AMNA NAWAZ: The presidential candidates are closing out another busy day on the campaign trail, with less than three months to go in the race for the White House.

As events and advertising ramp up, so does the volume of misleading claims and outright lies.

Former President Donald Trump just wrapped a nearly-90-minute press conference outside his New Jersey golf club, in which he repeated familiar grievances and several lies.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: There's virtually 100 percent of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.

She wants to take away your private health care.

She wants to abolish coal, oil and natural gas, 84 percent of U.S. energy supply.

AMNA NAWAZ: To parse out the truths and the falsehoods, we're joined now by PolitiFact editor in chief Katie Sanders.

Katie, welcome back.

Thanks for being with us.

KATIE SANDERS, Editor in Chief, PolitiFact: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Katie, the economy remains the number one issue for voters.

Mr. Trump made several economic claims yesterday, arguing, when he left office, as he says, that gasoline was at $1.87 a gallon.

He also said that poverty rates for African Americans had dropped 7 percent, that they dropped 8 percent for Hispanics.

We know Mr. Trump often speaks in hyperbole, but what's the truth and what's not true about what he's saying?

KATIE SANDERS: Sure.

I will start with the gas prices.

He's not referring to the month when he left office.

He's actually referring to a period where the economy was in a freefall.

That was during spring 2020.

That's the last time that gas was that low.

By the time he was leaving office in January 2021, prices per gallon were up $2.38.

That's 28 percent higher than what he has said many times with this talking point.

As for the Black poverty statistics, he does have a point that the administration achieved record lows to the extent that any presidential administration can really influence the economy.

But what he's leaving out is that, for Black Americans, the poverty rate continued to drop under President Biden's tenure.

The story is a little bit different for Latino poverty.

It did dip to its lowest point under Trump and it's risen a little bit under Biden - - or actually under the rest of Trump's tenure and into Biden's.

But, yes, you're right.

He is prone to exaggerate some of these accomplishments.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, as for President Biden and Vice President Harris, we saw them today appearing for an announcement about lower prescription drug prices.

Here actually is part of what Vice President Harris had to say during that event.

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: And Medicare was prohibited by law from negotiating lower drug prices.

And those costs then got passed on to our seniors, but not anymore.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) AMNA NAWAZ: So, Katie, what should we understand both about that statement and also how this announcement is being framed by the administration?

KATIE SANDERS: Sure.

I mean, it is true that there was that prohibition in law and that prohibition is no more.

But I think the casual listener might not pick up on some of the details.

Now, to be fair, President Biden did go into some more details later on in the speech.

Vice President Harris' remarks were a bit shorter.

But I think if you were just popping in, you would be like, oh, great.

So any Medicare drug is going to be capped and is the result of the negotiation process.

And it's really starting smaller than that.

And it's actually not start -- it's at 10 drugs that were negotiated and was revealed today.

And it's going to be another 10 to 15 one year, another 10 to 15 drugs the next.

So it's kind of a slow implementation, but it is historic.

But I think, again, for the casual listener, this is happening in a few years down the road.

AMNA NAWAZ: So there's another couple of headlines folks will have seen among the vice presidential candidates, the Democratic governor, Tim Walz, and the Republican senator, J.D.

Vance, a few statements related to Governor Walz's military service in particular I want to tackle, this one first.

So, after there was a Harris campaign effort to share a clip of Governor Walz from 2018, this is in which he was discussing gun control.

Here's a look at that clip.

GOV.

TIM WALZ (D-MN), Vice Presidential Candidate: We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) AMNA NAWAZ: So, Katie, Senator Vance then, of course, questioned if Walz, who actually served 24 years in the Army National Guard, ever served in war, as he said, in a combat zone.

What are the facts we need to understand about that?

KATIE SANDERS: Right.

I think the facts that are needed to understand this claim are that Walz did have a lengthy military career.

He was trained in an artillery division.

He did have -- he was deployed overseas, but it was in a support role.

It was not in a combat zone in Iraq or Afghanistan.

So Vance has a point.

This has come up before for Walz in the past, but we rated this claim true.

And, actually, the Walz campaign -- the Harris/Walz campaign has said that he misspoke.

So there's not a lot of contention there over what he said in 2018.

AMNA NAWAZ: And there's another related allegation we have seen from Senator Vance in which he says that Governor Walz deliberately retired when he did to avoid being deployed with his unit to Iraq.

What have you and your team found out about that?

KATIE SANDERS: I think the precision of the known timeline based on official documents is really important here.

And we rated Vance's claim mostly false.

So here's why.

He made it sound as if Walz got some information about the deployment and then decided to retire.

And at PolitiFact, the burden is on Vance to prove that that is in fact what happened.

As we have been reviewing documents from the time from the Minnesota National Guard, from Walz's congressional candidacy, that timeline doesn't exactly square up.

So I will just go through it quickly.

He submitted his candidacy paperwork for running for Congress in February 2005.

This was after, again, a 24-year career.

By that time, he had already submitted retirement paperwork.

That takes months to go through.

And then, in March 2005, so that is the next month, his battalion was notified of the possibility of being deployed within the next two years.

So it wasn't a definite, you're going, but it was, this is possible.

You need to be ready.

In May 2005, Walz's retirement from the National Guard, Minnesota National Guard, went through.

And then, in July, his battalion did receive the official word of the deployment that happened the next year.

So there's an element of truth here, and I think it is seen by people who served with Walz that he was wrestling between the decision to retire or to stay in case of a deployment.

So he did know it was a possibility, but Vance is too fast and loose with the timelines.

So, we rated it mostly false.

AMNA NAWAZ: Katie, if you pull back here to the bigger picture, the race has changed a lot since the last time you and I spoke.

It went from a Biden-Trump race to now a Harris-Trump race.

How has that changed the landscape for fact-checkers like you and your team, especially with this condensed timeline and the challenge of fact-checking in real time, when there are debates and conventions going on?

KATIE SANDERS: Well, that's the secret of fact-checking in real time.

It's actually fact-checking that we have learned from doing reporting on various claims by the candidates that can take days to ascertain.

When the race upended and we had, I'm going to say, relatively three newcomers -- I'm going to count Harris as one of those newcomers, but with Vance and Walz -- we have a whole new race of new claims, new biographical assertions, new records to examine.

So it's no rematch that we were talking about back in Milwaukee, where we are deeply familiar with the presidential candidates at the time.

We're really on like super speed trying to learn a lot as quickly as possible, and that Democratic Convention is fast approaching.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is PolitiFact editor in chief Katie Sanders joining us tonight.

Katie, thank you.

Good to speak with you.

KATIE SANDERS: Thank you so much.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, of course, PolitiFact will be fact-checking next week's Democratic National Convention.

You can find that and other updates from PolitiFact on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.