President Donald Trump delivers a simple message to voters: he will rescue them from Democratic policies that have imperilled their wallets, safety and freedom.
Here’s what he omits: sometimes he promoted those very same policies.
Here are six times Trump or his spokesperson called out Democrats for policies that Trump himself supported during his first presidency.
Promoting hiring diversity at the Federal Aviation Administration
Hours after a United States Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet collided on January 29 over the Potomac River, killing 67 people, Trump blamed his predecessors’ diversity hiring policies, including hiring people with disabilities. But during Trump’s first term, the same programme existed to hire people with disabilities.
What Trump said: “I changed the Obama policy (on hiring air traffic controllers) … And then Biden came in and he changed it.” (We rated that False.)
What Obama and Biden did: An Obama-era executive order issued in 2010 directed federal agencies to hire more people with disabilities. The FAA incorporated the policy into its diversity hiring programme.
In 2014, the Obama administration began a hiring assessment for air traffic controllers that weighed biographical information such as work and education experience but not race. In 2018, Trump jettisoned the use of the biographical assessment; Biden did not reinstate it.
What Trump did: The FAA in 2019 announced a programme aimed at hiring 20 people with disabilities, including from the same targeted disability list Trump recently maligned, to be air traffic controllers. In an April 11, 2019, press release, the agency said a key focus was to “identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce”.
The agency continually highlighted its diversity hiring initiatives, including its aims to hire people with disabilities, from 2013 until Trump retook office in 2025, including throughout Trump’s first term.
On January 21, Trump signed an executive order that eliminated diversity, equity 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 called for banning TikTok, in 2024. But Trump had sought to ban the popular video app during his first term. (We said Trump’s change in position met our definition of a Full Flop.)
What Trump said: “We love TikTok. I’m going to save TikTok. Biden wants to get rid of TikTok.”
What Biden did: Biden signed bipartisan legislation in April that would eventually ban TikTok unless it is sold to a US company.
What Trump did: On August 6, 2020, Trump signed Executive Order 13942, which sought to ban TikTok, writing that “the United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security”. On January 20, 2024, Trump issued an executive order to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days.
Killing chickens
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Biden for high egg prices that she said stemmed from his administration’s mass killing of chickens.
What Leavitt said: The Biden administration and the US Agriculture Department “directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore a lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage”. (We rated that Half True.)
What Biden did: Chickens are culled to stop bird flu’s spread and protect nearby farms, the poultry industry and public health. A 2002 federal law, the Animal Health Protection Act, gives the USDA authority to depopulate herds and flocks to stop the disease’s spread.
USDA data shows 108 million egg-laying chickens died since 2022, including 13 million in 2025. It’s unclear how many were euthanised or died of the virus.
What Trump did: A USDA bird flu response plan, updated in May 2017, incorporated policy guidance based on lessons from avian influenza outbreaks during the Obama administration. It said, “rapid depopulation of infected poultry is critical to halt virus transmission and must be prioritised”. During a March 2017 bird flu outbreak, a USDA report said, “nearly 253,000 birds were depopulated”.
Taking Federal Emergency Management Agency money for migrants
As he surveyed hurricane damage in Georgia in October 2024, Trump said the Biden-Harris administration diverted money from FEMA for immigration, leaving the disaster agency broke.
What Trump said: “$1 billion was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants. … And FEMA is now busted. They don’t have any money.” (We rated that False.)
What Biden did: Congress granted money to FEMA for the Shelter and Services programme, which gave money to state and local governments and nonprofit organisations that provide migrants with temporary shelter, food and transportation. However, that’s separate from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is used after hurricanes.
What Trump did: In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security said it was “reprogramming” some funds Congress had set aside. The department said it would transfer $155m from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund to immigration efforts.
Bureau of Prisons providing transgender care
Trump attacked former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for her statements about transgender care for people in prison. In 2019, Harris said she supported allowing gender-affirming surgery for people in federal prisons, and in 2024 said she would “follow the law”. But a similar policy existed during Trump’s first term, in keeping with federal law.
What Trump said: Harris “supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens”. (We rated that Mostly True.)
What Biden and Harris did: The Bureau of Prisons’ policy during the Biden administration let people in prison request gender-affirming surgery. We found that as of September 2024, just two people in federal prisons had successfully received these procedures.
What Trump did: Trump’s first administration also recognised the federal legal obligations to provide gender-affirming care for prisoners. The New York Times highlighted a 2018 Justice Department budget memo that noted the “statutory mandate to provide basic medical and mental health care” to people in prison and noted that “transgender offenders may require … surgery” as part of medical treatment. The Bureau of Prisons during Trump’s first term issued a Transgender Offender Manual that referred to “hormone or other medical treatment” being provided but did not specifically mention surgery.
FEMA temporary housing for North Carolina hurricane victims
Trump accused Biden of evicting North Carolina hurricane survivors from hotels. But FEMA had similar eligibility requirements that affected temporary housing during Trump’s first administration.
What Trump said: “The Biden administration kicked 2,000 displaced North Carolinians out of their temporary housing into freezing 20-degree weather,” in January. (We rated that Mostly False.)
What Biden did: FEMA under Biden provided hotel or motel rooms to North Carolinians who needed temporary housing after Hurricane Helene. FEMA reviews participants’ eligibility every two weeks. Households are no longer eligible if they miss inspections, their homes are habitable or they check out of the hotels. The weekend of January 18, 740 families were told they had to leave the rooms because they were no longer eligible. They were given three weeks’ notice to find shelter.
What Trump did: Trump’s first administration also had eligibility criteria for remaining in temporary housing. A February 16, 2018, FEMA news release about Texas hurricane victims said “criteria review” would determine who no longer qualified.
“Any sheltering option is, by design, a temporary, short-term solution, designed to be a bridge to middle and longer-term solutions,” Brock Long, the then-FEMA administrator, said at a March 2018, House Homeland Security Committee hearing.
PolitiFact Staff writers Grace Abels, Jeff Cerone, Caleb McCullough and Maria Ramirez Uribe and PolitiFact North Carolina’s Paul Specht contributed to this article.