anything remotely for that, so I would ask the protesters the same thing, but I … assume it’s removing police, and as congresswoman Ilhan Omar said, bringing in a whole new way of governing and a law and order into a community.

Harris: … So, again, we need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety in America and to have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing but yet there is a dire need in those same cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, resources going into job training and job creation.

Harris hit the same themes in an interview the same day on MSNBC, adding, “We don’t want police officers to be dealing with the homeless issue. We don’t want police officers to be dealing with substance abuse and mental health. No — we should be putting those resources into our public health systems, we should be looking at our budgets and asking, ‘Are we getting the best return on our investment as taxpayers?’”

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America” the following day, June 9, 2020, Harris said accusations from Trump that radical left Democrats supported defunding the police, Harris characterized that as “creating fear where none is necessary.” In that same interview, she said she applauded then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to reallocate about $150 million from policing to health and youth initiatives. And she again stressed the need to “invest in communities” to make them healthy and safer.

“We have to stop militarization of police,” Harris said. “But that doesn’t mean we get rid of police. Of course not. We have to be practical about this.”

In a Sept. 6, 2020, interview on CNN, after she was the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, Harris was asked about a quote from her 2009 book about support for more police on the streets, and how that jibed with her more recent position that increasing the number of police officers was not the answer for safer communities.

“What I would say now is what I would say then, which is I want to make sure that if a woman is raped, a child is molested, one human being murders another human being, that there will be a police officer that responds to that case and that there will be accountability and consequence for the offender,” Harris responded.

So Harris advocated investing more in struggling communities as a means to make them safer, and she discussed redefining government roles so that social service and mental health agencies respond to some emergencies rather than police. But she didn’t call for eliminating police departments, as the “defund the police” phrase suggests.

Harris Was Not Named ‘Border Czar’

Vance said Harris failed as “America’s border czar,” attaching a title to her — as Trump has as well — that is not accurate.

“Kamala Harris is America’s border czar,” Vance said in Virginia, “and how’s our border doing, ladies and gentlemen? She hasn’t talked to the chief of Border Patrol a single time in her entire tenure as border czar. Remember, on her very first day in office, she and Biden suspended deportations, they stopped construction of the border wall, and they reimplemented catch and release. The border crisis is a Kamala Harris crisis.”

As we wrote on the third night of the Republican National Convention when Rep. Matt Gaetz and others wrongly said Harris was appointed a “border czar,” Harris was not appointed to be the person in charge of border security.

In 2021, Biden tapped Harris to head up a Central American initiative called the “Roots Causes Strategy,” an effort to “address the root causes of migration” from “from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.” It seeks to deter migration from those countries by, among other things, providing funds for natural disasters, fighting corruption, and creating partnerships with the private sector and international organizations.

In a meeting on immigration on March 24, 2021, Biden announced that he had tapped Harris to “help in stemming the movement of so many folks” from Mexico and the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras).

Harris said she looked “forward to engaging in diplomacy with government, with private sector, with civil society, and — and the leaders of each in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and ensure shared prosperity in the region.”

The following month, when a reporter asked Harris if she had a trip planned to the southern border, Harris responded, “The president has asked Secretary Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border.” She clarified that “I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what then-vice president did many years ago.”

When Harris and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas did visit the border in El Paso in June 2021, Mayorkas noted, “The vice president is leading our nation’s effort to tackle the root causes of migration — why people leave their home in the first place.” Mayorkas said it was his responsibility to “secure the border.”

A big part of Harris’ efforts have been focused on encouraging private sector investment in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as Mexico, which, as of March had resulted in “more than $5.2 billion in private sector commitments for northern Central America,” according to a White House press release. Harris has also met with Central American leaders to encourage a “focus on good governance and labor rights,” again with the aim of addressing some of the root causes of migration.

Although it is difficult to measure the success of those programs in stemming migration, Customs and Border Protection statistics show that illegal immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has decreased since 2021. Illegal border-crossing attempts by Mexicans, however, have risen since 2021.

Harris Did Not Call Biden a Racist

Vance tried to turn the tables on Democrats pointing out that he once made numerous biting comments criticizing Trump, by wrongly claiming that Harris once called Biden a racist.

“You know, it’s so funny,” Vance said. “The media says, ‘Well, you know, JD said some critical things about President Trump 10 years ago.’ And Kamala Harris, of course, called Joe Biden a racist and then ran with him two months later.”

Vance’s past criticisms of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign are well-documented. In 2016, Vance wrote an opinion piece that likened Trump to “cultural heroin,” and in an interview that year he flatly said, “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him.” In a July 2021 interview on Fox News, Vance said he regretted those comments and he regretted “being wrong about the guy.”

As for Harris, she did provide one of the more contentious moments of a June 27, 2019, Democratic primary debate, aggressively confronting Biden on two race-related issues: Biden’s past opposition to school busing and his comments about working with “some civility” in the 1970s with two segregationist southern Democrats, Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia.

As we wrote, Harris began her comments by saying to Biden, “I do not believe you are a racist.” But Harris, who is Black, said that “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.” Biden responded by saying, “I did not praise racists.” Harris didn’t say he did. She said he talked about their reputations, and Biden did say that he was able to work with them in a civil way to get things done in the Senate, despite their political and personal differences.

Harris on the ‘Green New Deal’

Vance accused Harris of voting to end a Senate procedural rule so that Democratic lawmakers could pass climate change legislation.

“She voted to eliminate the filibuster and pass the green new scam, destroying energy jobs in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and driving up the cost of goods,” Vance said. “That’s why we’ve got an affordability crisis in this country, my friends, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they’d rather buy oil and gas from tin-pot dictators all over the world. I say they should buy it right here, from American workers.”

Vance appeared to be referring to the “Green New Deal,” a nonbinding resolution that outlined ways the U.S. should address climate change. However, it never received a vote in the House or the Senate after being introduced in February 2019.

At a September 2019 town hall, Harris, then a U.S. senator running for president, did say she would be willing to eliminate the Senate filibuster, a rule that requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation, to enact the measure into law. “Here’s my point: If they [Congress] fail to act, as president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal,” she said while answering a question.

But, as we said, the resolution was not brought to the Senate floor, so there was no filibuster to end. And there is no way that legislation could have “destroyed energy jobs” and increased “the cost of goods,” as Vance claimed, since it didn’t become law. The NRSC memo itself said Harris “pledged to eliminate the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal.”

His other claim that Biden and Harris would “rather buy oil and gas from tin-pot dictators” than “American workers” is also misleading.

Under the Biden administration, more crude oil and natural gas is being produced in the U.S. than ever before. Besides, while natural gas and crude oil are imported to the U.S. from other countries to help meet domestic demand, “these are all [business] decisions made by private companies,” not the federal government, Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told us in a phone interview. “There’s not a lot of space for the administration to impact that.”

In addition, about 99% of natural gas imports to the U.S. come from Canada, which does not have a dictatorship. Canada also has consistently been the source of about 60% of crude oil imports to the U.S. in recent years. After Canada, the main suppliers of U.S. crude oil imports are Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Colombia — the same top five countries for imports during the Trump administration.

Vance may have been referring to the fact that in 2023, the Biden administration temporarily lifted Trump-era energy sanctions on Venezuela, once again allowing imports from oil and gas companies in that nation, which is run by an authoritarian government. But the sanctions were reimposed in April, after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro went back on his agreement to work toward having free and fair elections in the country this year.

Even during the period when the sanctions were removed, less than 3% of U.S. crude oil imports were coming from Venezuela, according to federal data.

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Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Summary

President Joe Biden isn’t running for reelection, but his record will still be on the ballot in the fall. Here we look at how the U.S. has performed under the Democratic president:

• The economy added 15.7 million jobs. The number is now 6.3 million higher than before the pandemic.

• The unemployment rate dropped back and has stayed lower, longer than at any time during the previous administration.

• Inflation surged to its highest level in over 40 years. Despite recent moderation, consumer prices are up more than 19% overall. Gasoline is up 46%.

• Average weekly earnings haven’t kept pace with prices. After adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings dropped 2.3%.

• The U.S. economy has continued to expand under Biden, growing at 2.8% in the second quarter estimate released July 25 — double the rate of growth in the first quarter.

• Violent crime has gone down. Figures from large cities show a 9.1% drop in murders from 2020 to 2023, and data from more than 200 cities show a continuing decline so far this year.

• Fewer people lack health insurance. The uninsured went down by 2.1 percentage points or 6.6 million people.

• Crude oil production increased. The daily average for the most recent 12 months is 15.3% higher than the average in 2020, and it’s higher than the pre-pandemic average.

• Apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally are up 273% for the 12 months ending in June, even as the monthly figure for June dropped significantly.

• The average number of refugees admitted per month is 117% higher than the average under his predecessor.

• Corporate profits are up 36%.

• The international trade deficit for goods and services went up 22.3%.

• The number of people receiving food stamps has decreased by more than half a million.

• The debt held by the public has grown by 28.5%

• The S&P 500 has increased 42.9%.

Analysis

Our latest quarterly update of “Biden’s Numbers,” which we first published in January 2022, comes days after Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. We’ll publish one more update in October, before Election Day.

We published similar reports on “Trump’s Numbers” throughout former President Donald Trump’s time in office.

We present various statistical indicators of how the country has fared. As we’ve said before, we make no judgments as to how much credit or blame the president deserves for these metrics, and we caution that no single number can tell the whole story.

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs rebounded strongly during Biden’s time, surpassing pre-pandemic levels by more than 6 million.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 15,722,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and June, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The June figure is 6,329,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

Some occupations recovered more slowly, notably teaching. In June the number of local government education workers was only 29,000 higher than at the pre-pandemic peak. And employment in the leisure industry still hasn’t recovered; in June there were 161,000 fewer hotel and restaurant workers and others in the accommodation and food services industries than before the pandemic.

Unemployment — The unemployment rate has been lower for longer under Biden than under his predecessor.

It hit the lowest point in over half a century in January 2023 and again in April 2023, when it was 3.4%, the lowest since June 1969.

The rate was back up to 4.1% last month, still 2.3 percentage points below where it was when Biden took office.

June also marked the 32nd consecutive month that the rate was at or below 4.1%. The longest such stretch under Donald Trump was 27 months, just before the pandemic sent the unemployment rate soaring.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March 2022, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number of unfilled jobs was still over 8.1 million as of the last business day of May, the most recent month on record. That’s an increase of 955,00 openings — over 13% — compared with January 2021, when Biden took office.

In May, there was an average of nearly 3 jobs for every 2 people seeking work. When Biden took office there were fewer openings than unemployed job seekers.

The number of job openings in June is set to be released July 30.

Labor Force Participation — The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has risen slowly during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.6% in June.

That still leaves the rate 0.7 percentage points below the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

The rate has been trending generally down for nearly a quarter of a century. It peaked at 67.3% during the first four months of 2000. Labor Department economists project that the rate will continue to slide down to 60.1% in 2031, “primarily because of an aging population.”

Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — but that hasn’t yet been achieved.

As of June, the U.S. added 762,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.3% increase in the space of 41 months, according to the BLS.

But compared with the highest level during Trump’s time in office — which was in January 2019 — manufacturing jobs are up only 122,000, or just under 1%.

Wages and Inflation

CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden. During his time in office, the Consumer Price Index rose 19.2%.

For a time it was the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending in June 2022 saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the BLS said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

Inflation has moderated more recently. The CPI rose 3% in the 12 months ending in June, the most recent figure available.

Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline shot up even faster.

During the week ending July 22, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump was $3.47 per gallon. That’s $1.09 higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 46%.

The price swung wildly during Biden’s first year and a half, hitting just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13, 2022. That’s the highest on record. The rise was propelled by worldwide supply and demand issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 17% during Biden’s first 41 months, according to figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

But inflation ate up all that gain and more. In June “real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, were still 2.3% below where they were when Biden took office.

That’s despite two years of recent improvement. Real earnings in June were 2.3% higher than the low point under Biden 24 months earlier.

Economic Growth

Despite concerns about high inflation and the Federal Reserve’s policy of raising interest rates to slow inflation, the U.S. economy has continued to expand under Biden. 

The real gross domestic product (which is adjusted for inflation) increased 5.8% in 2021, 1.9% in 2022 and 2.5% last year. 

In the second quarter of this year, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8%, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said in a July 25 release announcing its “advance estimate.” (The advance estimate is the BEA’s first estimate for the second quarter, which could be adjusted Aug. 29 when the second estimate is released.)

The 2.8% second quarter estimate was double the first quarter growth and was slightly higher than expectations. A day earlier, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model was projecting growth of 2.6% for the quarter. 

The BEA said the second-quarter figure “reflected increases in consumer spending, private inventory investment, and nonresidential fixed investment.” On the negative side, imports — “which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP” — increased, the BEA said.

Prior to the release of the second-quarter estimate, economists were seeing signs of a slowdown in the U.S. economy that could shrink the growth rate in the near future. 

In its monthly economic forecast issued July 11, the Conference Board – a research organization with more than 2,000 member companies – said it expected the U.S. economy “to lose momentum near-term as high prices and elevated interest rates sap domestic demand.”

Vanguard said something similar in its July economic outlook released July 18. 

“The productivity and labor supply gains that drove U.S. economic growth in 2023 lately show signs of subsiding, joining retail sales, capital expenditure, and other data that previously suggested a slowdown,” Vanguard said. 

Still, economists for both said the labor market is strong, and a recession – once thought inevitable – is unlikely. Vanguard projects that the U.S. economy will grow by 2% for the full year in 2024.

Crime

Contrary to claims by Trump and other Republicans, violent crime has gone down during Biden’s term. That’s according to crime data compiled by the FBI and other sources.

The 2022 FBI annual report showed a slight decline in the nationwide murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 0.5 point from 2020, the year before Biden took office, to 2022. The violent crime rate dropped by 15.4 points, to 369.8 per 100,000 population in 2022. (For these figures, see Table 1 in the CIUS Estimations download for the crime in the U.S. reports.)

Preliminary FBI figures for 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 show further declines in violent crimes and murders. The number of violent crimes dropped 5.7% from 2022 to 2023, and from January to March of this year, violent crimes were down 15.2% compared with the same time period last year, according to the preliminary data (download the quarterly tables to see these figures). The FBI figures are based on voluntary reports by agencies nationwide.

The FBI’s official 2023 annual report should be released this fall.

Other reports show the same trend. Figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, with the addition of New York City’s statistics, show the number of murders has gone down by 10.4% from 2022 to 2023 in 70 large U.S. cities. Since 2020, murders in those cities have dropped by 9.1%.

The latest Major Cities Chiefs Association report, for the first quarter of 2024, indicate that murders and other violent crimes dropped again, compared with the same time period last year.

As of July 23, figures compiled by AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, show a 17.3% decrease in murders in more than 200 U.S. cities so far this year, compared with the same point in 2023.

As we’ve explained in past reports, murders and violent crime went up in 2020, Trump’s last year in office, and there was a smaller increase the following year, Biden’s first as president. But since then, crime has been going down.

Health Insurance

The percentage of Americans lacking health insurance has declined by 2.1 percentage points under Biden, according to the National Health Interview Survey.

In 2023, 7.6% of the population was uninsured, according to the latest NHIS early release estimates. That’s down from 9.7% in 2020. In raw numbers, there were 6.6 million fewer people uninsured last year compared with the year before Biden became president.

The NHIS, a project of the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC, measures the uninsured at the time people were interviewed.

The Census Bureau’s annual reports, which measure those who lacked insurance for the entire year, show the uninsured decreased by 0.7 percentage points or 2.4 million people from 2020 to 2022. The 2023 annual report should be released in September.

We have been noting in these reports that the uninsured figures could begin to rise, since some Medicaid provisions that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic started to be phased out at the end of March 2023. But so far, the available figures haven’t shown that. The latest NHIS report found the number and percentage of the uninsured declined from 2022 to 2023, though not significantly.

Under Biden, enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace plans has gone up by 10 million people. The administration enacted increased subsidies for ACA plan premiums. The expanded subsidies expire at the end of 2025.

Crude Oil Production and Imports

For the most recent 12 months ending in April, the Energy Information Administration reported that average crude oil production in the U.S. increased to roughly 13 million barrels per day. That was about 15.3% more than the daily amount of crude oil produced on average in 2020. It’s also higher than the pre-pandemic average of 12.3 million barrels per day in 2019, which was the previous record.

As we noted three months ago, the EIA has said that oil production, despite declining drilling activity, has reached all-time highs during the Biden administration because new oil wells are more efficient due to advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. In fact, the U.S. is currently producing more crude oil than any nation in history, the EIA said in March, citing data from its International Energy Statistics.

The EIA projects that U.S. crude oil production will continue to break records. In its Short-Term Energy Outlook for July, the agency said it expects production to average 13.2 million barrels per day in 2024 and 13.8 million barrels a day in 2025.

Even though the country is still producing more crude oil than ever, as well as exporting more of it, U.S. imports are still up under Biden. Over the last 12 months through April, the U.S. imported an average of more than 6.5 million barrels of oil per day. That’s higher than any annual daily average during Biden’s term, and it’s about 12% above the 2020 average of approximately 5.9 million barrels daily. Notably, however, the average over the last 12 months is still below the annual average of 6.8 million barrels per day in 2019, before the start of the pandemic.

Immigration

Looking at the number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally over the last year under Biden, the numbers remain historically high. But there are indications that is changing, as apprehensions plummeted in June after Biden implemented some new emergency policies to deal with high levels of illegal immigration.

To even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year before Biden took office. And for the past 12 months ending in June, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 1,894,715, according to Customs and Border Protection. That’s 273% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

But the monthly number of apprehensions dropped to 83,536 in June, a little less than half the monthly average during Biden’s term, and the lowest total for a full month under Biden. (January 2021 was lower, 75,316, but Trump was still president for most of that month.)

On June 4, Biden announced a series of executive actions designed to address “substantial levels of migration” due to “global conditions” including “failing regimes and dire economic conditions,” “violence linked to transnational criminal organizations” and “natural disasters” in some countries in Central and South America. Specifically, the proclamation directs border officials to temporarily restrict asylum eligibility and promptly remove many who cross the border illegally between ports of entry when the daily average of encounters reaches 2,500 or more for seven straight days. The policy was immediately implemented on June 5 because levels were already well above that. (For more on the policy, see our story “Q&A on Biden’s Border Order.”)

Three weeks later, on June 26, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reported that Border Patrol encounters of migrants had decreased by over 40% after the new policy was enacted and that in those three weeks more than 24,000 migrants had been removed or returned by the Department of Homeland Security.

There is some early indication the July number may drop even lower. A White House official told us via email that the seven-day average of southwest border encounters between legal ports of entry was 1,838 as of July 11. If it stays at that level, the July number could be lower than any of Trump’s final three months. (The temporary restrictions directed by Biden will continue until 14 calendar days after the daily average of people apprehended crossing the border illegally drops to 1,500 encounters or less for seven consecutive days.)

Refugees

With three months left in fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration has already admitted more refugees than any administration has since 2016.

Still, the administration is likely to fall short once again of the president’s ambitious campaign promise to accept up to 125,000 refugees a year.

On Sept. 29, the Biden administration set the cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2024 at 125,000 – just as it did in fiscal years 2023 and 2022.

The administration admitted only 25,465 refugees in FY2022 and 60,014 in FY2023. In the first nine months of FY2024, the U.S. has admitted 68,291 refugees, according to State Department data.

In a November report to Congress, the State Department said it is making “significant progress” toward Biden’s goal for refugee admissions after “intensive efforts to restore, strengthen, and modernize the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.”

Overall, the U.S. has admitted 163,778 refugees in Biden’s first full 41 months in office, or nearly 4,000 refugees per month, the department’s data show. That’s 117% higher than the 1,845 monthly average under Trump, who drastically reduced the admission of refugees. The Trump administration admitted only 86,731 refugees in four years. (For both presidents, our monthly averages include only full months in office, excluding the month of January 2017 and January 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

Consumer Sentiment

After showing some life in the beginning of the year, consumer confidence in the economy is slipping again.

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that its final Index of Consumer Sentiment for January was 79 — the highest since July 2021. It remained little changed through April, historical survey data show.

But consumer sentiment dropped in May and has inched downward ever since. The preliminary index of consumer sentiment in July was 66 — continuing a trend that Joanne W. Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, described as “stubbornly subdued.”

“Although sentiment is more than 30% above the trough from June 2022, it remains stubbornly subdued,” Hsu said in a press release. “Nearly half of consumers still object to the impact of high prices, even as they expect inflation to continue moderating in the years ahead.”

As Hsu referenced, the preliminary July figure is 16 points higher than the low under Biden, which occurred in June 2022. But it is also 13 points lower than January 2021, when Biden took office and the index was 79, the data show.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey also reported that consumer confidence weakened in June.

Corporate Profits

After dipping slightly in 2023, after-tax corporate profits resumed their upward trajectory.

For the year, after-tax corporate profits set records in 2021 and 2022, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates. (See line 45.) The BEA estimated that profits in 2023 were $2.97 trillion — slightly lower than $2.98 trillion in 2022. Still, it was 36% higher than in 2020, the year before Biden took office.

However, corporate profits were running at an annual rate of nearly $3.17 trillion in the first quarter of 2024, according to the BEA’s most recent estimate.

Trade

As of May, the U.S. goods and services deficit over the last 12 months was $799.3 billion, according to figures the Bureau of Economic Analysis published in early July. The trade deficit that period was roughly $145.6 billion higher, or about 22.3% more, than in 2020.

The international trade gap in the most recent 12-month period is about $14.4 billion more than the calendar year 2023 deficit of $784.9 billion, which dropped nearly 17% from the record gap of nearly $944.8 billion in 2022.

So far this year, imports of goods and services have exceeded exports by about $14.4 billion, the BEA said, contributing to the increase in the trade deficit over the last 12 months.

Food Stamps

Under Biden, fewer people are receiving benefits from the program formerly known as food stamps.

In April, the most recent figures available, there were nearly 41.6 million beneficiaries receiving food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to preliminary statistics released July 12 by the Department of Agriculture.

At that time, SNAP enrollment had declined by 532,135, or nearly 1.3%, since Biden took office – although, April was the third consecutive month in which there was an increase in program participants. It’s been about two years since there were fewer than 41 million SNAP beneficiaries under Biden.

Debt and Deficits

Debt — The public debt, excluding money the government owes itself, increased to approximately $27.8 trillion, as of July 22. The public debt is now up almost 28.5% during Biden’s presidency.

Deficits — The Congressional Budget Office estimates that so far the budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 has declined slightly compared with the same period in the 2023 fiscal year, when the annual deficit was $1.7 trillion, according to the Department of Treasury.

Through the first nine months of the current fiscal year (October to June), the deficit was $1.3 trillion, or “$118 billion less than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year,” the CBO reported in its Monthly Budget Review for June.

However, the agency is still projecting that the overall deficit for the 2024 fiscal year will be at least $1.9 trillion, which would grow to $2 trillion if adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments. CBO said its estimate includes “costs that have not yet been recorded,” such as potential outlays due to the cancellation of student loan debt as well as financial assistance to Israel, Ukraine and Indo-Pacific nations.

Stock Markets

The S&P 500, which is made up of 500 large-cap companies, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which includes 30 large corporations, set new highs this month.

Even after a dreadful day for the market on July 24, the S&P is 42.9% higher than it was on Jan. 19, 2021, the day before Biden took office.

The Dow has seen smaller gains than the S&P 500. It has increased 28.8% under Biden — not much different from our last report.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index, which is made up of more than 2,500 companies, has experienced a strong quarter since our last report. Overall, it was up 31.4% under Biden, closing on July 24 at 17,342.41 — up more than 1,700 points since our April quarterly report.

Home Prices & Homeownership

Home prices — High mortgage rates put a chill on home prices for a while, but the cost of existing single-family homes in the U.S. have started to climb to record heights once again. 

The preliminary median sales price of existing single-family homes in June was $432,700 — setting a new record and marking the fifth straight month of price increases, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Prices previously peaked under Biden at $420,900 in June 2022 – a record high at the time that was topped in May and June of this year, the NAR data show.

The preliminary June figure is a staggering 40.5% higher than the $308,000 median home price in January 2021, when Biden took office. 

Home prices began to fall in part due to rising mortgage rates. In its ongoing attempt to slow inflation, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate in July 2023 for the 11th time since March 2022. In its latest economic outlook, which was released July 22, the investment research firm Morningstar forecast that the Fed will begin to cut rates by the end of 2024.

In our April report, we noted that the 30-year fixed rate mortgage average nationwide, as of April 18, topped 7% for the first time this year, according to Freddie Mac. The rate is currently 6.77% – which is below the historical norm of 7.74%, which is the weekly average rate since April 1971.

Homeownership — Homeownership rates have barely budged under Biden.

The homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 65.6% in the first quarter of 2024 — a shade below the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office.

The rate under Trump peaked in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research warns that data from the second quarter of 2020 through the third quarter of 2021 “should be viewed with caution” because restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic “prevented normal data collection.”

“These changes in survey methods,” including the suspension of in-person surveys in the second quarter of 2020, “likely contributed to wide swings in the data,” HUD’s policy and research arm says on its website. “For example, there was a sharp increase and following decline in the homeownership rate during that time frame. The national homeownership rate, at 65.3 percent in the first quarter of 2020, was estimated to have jumped to 67.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 and decline to 65.4 percent by the second quarter of 2021.”

For this reason, the Census Bureau has warned against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020.

The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

Gun Sales

The latest estimates from the National Shooting Sports Foundation suggest that gun purchases again declined during the second quarter of 2024.

Since the federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales, the NSSF, a gun industry trade group, estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits. The data “provide an additional picture of current market conditions,” the NSSF says.

The group has reported that the NSSF-adjusted NICS total for background checks during the second quarter of the year was nearly 3.4 million, which is down 7.9% from almost 3.7 million from the same period last year. It’s also roughly 40% lower than the more than 5.6 million in Trump’s last full quarter in 2020.

Through the first six months of 2024, there were over 7.3 million background checks for firearm sales. That’s the lowest total in the first half of the year since there were about 6.2 million in 2019.

Carbon Emissions

In the most recent 12 months on record, there were about 4.80 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and petroleum products in the U.S., according to the EIA’s latest estimates. That’s up over 4.6% from the almost 4.58 billion metric tons that were emitted in 2020, but still below the pre-pandemic total of about 5.15 billion metric tons emitted in 2019.

As of this month, the EIA forecast that there will be about 4.82 billion metric tons of emissions from energy consumption in 2024, which would be an increase of less than 1% from the 2023 total. The agency said the consumption of more jet fuel and diesel is expected to be “the largest driver of emissions increases” in 2024 and 2025.

Judiciary Appointments

Supreme Court — Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was appointed by Biden and confirmed by the Senate on April 7, 2022. She replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Trump had won confirmation for two Supreme Court justices at the same point of his tenure.

Court of Appeals — Biden has won confirmation for 43 U.S. Court of Appeals judges. Trump had won confirmation for 53 at the same point of his term.

District Court — Biden has won confirmation for 157 District Court judges (our count includes confirmation for the reappointment of the chief judge of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands). At the same point in his presidency, Trump had won confirmation for 144 District Court judges.

Five U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges have also been confirmed under Biden, while five had been confirmed at the same point of Trump’s presidency. Each man had won the confirmation for two U.S. Court of International Trade judges at this stage of their terms.

As of July 24, there were 48 federal court vacancies, with 12 nominees pending.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

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The post Biden’s Numbers, July 2024 Update appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 17. His symptoms remained mild and have since resolved, according to his treating physician. But fueled by days without a public sighting and Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race, social media posts have baselessly claimed that Biden was gravely ill or had a medical emergency.

Full Story

On July 21, President Joe Biden announced he was no longer running for president in the 2024 election. Just four days before, while campaigning in Las Vegas, he tested positive for COVID-19, leading him to fly to Delaware that evening to isolate. He remained in isolation at his beach house and was not seen in public again until July 23, when his symptoms had “resolved” and he tested negative for COVID-19, according to his physician.

Daily letters from Biden’s doctor show that the president never got seriously ill and he continued to perform his duties. But since his COVID-19 diagnosis — and particularly after his announcement that he would no longer seek the presidency — online posts have trafficked in unfounded rumors and speculation about Biden’s health.

“A verified source has informed the Global Press team that Joe Biden is currently in hospice care and is unlikely to survive the night,” proclaimed a July 22 X post later shared on Facebook. The “Global Press” account on X that made the original claim appeared to subsequently delete its account.

Some declared Biden to be terminally ill or even spread rumors that the president was dead.

Others, including conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, pointed to purported reports from local police in Las Vegas to suggest or claim that Biden had or might have had a medical emergency. 

According to an unnamed source, Kirk said, “US Secret Service informed LV Metro that there was an emergency situation involving Joe Biden and to close necessary streets so that POTUS could be transported immediately to University Medical, which they began to do in earnest.” 

“Then, mysteriously, there was a stand down order and the USSS informed local Vegas PD that they were going to ‘medivac’ POTUS to Johns Hopkins, which they presumed meant fly him back east ASAP,” Kirk’s post continued. “Apparently the rumor mill in the police department was that Joe Biden was dying or possibly already dead.”

Kirk’s speculations were later amplified in a Tucker Carlson video on Instagram. Citing an unnamed, non-medical source, another person online claimed Biden might have had a transient ischemic attack, or a mini stroke. 

Former President Donald Trump also chimed in on July 21, baselessly saying on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Biden “never had Covid.”

It’s true, according to local media and a statement from the police department, that a hospital in Las Vegas was on standby to potentially receive the president after he tested positive for COVID-19, and that police proactively shut down roads to ensure safe passage. But this doesn’t mean Biden had a medical emergency. The president never went to the hospital, and according to a letter posted by his treating physician, he only ever experienced mild COVID-19 symptoms. In an email to FactCheck.org, the White House denied that Biden had any kind of medical emergency.

In the afternoon of July 23, Biden appeared on a tarmac and told reporters he was “feeling well” before ascending the stairs to Air Force One to fly back to the White House. This put to rest the most extreme claims about his health, although conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer continued to insist he was dying. Biden is scheduled to address the nation this evening to discuss his decision to exit the 2024 presidential race.

No Evidence of a Medical Emergency

While suspicion has focused on road closures and preparation for a hospital in Las Vegas to possibly receive the president, there’s no evidence that Biden experienced a medical emergency. Instead, the posts appear to have spun contingency plans following Biden’s positive COVID-19 test into conspiracy theories.

“President Joe Biden did not visit UMC last week,” Scott Kerbs, a public relations director for University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, said in a statement to FactCheck.org. “On July 17 at approximately 2:15 p.m., UMC received notification to prepare for a potential medical visit from the president. As Nevada’s only Level I Trauma Center and the hospital tasked with caring for the Commander-in-Chief during official visits to the area, UMC was fully prepared to provide the state’s highest level of care for the president.”

In a local news report on July 17, the hospital’s CEO, Mason Van Houweling, indicated that the hospital prepared for a “medical” issue, rather than a trauma or accident, but did not elaborate further. He praised his hospital’s response, but referred to it as a “non-event.”

Van Houweling echoed that sentiment in another article about the hospital’s preparations, published on July 19 in Becker’s Hospital Review, which noted that the hospital “adjusted its preparation to arrange an appropriate facility and team for medical care based on the specific potential needs identified — in this case, diagnostic requirements.”

Kerbs told us in an email that this was describing “the fact that UMC, as a Level I Trauma Center, adjusted its default preparations from trauma care to general medical care, which involves diagnostics.”

Local police similarly confirmed that they prepared for Biden to travel to the hospital, but explained that it was precautionary. 

“The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was notified that President Joe Biden was sick on July 17th during his visit to Las Vegas. We did not know the nature of his illness,” the department told us in an email. “As a precaution, LVMPD proactively began to shut down roads leading to UMC Hospital. The Secret Service then advised LVMPD the President was going directly to Harry Reid International Airport and would be leaving Las Vegas.”

“It has been standard practice for many years, across administrations, for hospitals to be among the wide range of resources that are always put on standby when any president travels,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told us in an email.

Bates denied that the president experienced a medical emergency, including a mini stroke. “The only medical situation was his covid diagnosis, which was publicly announced,” he said. 

A reporter who accompanied the president on the flight back to Delaware did not make note of any kind of medical emergency. Instead, he reported that the flight was “quite bumpy,” and that his request for an informal press briefing was denied. Upon landing, while not looking in the best of health — as might be expected for someone sick with COVID-19 — Biden was still able to walk and speak.

COVID-19 can be dangerous, particularly for older adults and those who have not been infected or vaccinated previously, but all available evidence points to the 81-year-old president’s case as being mild. 

Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, Biden’s physician, provided daily updates on the president’s condition. In his last letter, on July 23, he reported that Biden had tested negative for the coronavirus and his symptoms, which had included a runny nose, cough and general malaise, had “resolved.”

“Over the course of his infection, he never manifested a fever, and his vital signs remained normal, to include pulse oximetry. His lungs remained clear,” O’Connor said of Biden, adding that the president “continues to perform all of his presidential duties.”

Although Biden did not make a public appearance until July 23, he called into his former campaign’s headquarters — now Vice President Kamala Harris’s HQ — on July 22. While in isolation, he also received briefings, spoke to a variety of politicians and supporters following the termination of his candidacy, and made a call to the head of the European Commission, according to White House officials.

As with his first bout of COVID-19 in 2022, Biden took the antiviral Paxlovid to treat his illness.

It’s not the first time that social media claims about Biden’s health have gone viral. Earlier this month, popular posts falsely claimed Biden had a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One, the AP reported.

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Sources

“Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.” Press release. White House. 17 Jul 2024.

Letters from Kevin C. O’Connor, Physician to the President. Available from WhiteHouse.gov. 18 Jul to 23 Jul 2024.

Drummond, Cristen. “Las Vegas hospital on standby to treat President Biden during COVID-19 diagnosis.” KSNV. 17 Jul 2024.

Madhani, Aamer. “Biden will address the nation Wednesday on his decision to drop his 2024 Democratic reelection bid.” AP. 23 Jul 2024.

President Biden (@POTUS). “Tomorrow evening at 8 PM ET, I will address the nation from the Oval Office on what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.” X. 23 Jul 2024.

Kerbs, Scott. Brand and Public Relations Director, University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Emails to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Gooch, Kelly. “A Las Vegas hospital’s playbook for presidential care.” Becker’s Hospital Review. 18 Jul 2024.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Office of Public Information. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Bates, Andrew. White House spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. “Travel Pool Report #8 Dover landing.” White House pool report. 17 Jul 2024.

“Biden lands in Delaware after testing positive for COVID.” AP video. 18 Jul 2024.

Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. “From Buoyant to Frail: Two Days in Las Vegas as Biden Tests Positive.” New York Times. 18 Jul 2024.

“The Changing Threat of COVID-19.” CDC. 23 Feb 2024.

“Remarks by President Biden and Vice President Harris at a Campaign Event | Wilmington, DE.” White House. 22 Jul 2024.

Miller, Zeke and Chris Megerian. “Biden tests positive for COVID.” AP. 21 Jul 2022.Goldin, Melissa. “FACT FOCUS: Online reports falsely claim Biden suffered a ‘medical emergency’ on Air Force One.” AP. 6 Jul 2024.

The post Online Rumors Baselessly Claim Biden Experienced Medical Emergency After COVID-19 Diagnosis appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

Oklahoma’s state superintendent ordered public schools to incorporate the Bible as “an instructional support into the curriculum.” But social media posts have shared the inaccurate claim that “Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana all ordered that the Bible be taught in public schools.” Louisiana and Texas haven’t issued such an order.

Full Story

Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, issued a directive on June 27 that all the state’s public schools “incorporate the Bible … as an instructional support into the curriculum,” the New York Times reported.

Walters said the Bible is “a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system,” the Times reported. “Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,” Walters said.

Walters’ directive and other recent efforts by conservative-led states to introduce religion into public schools — which are facing legal challenges — have generated attention on social media. But some posts mischaracterize what changes have been made to public school curricula and where these changes have taken place.

A July 11 Threads post misleadingly claimed, “States of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana all ordered that the Bible be taught in public schools.” Similar posts have been shared on Facebook, including a post that shows a group of students praying in a classroom.

Conservative leaders in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas have all sought to expand the role of religion in public education, but only Oklahoma’s education department has ordered that the Bible be taught in classrooms.

Ten Commandments in Louisiana

Two weeks before Walters’ order in Oklahoma, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a requirement that classrooms in every public school and state-funded university display the text of the Ten Commandments by Jan. 1, 2025.

The law requires that the posters be at least 11 inches by 14 inches and that “the text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster.” The posters will also include a lengthy statement intended to provide context for the display, stating, “The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.” The posters will be purchased with donations, and public schools are not required to spend money on the displays.

A suit challenging the law has been filed by some Louisiana parents represented by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and a violation of the separation of church and state.

They argue that the law violates U.S. Supreme Court precedent. A Kentucky statute similar to the one passed in Louisiana was the subject of the 1980 Supreme Court case, Stone v. Graham. The superintendent of Kentucky schools, James Graham, was sued by parents for an order that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. The high court decided against Graham, ruling that the poster violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution — which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — and that displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms were “plainly religious in nature.”

In an interview with NewsNation at the Republican National Convention on July 18, Landry said, “I think this is one of the cases where the court has it wrong. And so here is the question: If the Supreme Court has something wrong, why would you not want that to be corrected?”

Landry also said, “I would submit that maybe if the Ten Commandments were hanging on [would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’] wall in the school that he was in, maybe he wouldn’t have taken a shot” at former President Donald Trump.

While Landry wants to display the Ten Commandments in Louisiana’s classrooms, the state of Louisiana has not “ordered that the Bible be taught in public schools,” as the social media posts claim.

Proposed Curriculum in Texas

In May, the Texas Education Agency introduced elementary school materials that include biblical and other religious references for public review and comment. The proposed materials include lessons on biblical stories and discussions about how early American political figures were shaped by their religious beliefs. The materials contain references to several religions, though Judeo-Christian religious material appears most frequently. The Texas Tribune reported that “districts will have the option of whether to use the materials, but will be incentivized to do so with up to $60 per student in additional funding.”

The 2024 platform of the Texas Republican Party, adopted days before the new educational materials were unveiled, includes a call for the state board of education to mandate teaching of the Bible. But no such guidelines have been put in place in Texas, contrary to the claim in the social media posts.

The state education board will vote on the proposed elementary school materials in November. If approved, the changes would be implemented in August 2025.

Last year, the Texas State Senate approved legislation that would place copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms — similar to the order in Louisiana — but the measure didn’t receive a final vote before the end of the legislative session.

Challenges to the Oklahoma Directive

Before the Oklahoma superintendent’s recent directive ordering that public schools incorporate the Bible into curricula, Walters was a proponent of state funding for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which supporters hoped would be the first religious charter school in the U.S.

However, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state’s charter school contract with the online Catholic school violated “Oklahoma statutes, the Oklahoma Constitution, and the Establishment Clause.” Justice James Winchester wrote that public schools must be nonsectarian, but “St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic faith as part of its school curriculum while sponsored by the State,” which violates the Establishment Clause.

The Establishment Clause has been at the center of many of the most significant Supreme Court decisions regulating the role of religion in schools. The 1962 case Engel v. Vitale banned school prayer for violating the Establishment Clause, even if the prayer was optional and nondenominational. In 1963, the court upheld Engel in Abington School District v. Schempp, when it decided that mandatory Bible readings in public schools are unconstitutional. 

Michael Klarman, a professor of American legal history at Harvard Law School, told us in an email, “It’s pretty clear to me that these states are presenting the current [Supreme Court], dominated by conservative Catholics, with an opportunity to reconsider” the Engel and Schempp decisions.

Walters’ recent order for schools to incorporate the Bible calls for “immediate and strict compliance.” But a spokesperson for the Oklahoma attorney general’s office said that the superintendent does not have the power to issue a memo mandating that content must be included in the curriculum, NBC News reported.

Under current law, “public schools can include the Bible in discussions of secular subjects like history or literature,” but the Bible cannot be used “as a form of religious instruction” in the classroom, Rachel F. Moran, a law professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, told us in an email.

According to Oklahoma law, individual school districts can determine what instructional material is used in the classroom. “School districts shall exclusively determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks, subject to any applicable provisions or requirements as set forth in law, to be used in meeting the subject matter standards,” the law states.

Andrew Spiropoulos, a professor of constitutional law at Oklahoma City University School of Law, told us in an email, “Some public school districts will likely allege that the state department of education does not possess sufficient statutory authority over school curricula to issue these particular directives.”

As of July 19, none of Oklahoma’s schools had agreed to follow the state superintendent’s directive, saying instead that they would follow “the current regulations for academic standards which include not having a Bible in every class,” Oklahoma City news station KFOR reported.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

ACLU. “Clergy, Public-School Parents Sue to Block Louisiana Law Requiring Public Schools to Display the Ten Commandments.” Press release. 24 Jun 2024.

Bolden, Bonnie and Shannon Heckt. “Louisiana governor: 10 Commandments in schools could have stopped Trump rally shooting.” BRProud. 18 Jul 2024.

Brown, Dylan. “No school districts have announced following Bible mandate, OSDE responds.” KFOR. 19 Jul 2024.

CBS News. “Lawsuit challenges Louisiana law requiring classrooms to display Ten Commandments.” 24 Jun 2024.

Constitution Annotated. First Amendment. Congress.gov.

Downen, Robert. “Bill requiring Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms fails in House after missing crucial deadline.” Texas Tribune. 24 May 2023.

Epstein, Lee and Eric Posner. “The Roberts Court and the Transformation of Constitutional Protections for Religion: A Statistical Portrait.” Supreme Court Review. 2022.

Evans, Murray. “3 Large OKC-area school districts among those that won’t follow Ryan Walters’ order to teach Bible.” The Oklahoman. 19 Jul 2024.

Jacobson, Linda. “Exclusive: Texas Seeks to Inject Bible Stories into Elementary School Reading Program.” The 74 Million. 29 May 2024.

Kingkade, Tyler and Marissa Parra. “Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters: Teachers who won’t teach Bible could lose license.” NBC News. 28 Jun 2024.

Klarman, Michael. Professor of American legal history, Harvard Law School. Email to FactCheck.org. 18 Jul 2024.

Mervosh, Sarah. “Oklahoma Supreme Court Says No to State Funding for a Religious Charter School.” New York Times. 25 Jun 2024.

Mervosh, Sarah and Elizabeth Dias. “Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Requires Public Schools to Teach the Bible.” New York Times. 27 Jun 2024.

Mervosh, Sarah and Ruth Graham. “The Bible in Public Schools? Oklahoma Pushes Limits of Long Tradition.” New York Times. 28 Jun 2024.

Moran, Rachel. Professor of law, Texas A&M University School of Law. Email to FactCheck.org. 18 Jul 2024.

Oklahoma State Department of Public Education. State Superintendent Ryan Walters.

Perez Jr., Juan. “Oklahoma high court rejects religious charter school contract.” Politico. 25 Jun 2024.

Republican Party of Texas. “Report of the 2024 Permanent Platform and Resolutions Committee of the Republican Party of Texas.” 23 May 2024.

Salhotra, Pooja and Robert Downen. “Texas education leaders unveil Bible-infused elementary school curriculum.” Texas Tribune. 30 May 2024.

Spiropoulos, Andrew. Professor of constitutional law, Oklahoma City University School of Law. Email to FactCheck.org. 18 Jul 2024.

Sy, Stephanie, et al. “Oklahoma education head discusses why he’s mandating public schools teach the Bible.” PBS. 1 Jul 2024.

Yoshonis, Scott. “Jeff Landry says benefit of defending La. Ten Commandments law ‘outweighs’ any cost.” KLFY. 18 Jul 2024.

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