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FACT FOCUS: Here’s a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump’s first debate
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs and a variety of false and misleading information as they faced off in their first debate of the 2024 election.
Trump falsely represented the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a relatively small number of people who were ushered in by police and misstated the strength of the economy during his administration.
Biden, who tends to lean more on exaggerations and embellishments rather than outright lies, misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID. Here’s a look at the false and misleading claims on Thursday night by the two candidates.
JAN. 6
TRUMP: “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”
THE FACTS: That’s false.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol was the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years
TRUMP, on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s actions on Jan. 6: “Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down.”
THE FACTS: false. Pelosi did not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.
TAXES AND REGULATIONS
TRUMP, on Biden: “He wants to raise your taxes by four times.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate.
Trump has used that line at rallies, but it has no basis in fact. Biden actually wants to prevent tax increases on anyone making less than $400,000, which is the vast majority of taxpayers.
TRUMP, referring to Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s victory: “On January 6th we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever on January 6th.”
THE FACTS: The current federal income tax was only instituted in 1913, and tax rates have fluctuated significantly in the decades since.
Government regulations have also ebbed and flowed in the country’s history, but there’s been an overall increase in regulations as the country modernized and its population grew.
INSULIN
BIDEN: “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”
THE FACTS: No, that’s not exactly right. Out-of-pocket insulin costs for older Americans on Medicare were capped at $35 in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law. The cap took effect last year, when many drugmakers announced they would lower the price of the drug to $35 for most users on private insurance.
CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP, touting his environmental record, said that “during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever” and that he supports “immaculate” air and water.
THE FACTS: That’s far from the whole story. During his presidency, Trump rolled back some provisions of the Clean Water Act, eased regulations on coal, oil and gas companies and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord.
ABORTION
TRUMP: “The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.”
THE FACTS: Trump inaccurately referred to abortions after birth. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.
RUSSIA
TRUMP on Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia: “He should have had him out a long time ago, but Putin’s probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time.”
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to say that Biden pays any sort of fee “every time” to secure the release of hostages and wrongfully detained Americans. There’s also zero evidence that Putin is asking for any money in order to free Gershkovich.
COVID-19
BIDEN: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.
THE FACTS: That’s overstating it. Rather, Trump asked whether it would be possible to inject disinfectant into the lungs.
SUPER PREDATORS
TRUMP: “What he’s done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them ‘super predators.’ … We can’t forget that - super predators … And they’ve taken great offense at it.”
THE FACTS: False. This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue.
MIGRANTS
TRUMP, referring to Biden: “He’s the one that killed people with a bad border and flooding hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in.”
THE FACTS: False. A mass influx of migrants coming into the U.S. illegally across the southern border has led to a number of false and misleading claims by Trump. For example, he regularly claims other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send to the U.S. There is no evidence to support that.
Trump has also argued the influx of immigrants is causing a crime surge in the U.S., False, statistics actually show violent crime is on the way down.
CHARLOTTESVILLE
BIDEN, referring to Trump after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017: “The one who said I think they’re fine people on both sides.”
THE FACTS: True. Trump did use those words to describe attendees of the deadly rally, which was planned by white nationalists. But as Trump supporters have pointed out, he also said that day that he wasn’t talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists in attendance.
ECONOMY
TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in history.”
TRUMP: “I gave you the largest tax cut in history.”
TRUMP: “The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce back jobs, bounce back from the COVID.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy. Trump had the ignominy of leaving the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered. (Tax Cuts) When it was passed in 2017, Trump’s tax cut was, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the fourth-largest since 1940.
(Jobs)
Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million
MILITARY DEATHS
BIDEN: “The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.”
THE FACTS: False. At least 16 service members have been killed in hostile action since Biden took office in January 2021. On Aug. 26, 2021, 13 died during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdrew from the country.
PRESIDENTIAL RECORD
BIDEN: “159, or 58, don’t know an exact number, presidential historians, they’ve had meetings and they voted, who is the worst president in American history … They said he was the worst in all American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture.”
THE FACTS: That’s almost right, but not quite. The survey in question, a project from professors at the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, included 154 usable responses, from 525 respondents invited to participate.
GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS
TRUMP, on Minneapolis protests after the killing of George Floyd: “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”
THE FACTS: False. Trump didn’t call the National Guard into Minneapolis during the unrest following the death of George Floyd. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deployed the National Guard to the city
IMMIGRATION
TRUMP: Biden “allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions.”
THE FACTS: False. Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.
BIDEN: “I’ve changed (the law) in the way that now you’re in a situation where there are 40 percent fewer people coming across the border illegally.”
THE FACTS: True. The Department of Homeland Security announced that illegal immigration encounters dropped by 40 percent, to fewer than 2,400 each day, in the weeks after Biden announced a policy largely barring asylum access for people entering the U.S. at the southern border.
Trump: “The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs, bounce back from the COVID.”
apnews.com
www.pbs.org
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs and a variety of false and misleading information as they faced off in their first debate of the 2024 election.
Trump falsely represented the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a relatively small number of people who were ushered in by police and misstated the strength of the economy during his administration.
Biden, who tends to lean more on exaggerations and embellishments rather than outright lies, misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID. Here’s a look at the false and misleading claims on Thursday night by the two candidates.
JAN. 6
TRUMP: “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”
THE FACTS: That’s false.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol was the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years
TRUMP, on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s actions on Jan. 6: “Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down.”
THE FACTS: false. Pelosi did not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.
TAXES AND REGULATIONS
TRUMP, on Biden: “He wants to raise your taxes by four times.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate.
Trump has used that line at rallies, but it has no basis in fact. Biden actually wants to prevent tax increases on anyone making less than $400,000, which is the vast majority of taxpayers.
TRUMP, referring to Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s victory: “On January 6th we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever on January 6th.”
THE FACTS: The current federal income tax was only instituted in 1913, and tax rates have fluctuated significantly in the decades since.
Government regulations have also ebbed and flowed in the country’s history, but there’s been an overall increase in regulations as the country modernized and its population grew.
INSULIN
BIDEN: “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”
THE FACTS: No, that’s not exactly right. Out-of-pocket insulin costs for older Americans on Medicare were capped at $35 in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law. The cap took effect last year, when many drugmakers announced they would lower the price of the drug to $35 for most users on private insurance.
CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP, touting his environmental record, said that “during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever” and that he supports “immaculate” air and water.
THE FACTS: That’s far from the whole story. During his presidency, Trump rolled back some provisions of the Clean Water Act, eased regulations on coal, oil and gas companies and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord.
ABORTION
TRUMP: “The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.”
THE FACTS: Trump inaccurately referred to abortions after birth. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.
RUSSIA
TRUMP on Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia: “He should have had him out a long time ago, but Putin’s probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time.”
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to say that Biden pays any sort of fee “every time” to secure the release of hostages and wrongfully detained Americans. There’s also zero evidence that Putin is asking for any money in order to free Gershkovich.
COVID-19
BIDEN: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.
THE FACTS: That’s overstating it. Rather, Trump asked whether it would be possible to inject disinfectant into the lungs.
SUPER PREDATORS
TRUMP: “What he’s done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them ‘super predators.’ … We can’t forget that - super predators … And they’ve taken great offense at it.”
THE FACTS: False. This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue.
MIGRANTS
TRUMP, referring to Biden: “He’s the one that killed people with a bad border and flooding hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in.”
THE FACTS: False. A mass influx of migrants coming into the U.S. illegally across the southern border has led to a number of false and misleading claims by Trump. For example, he regularly claims other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send to the U.S. There is no evidence to support that.
Trump has also argued the influx of immigrants is causing a crime surge in the U.S., False, statistics actually show violent crime is on the way down.
CHARLOTTESVILLE
BIDEN, referring to Trump after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017: “The one who said I think they’re fine people on both sides.”
THE FACTS: True. Trump did use those words to describe attendees of the deadly rally, which was planned by white nationalists. But as Trump supporters have pointed out, he also said that day that he wasn’t talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists in attendance.
ECONOMY
TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in history.”
TRUMP: “I gave you the largest tax cut in history.”
TRUMP: “The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce back jobs, bounce back from the COVID.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy. Trump had the ignominy of leaving the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered. (Tax Cuts) When it was passed in 2017, Trump’s tax cut was, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the fourth-largest since 1940.
(Jobs)
Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million
MILITARY DEATHS
BIDEN: “The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.”
THE FACTS: False. At least 16 service members have been killed in hostile action since Biden took office in January 2021. On Aug. 26, 2021, 13 died during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdrew from the country.
PRESIDENTIAL RECORD
BIDEN: “159, or 58, don’t know an exact number, presidential historians, they’ve had meetings and they voted, who is the worst president in American history … They said he was the worst in all American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture.”
THE FACTS: That’s almost right, but not quite. The survey in question, a project from professors at the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, included 154 usable responses, from 525 respondents invited to participate.
GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS
TRUMP, on Minneapolis protests after the killing of George Floyd: “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”
THE FACTS: False. Trump didn’t call the National Guard into Minneapolis during the unrest following the death of George Floyd. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deployed the National Guard to the city
IMMIGRATION
TRUMP: Biden “allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions.”
THE FACTS: False. Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.
BIDEN: “I’ve changed (the law) in the way that now you’re in a situation where there are 40 percent fewer people coming across the border illegally.”
THE FACTS: True. The Department of Homeland Security announced that illegal immigration encounters dropped by 40 percent, to fewer than 2,400 each day, in the weeks after Biden announced a policy largely barring asylum access for people entering the U.S. at the southern border.
Trump: “The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs, bounce back from the COVID.”
Here's a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump's first debate
The Associated Press examines false and misleading statements made by Donald Trump and Joe Biden as they prepare to face off in the Election 2024 presidential debate.
apnews.com
Analysis: Fact-checking the CNN Trump-Biden debate
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clashed on topics including immigration, the economy, abortion and their ages.
www.pbs.org
