President Donald Trump delivers a easy message to voters: he’ll rescue them from Democratic insurance policies which have imperilled their wallets, security and freedom.
Right here’s what he omits: generally he promoted these exact same insurance policies.
Listed below are six occasions Trump or his spokesperson referred to as out Democrats for insurance policies that Trump himself supported throughout his first presidency.
Selling hiring range on the Federal Aviation Administration
Hours after a United States Military helicopter and an American Airways passenger jet collided on January 29 over the Potomac River, killing 67 folks, Trump blamed his predecessors’ range hiring insurance policies, together with hiring folks with disabilities. However throughout Trump’s first time period, the identical programme existed to rent folks with disabilities.
What Trump stated: “I modified the Obama coverage (on hiring air site visitors controllers) … After which Biden got here in and he modified it.” (We rated that False.)
What Obama and Biden did: An Obama-era government order issued in 2010 directed federal companies to rent extra folks with disabilities. The FAA included the coverage into its range hiring programme.
In 2014, the Obama administration started a hiring evaluation for air site visitors controllers that weighed biographical info equivalent to work and schooling expertise however not race. In 2018, Trump jettisoned the usage of the biographical evaluation; Biden didn’t reinstate it.
What Trump did: The FAA in 2019 introduced a programme geared toward hiring 20 folks with disabilities, together with from the identical focused incapacity checklist Trump just lately maligned, to be air site visitors controllers. In an April 11, 2019, press launch, the company stated a key focus was to “determine particular alternatives for folks with focused disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry right into a extra numerous and inclusive workforce”.
The company frequently highlighted its range hiring initiatives, together with its goals to rent folks with disabilities, from 2013 till Trump retook workplace in 2025, together with throughout Trump’s first term.
On January 21, Trump signed an executive order that eradicated range, fairness and inclusion, or DEI, hiring and directed the transportation secretary and the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to “return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring”.
Banning TikTok
Trump criticised Biden’s stance, which referred to as for banning TikTok, in 2024. However Trump had sought to ban the favored video app throughout his first term. (We stated Trump’s change in place met our definition of a Full Flop.)
What Trump stated: “We love TikTok. I’m going to save lots of TikTok. Biden needs to eliminate TikTok.”
What Biden did: Biden signed bipartisan legislation in April that may ultimately ban TikTok until it’s bought to a US firm.
What Trump did: On August 6, 2020, Trump signed Govt Order 13942, which sought to ban TikTok, writing that “the USA should take aggressive motion in opposition to the house owners of TikTok to guard our nationwide safety”. On January 20, 2024, Trump issued an government order to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days.
Killing chickens
White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Biden for high egg prices that she stated stemmed from his administration’s mass killing of chickens.
What Leavitt stated: The Biden administration and the US Agriculture Division “directed the mass killing of greater than 100 million chickens, which has led to a scarcity of hen provide on this nation, due to this fact a scarcity of egg provide, which is resulting in the scarcity”. (We rated that Half True.)
What Biden did: Chickens are culled to cease chicken flu’s unfold and defend close by farms, the poultry business and public well being. A 2002 federal regulation, the Animal Well being Safety Act, offers the USDA authority to depopulate herds and flocks to cease the illness’s unfold.
USDA information exhibits 108 million egg-laying chickens died since 2022, together with 13 million in 2025. It’s unclear what number of had been euthanised or died of the virus.
What Trump did: A USDA chicken flu response plan, up to date in Might 2017, included coverage steerage primarily based on classes from avian influenza outbreaks through the Obama administration. It stated, “fast depopulation of contaminated poultry is important to halt virus transmission and have to be prioritised”. Throughout a March 2017 chicken flu outbreak, a USDA report stated, “almost 253,000 birds had been depopulated”.
Taking Federal Emergency Administration Company cash for migrants
As he surveyed hurricane harm in Georgia in October 2024, Trump stated the Biden-Harris administration diverted cash from FEMA for immigration, leaving the catastrophe company broke.
What Trump stated: “$1 billion was stolen from FEMA to make use of it for unlawful migrants. … And FEMA is now busted. They don’t have any cash.” (We rated that False.)
What Biden did: Congress granted cash to FEMA for the Shelter and Services programme, which gave cash to state and native governments and nonprofit organisations that present migrants with temporary shelter, food and transportation. Nevertheless, that’s separate from FEMA’s Catastrophe Aid Fund, which is used after hurricanes.
What Trump did: In 2019, the Division of Homeland Safety said it was “reprogramming” some funds Congress had put aside. The division stated it will switch $155m from FEMA’s Catastrophe Aid Fund to immigration efforts.
Bureau of Prisons offering transgender care
Trump attacked former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for her statements about transgender look after folks in jail. In 2019, Harris stated she supported permitting gender-affirming surgical procedure for folks in federal prisons, and in 2024 stated she would “observe the regulation”. However an identical coverage existed throughout Trump’s first time period, in step with federal regulation.
What Trump stated: Harris “helps taxpayer-funded intercourse modifications for prisoners and unlawful aliens”. (We rated that Largely True.)
What Biden and Harris did: The Bureau of Prisons’ coverage through the Biden administration let folks in jail request gender-affirming surgical procedure. We discovered that as of September 2024, simply two folks in federal prisons had efficiently acquired these procedures.
What Trump did: Trump’s first administration additionally recognised the federal authorized obligations to offer gender-affirming look after prisoners. The New York Occasions highlighted a 2018 Justice Division price range memo that famous the “statutory mandate to offer primary medical and psychological well being care” to folks in jail and famous that “transgender offenders could require … surgical procedure” as a part of medical remedy. The Bureau of Prisons throughout Trump’s first time period issued a Transgender Offender Handbook that referred to “hormone or different medical remedy” being offered however didn’t particularly point out surgical procedure.
FEMA momentary housing for North Carolina hurricane victims
Trump accused Biden of evicting North Carolina hurricane survivors from motels. However FEMA had comparable eligibility necessities that affected momentary housing throughout Trump’s first administration.
What Trump stated: “The Biden administration kicked 2,000 displaced North Carolinians out of their momentary housing into freezing 20-degree climate,” in January. (We rated that Largely False.)
What Biden did: FEMA underneath Biden offered lodge or motel rooms to North Carolinians who wanted momentary housing after Hurricane Helene. FEMA opinions contributors’ eligibility each two weeks. Households are now not eligible in the event that they miss inspections, their properties are liveable or they take a look at of the motels. The weekend of January 18, 740 households had been informed they needed to go away the rooms as a result of they had been now not eligible. They got three weeks’ discover to search out shelter.
What Trump did: Trump’s first administration additionally had eligibility standards for remaining in momentary housing. A February 16, 2018, FEMA information launch about Texas hurricane victims stated “standards evaluate” would decide who now not certified.
“Any sheltering choice is, by design, a short lived, short-term resolution, designed to be a bridge to center and longer-term options,” Brock Lengthy, the then-FEMA administrator, stated at a March 2018, Home Homeland Safety Committee listening to.
PolitiFact Workers writers Grace Abels, Jeff Cerone, Caleb McCullough and Maria Ramirez Uribe and PolitiFact North Carolina’s Paul Specht contributed to this text.
