Fact Checking the June 27th Presidential Debate
Immigration
Trump: Biden "allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions." False
Trump: "We had the safest border in the history of our country." Mostly False
Trump: Biden allowed in "18 million people." False
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.” False.
Biden: "I've changed (the law) in the way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally." Mostly True
Biden: While talking about a bipartisan border bill, "by the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position." Half True
Abortion
Trump: "The problem (Democrats) 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." False.
Inflation and economy
Trump: "He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with … essentially no inflation. It was perfect." Mostly False.
Trump: "You look at the cost of food, where it's double, triple and quadruple." False.
Trump: "We had the greatest economy in history.” False.
Biden: "Economists say (Trump’s proposed tariffs are) going to cost the average American $2,500 a year or more." Mostly True.
Jobs
Biden: Semiconductor jobs "to build these chips … pay over $100,000. You don’t need a college degree for them." Mostly False.
Biden: "Black unemployment is the lowest level it’s been in a long, long time." Mostly True.
Trump: "The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs, bounce-back from the COVID." False.
Trump legal cases
Trump: Biden "indicted me because I was his opponent." False.
Social Security, Medicare and taxes
Trump: "Social Security, he's destroying it, because millions of people are pouring into our country, and they're putting them onto Social Security. They're putting them onto Medicare, Medicaid." False.
Biden: Trump "wants to get rid of Social Security, he thinks there's plenty to cut in Social Security." False.
Trump: "He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody's taxes by four times." False.
Biden: "I said I’d never raise the tax on anybody if you're making less than $400,000. I didn’t." Mostly True.
Trump: "I gave you the largest tax cut in history." False.
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.” False.
Checking the record on Hitler comment and Charlottesville
Biden: Trump said, "I don't want to go in (a World War I cemetery in France), because they're a bunch of losers and suckers."
Trump called this a "made-up quote." Both statements need context.
Biden: "This is a guy who says Hitler's done some good things." No independent verification.
Biden: Trump called Nazis protesting in the crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 "very fine people." Needs context.
Crime
Trump: "What he's done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years, he called them super predators … in the 1990s." False.
Health care
Biden: "We brought down the price (of) prescription drug(s), which is a major issue for many people, to $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400." Half True.
Biden: Trump "wants to get rid of the ACA again." Half True.
Trump: "I'm the one that got the insulin down for the seniors." Mostly False.
Foreign policy and terrorism
Biden: "I’m the only president this century that doesn't have any, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did." False.
Trump: "We had no terror (attacks) under my administration." False.
Election denial and Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol
Trump: Regarding the 2020 election, "the fraud and everything else was ridiculous." False.
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.” False
Trump: Pelosi said "I take full responsibility for Jan. 6." False. That’s not what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
Worst president rankings
Biden: Presidential historians "voted who was the worst president in American history. From best to worst. They said (Trump) was the worst in all of American history." Mostly True.
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. Mostly False.
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.” False.
Covid-19
Biden: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19. False.
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.” False.
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.” False.
Source: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/?utm_source=Poynter+Institute&utm_campaign=bfd1cfc58d-06282024+-+The+Poynter+Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-bfd1cfc58d-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=bfd1cfc58d&mc_eid=ec37f2c093
Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fact-checking-the-claims-biden-and-trump-made-during-the-debate
Source: https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-election-debate-trump-biden-577507522762aa10f6ee5be3a0ced2bb
Trump:
True 0
Half True 0
Mostly True 0
False 20
Mostly False 4
Biden:
True 1
Half True 3
Mostly True 5
Needs Context 3
False 3
Mostly False 1
Read by topic:
Immigration
Abortion
Inflation and economy
Jobs
Trump legal cases
Social Security, Medicare and taxes
Checking the record on Hitler comment and Charlottesville
Crime
Health care
Foreign policy and terrorism
Election denial and Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol
Worst president rankings
The golf moment
Immigration
Trump: Biden "allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions." Pants on Fire!
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.
Not everyone was let in. The term "noncitizens" includes people who may have had legal immigration status in the U.S. but were not U.S. citizens.
The data reflects the people that the federal government knows about, but it’s inexhaustive. However, immigration experts said despite the data’s limitations, there is no evidence to support Trump’s statement.
Trump: "We had the safest border in the history of our country." Mostly False.
Illegal immigration between ports of entry at the U.S. southern border dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, compared with previous years. Apprehensions then rose, and dropped again in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, immigration dropped drastically worldwide as governments enacted policies limiting people’s movement.
In the months before Trump left office, illegal immigration was rising again. A spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in the spring 2020 during the Trump administration and generally continued to climb each month.
Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than under both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.
Trump: Biden allowed in "18 million people." False.
Immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the border 9.7 million times under Biden’s presidency. When accounting for "got aways" — people who aren’t stopped by border officials — the number rises to about 11.4 million.
But encounters don’t mean admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tried to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let in. Many encounters result in deportations. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
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.” False.
THE FACTS: 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., although statistics actually show violent crime is on the way down.
There have been recent high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally. But FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. Studies have found that people living in the country illegally are less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes. For more than a century, critics of immigration have sought to link new arrivals to crime. In 1931, the Wickersham Commission did not find any evidence supporting a connection between immigration and increased crime, and many studies since then have reached similar conclusions.
Texas is the only state that tracks crimes by immigration status. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “considerably lower felony arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than legal immigrants or native-born.
Some crime is expected given the large population of immigrants. There were an estimated 10.5 million people in the country illegally in 2021, according to the latest estimate by Pew Research Center, a figure that has almost certainly risen with large influxes at the border. In 2022, the Census Bureau estimated the foreign-born population at 46.2 million, or nearly 14% of the total, with most states seeing double-digit percentage increases in the last dozen years.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Biden: While talking about a bipartisan border bill, "by the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position." Half True.
The National Border Patrol Council — the U.S. Border Patrol’s union endorsed a bipartisan border security bill in February. But it didn’t endorse Biden.
Here's what Brandon Judd, the union’s president, said about the bill in February:
"While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo. This is why the National Border Patrol Council endorses this bill and hopes for its quick passage."
Biden also supported the bill and said he would sign it into law if it passed. The bill failed in the Senate on a 49-50 vote.
However, Judd and the Border Patrol union have been critical of Biden and his immigration policies and endorsed Trump in the 2020 election.
"To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden," the National Border Patrol Council said in an X post during the debate.
Biden: "I've changed (the law) in the way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally." Mostly True.
The Department of Homeland Security announced that illegal immigration encounters dropped by 40%, 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. The policy was announced June 4.
But immigration experts caution that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for any change in border crossings. For example, other factors, such as hot weather, can affect migration patterns.
Since the policy was announced only a few weeks ago, it’s unclear whether the drop in illegal immigration will continue.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told PolitiFact the policy could have a short-term deterrent effect. But Adam Isacson, defense oversight director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group, told PolitiFact, that no crackdown in the past decade has had a lasting impact.
Source: Politifact
Samantha Putterman:
So Trump's claim about the millions of people coming from prisons and mental institutions, we found that to be our worst rating, Pants on Fire. Data shows that officials have arrested a little over 100,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions from 2021 to 2024. Not everyone was let in.
The data reflects the people that the government knows about, but it's inexhaustive. So immigration experts did say that, despite these limitations, there's no evidence to support his statement. And also we rated false his statement that Biden has allowed in 18 million people.
Immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally around 9.7 million times under Biden's presidency. While counting for got-aways, that number rises to about 11.4 million. But encounters do not equal admissions. Encounters represent events, not people. So one person who tried to cross the border twice counts for two encounters.
And a lot of these also led to expulsions. And on Biden, he was more accurate on immigration. His 40 percent claim is mostly true. DHS announced that encounters dropped by 40 percent to fewer than 2,400 per day in the weeks after Biden announced his policy on June 4.
Source: PBS.org Fact-Checking of Debate
Abortion
Trump: "The problem (Democrats) 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." False.
Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state.
Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this have said they support abortion under Roe v. Wade’s standard, which provided abortion access up to fetal viability. This is typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside of the womb. Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.
Medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare — less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks — and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer palliative care. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ survival to minutes or days after delivery.
Some Republicans who have made claims similar to Trump’s point to Democratic support of the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, citing the bill’s provisions that say providers and patients have the right to perform and receive abortion services without certain limitations or requirements that would impede access. Anti-abortion advocates say the provisions in the bill, which failed to advance 49-51, would have created a loophole that eliminated any limits to abortions later in pregnancy.
Alina Salganicoff, director of KFF’s Women’s Health Policy program, said the legislation would have allowed health providers to perform abortions without obstacles such as waiting periods, medically unnecessary tests and in-person visits, or other restrictions. The bill would have allowed an abortion after viability when, "in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health."
Source: Politifact
Geoff Bennett:
On abortion, Mr. Trump repeated a false claim that he's made before that Democrats, in his words, will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth.
Help us understand this, because willfully terminating the life of a newborn is illegal in every state.
Samantha Putterman:
Right, right. So we did find this to be false.
Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this, they have said that they support abortion under Roe v. Wade's standard, which provided access up to fetal viability, typically considered around 24 weeks of pregnancy. And many of these Democrats have also said that they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.
So medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare. It's less than 1 percent of abortions that occur after 21 weeks. And these cases typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant women.
Source: PBS.org Fact-Checking of Debate
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.
Abortion rights advocates say terms like this and “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Abortions later in pregnancy also are usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk, medical experts say. In most cases, these are also wanted pregnancies, experts say.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Inflation and economy
Trump: "He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with … essentially no inflation. It was perfect." Mostly False.
When Biden was inaugurated, year-over-year inflation was about 1.4%. However, that was shaped by the still-weak economy during the coronavirus pandemic, which was still a serious threat when Biden was inaugurated.
As the pandemic conditions improved, the economy accelerated. Consumers were ready to buy products, but the pandemic had prompted supply chain shortages. This, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which raised gasoline prices, led to inflation, peaking at 9% about a year and a half into Biden’s presidency. That was the highest in about four decades.
Economists generally say Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, the American Rescue Plan, did exacerbate inflation by putting more money into consumers’ hands at a time when supplies were running short. But they do not believe that Biden caused high inflation single-handedly.
Trump: "You look at the cost of food, where it's double, triple and quadruple." False.
Food costs have risen faster under President Joe Biden than under any of his five most recent predecessors. However, the 21% increase in food prices on Biden’s watch is well below what Trump claimed. Quadrupling food costs would be an increase of 300%, or more than 10 times larger than what Trump said.
Specific categories of food have spiked more than food prices overall. For instance, egg prices are 84% higher today than when Biden took office. But for every food category that has outrun overall food inflation, there’s another category that has risen more slowly than average.
Also, this increase was spread over three and a half years, making the annual increase about 6%, part of which has been offset by rising wages.
Trump: "We had the greatest economy in history.”
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.
But even if you take out issues caused by the pandemic, economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump’s first three years. That’s pretty solid. But it’s nowhere near the 4% averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger so far under Biden than under Trump.
Trump did have the unemployment rate get as low as 3.5% before the pandemic. But again, the labor force participation rate for people 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. working population — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate has also been higher under Biden than Trump.
Trump also likes to talk about how low inflation was under him. Gasoline fell as low as $1.77 a gallon. But, of course, that price dip happened during pandemic lockdowns when few people were driving. The low prices were due to a global health crisis, not Trump’s policies.
Similarly, average 30-year mortgage rates dipped to 2.65% during the pandemic. Those low rates were a byproduct of Federal Reserve efforts to prop up a weak economy, rather than the sign of strength that Trump now suggests it was.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Biden: "Economists say (Trump’s proposed tariffs are) going to cost the average American $2,500 a year or more." Mostly True.
Most economists expect that Trump’s proposed 10% across-the-board tariff on foreign products will force consumers to pay more. The specific size of that hit is open to debate, though Biden offered a figure somewhat higher than current estimates.
Just days before the debate, the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, projected additional costs per household of $1,700 to $2,350 annually.
The Peterson Institute of International Economics, another Washington, D.C.-based think tank, projected that such tariffs would cost a middle-income household about $1,700 extra each year.
Source: Politifact
Samantha Putterman:
So, on Trump's claim that Biden inherited inflation, that's mostly false. When Biden was inaugurated, inflation was about 1.4 percent, but that was shaped by the still weak economy during the pandemic.
As pandemic conditions improved, the economy accelerated, leading to inflation peaking at 9 percent about a year-and-a-half into his presidency. That was the highest in about four decades. But economists say that his relief plan did exasperate inflation, but he didn't single-handedly cause it.
And on Trump's claim that food costs has doubled, tripled and quadrupled, we found that to be false. Food costs have risen faster under Biden, but the 21 percent increase is nowhere near what Trump claimed. That would need to be about 300 percent, which is 10 times larger than what Trump said.
And Biden's claim about Trump's proposed tariffs costing Americans $2,500, we found that to be mostly true. Economists expect that Trump's proposed 10 percent across-the-board tariff on foreign products will force consumers to pay more and ride around that range between about $1,700 and $2,500.
Source: PBS.org Fact-Checking of Debate
Jobs
Biden: Semiconductor jobs "to build these chips … pay over $100,000. You don’t need a college degree for them." Mostly False.
The average semiconductor industry salary is around $170,000, figures from Oxford Economics and Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, show. But this figure includes all jobs within the industry and doesn’t single out jobs requiring no college degree.
To earn a salary of $110,000 or higher, employees in the semiconductor industry need undergraduate or graduate-level degrees, the groups say.
The most a person would make without a four-year degree is about $70,000, according to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics.
Biden: "Black unemployment is the lowest level it’s been in a long, long time." Mostly True.
The record for low Black unemployment rate was set under Biden in April 2023, at 4.8%. It has risen modestly since then to 6.1% in May 2024, but that’s still lower than it was for much of the first two years under Trump.
Overall, Trump had success on this statistic, too. When Biden set the record, the record he was breaking was Trump’s: 5.3% in August and September 2019.
Trump: "The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs, bounce-back from the COVID." False.
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. (There are many more native-born Americans than foreign-born Americans, so on a percentage basis, the increase for foreign-born Americans is about 22%, compared with 6% for native-born Americans.)
It’s also wrong to say that all the foreign-born employment gains (much less all the employment gains) stem from migrants here illegally. The data for foreign-born Americans includes anyone born outside the U.S., including immigrants who have been in the United States legally for decades.
Employment on Biden’s watch passed its prepandemic level by June 2022, about a year and a half into his term. Since then, the U.S. economy has created an additional 6.2 million jobs.
Source: Politifact
Trump legal cases
Trump: Biden "indicted me because I was his opponent." False.
The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s business records began before Biden was president, but Biden was president by the time Trump was charged in 2023.
After Michael Cohen, who had been an attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. began investigating the payments, Politico reported. That was before Biden was president. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired a former Justice Department prosecutor in 2022. But experts told us that doesn’t prove Biden was involved.
Trump has also been indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury and two federal grand juries. Biden is not responsible for state or federal prosecutors’ decisions to present cases to grand juries.
Source: Politifact
Social Security, Medicare and taxes
Trump: "Social Security, he's destroying it, because millions of people are pouring into our country, and they're putting them onto Social Security. They're putting them onto Medicare, Medicaid." False.
It’s wrong to say that immigration will destroy Social Security. Social Security’s fiscal challenges stem from a shortage of workers compared with beneficiaries.
Immigration is far from a fiscal fix-all for Social Security’s challenges. But having more immigrants in the United States would increase the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, potentially for decades, thus extending the program’s solvency, experts say.
Most immigrants in the U.S. illegally are also ineligible for Social Security. However, people who entered the U.S. illegally and were granted humanitarian parole — a temporary permission to stay in the country — for more than one year, are eligible for Social Security.
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally also are generally ineligible to enroll in federally funded health care coverage such as Medicare and Medicaid. (Some states provide Medicaid coverage under state-funded programs regardless of immigration status. Immigrants are eligible for emergency Medicaid regardless of status.)
Biden: Trump "wants to get rid of Social Security, he thinks there's plenty to cut in Social Security." False.
Biden went further than previous attacks to say Trump would cut the program entirely. In a March CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, "There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting."
However, Trump quickly walked that statement back. Also, his campaign website says that not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security, and he’s repeated similar lines in campaign rallies.
Before the 2024 campaign, Trump said about a half dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization.
Trump: "He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody's taxes by four times." False.
Biden proposed a tax increase of about 7% over the next decade, which is far lower than the 300% increase that former President Donald Trump claimed. (Doubling would be a 100% increase and tripling would be a 200% increase.)
About 83% of the proposed Biden tax increase would be borne by the top 1% of taxpayers, a level that starts at just under $1 million a year in income.
Taxpayers earning up to $60,400 would see their yearly taxes decline on average, and taxpayers earning $60,400 to $107,300 would see an annual increase of $20 on average.
Biden: "I said I’d never raise the tax on anybody if you're making less than $400,000. I didn’t." Mostly True.
Biden has said repeatedly that he will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, a promise he campaigned on in 2020.
He has not raised any individual income taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 a year. It’s always possible that individual taxpayers could see increases because of changes in their personal circumstances.
Some corporate tax increases enacted on Biden’s watch have a small projected pass-through effect on taxpayers. Economists generally allocate a portion of the tax burden from corporate taxes to shareholders and partly to consumers, who often pay higher prices as corporations factor the higher taxes into pricing of goods and services.
The White House has told PolitiFact that Biden would let the tax cuts Trump signed in 2017 expire for wealthier taxpayers, but would not let Americans making less than $400,000 see any tax increase.
Trump: "I gave you the largest tax cut in history." False.
When it was passed in 2017, Trump’s tax cut was, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the fourth-largest since 1940. And as a percentage of gross domestic product, it ranked seventh in history, according to figures published by the Treasury Department.
Source: Politifact
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.
More importantly, Biden’s budget proposal does not increase taxes as much as Trump claims, though the increases are focused on corporations and the wealthy. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for individuals are set to expire after 2025, because they were not fully funded when they became law.
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.” False.
THE FACTS: The current federal income tax was only instituted in 1913, and tax rates have fluctuated significantly in the decades since. Rates were lower in the 1920s, just prior to the Great Depression. Trump did cut taxes during his time in the White House, but the rates weren’t the lowest in history.
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. There are now many more regulations covering the environment, employment, financial transactions and other aspects of daily life. While Trump slashed some regulations, he didn’t take the country back to the less regulated days of its past.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Checking the record on Hitler comment and Charlottesville
Checking the record on "suckers and losers," "Hitler's done some good things," and Charlottesville, Virginia
Biden: Trump said, "I don't want to go in (a World War I cemetery in France), because they're a bunch of losers and suckers."
Trump called this a "made-up quote." Both statements need context.
A September 2020 article in The Atlantic cited unnamed sources as saying that Trump called Americans who died in wars "suckers" and "losers" when he canceled a trip in 2018 to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris.
"Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers," The Atlantic reported Trump said, citing multiple unnamed sources. In a separate conversation, also according to unnamed sources, he said U.S. Marines who lost their lives in World War I’s Battle of Belleau Wood were "suckers" for getting killed.
John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, confirmed elements of The Atlantic’s story three years later in an October 2023 statement to CNN, including that Trump referred to military members who were killed or wounded as "suckers" and "losers."
But Trump has long denied these allegations.
Biden: "This is a guy who says Hitler's done some good things."
This is a reference to a passage in a book by CNN anchor Jim Sciutto in which Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, described a conversation he had with Trump.
"He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’" Kelly said. "I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, (Adolf Hitler) rebuilt the economy.’"
According to the book, Kelly also told Sciutto that Hitler had the "loyalty" of his senior staff, unlike Trump.
There is no independent verification of this conversation. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told CNN in March that Kelly suffered from "a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome," but didn’t address the specific allegations.
Biden: Trump called Nazis protesting in the crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 "very fine people."
Trump vehemently denied Biden’s characterization. Here’s what happened.
In comments to reporters following violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the removal of a Confederate general’s statue, Trump said of marchers who protested the removal, "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
During back-and-forth remarks with reporters, Trump separately condemned the "neo-Nazis and the white nationalists."
"But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me," Trump said. "Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch."
Trump also said that counter protesters had similar makeup of "good" and "bad" people — "some fine people" and also " troublemakers" and "bad people."
Source: Politifact
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: 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.
“You had some very bad people in that group,” Trump said during a news conference a few days after the rally, “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
He then added that he wasn’t talking about “the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” Instead, he said, the press had been unfair in its treatment of protesters who were there to innocently and legally protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The gathering planned by white nationalists shocked the nation when it exploded into chaos: violent brawling in the streets, racist and antisemitic chants, smoke bombs, and finally, a car speeding into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens more.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Crime
Trump: "What he's done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years, he called them super predators … in the 1990s." False.
In a 1993 Senate floor speech, Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, spoke about doing something for young people who lacked supervision, structure or opportunities. He said the country needed to focus on them, because otherwise, a portion of them would "become the predators 15 years from now."
Biden did not single out any racial or ethnic group. In a 1998 speech at an attorneys general conference, Biden also used the term "predators." He didn’t say he was talking about Black youth.
Source: Politifact
Health care
Biden: "We brought down the price (of) prescription drug(s), which is a major issue for many people, to $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400." Half True.
Biden touted his efforts to reduce prescription drug costs by referring to the $35 insulin price cap his administration instituted as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But he flubbed the number during the debate, saying it was lowered to $15. In his closing statement, Biden corrected the number to $35.
The price of insulin for Medicare enrollees starting in 2023 dropped to $35 a month, not $15. Drug pricing experts told PolitFact when we rated a similar claim that most Medicare enrollees were likely not paying a monthly average of $400 before the changes, although because costs vary depending on coverage phases and dosages, some might have paid that much in a given month.
Biden: Trump "wants to get rid of the ACA again." Half True.
In 2016, Trump campaigned on a promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. In the White House, Trump supported a failed effort to do just that. In the years since, he has repeatedly said he would dismantle the health care law in campaign stops and social media posts throughout 2023.
In March, however, Trump walked back this stance, writing on Truth Social that he "isn’t running to terminate" the ACA but to make it "better" and "less expensive." Trump hasn’t said how he would do this.
Trump: "I'm the one that got the insulin down for the seniors." Mostly False.
When he was president, Trump instituted the Part D Senior Savings Model, a program that capped insulin costs to $35 a month for some older Americans in drug plans that chose to participate.
But because it was voluntary, 38% of all Medicare drug plans, including Medicare Advantage plans, participated in 2022, according to KFF. Trump’s voluntary plan also covered only one form of each dosage and insulin type.
Biden points to the Inflation Reduction Act’s mandatory $35 insulin cap as a major achievement. This cap applies to all Medicare prescription plans. It also expanded the cap to all covered insulin types and dosages. Although Trump’s model was a start, it did not have the sweeping reach that Biden’s mandatory cap achieved.
Source: Politifact
Foreign policy and terrorism
Biden: "I’m the only president this century that doesn't have any, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did." False.
Some U.S. service members have died in combat abroad during Biden’s presidency.
In August 2021, 13 U.S. service members were killed in an attack as the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan under Biden’s administration. No U.S. service member deaths were reported in 2022, Defense Department data shows. Full government data for U.S. active duty military deaths is not available for 2023 or 2024. This January, three U.S. soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Jordan.
During Trump’s presidency, from January 2017 to January 2020, 65 U.S. service members were killed in combat, Defense Department data shows.
Trump: "We had no terror (attacks) under my administration." False.
During Trump’s presidency, there were several major terror attacks, some linked to extreme global jihadist ideology.
In 2017, there were two separate attacks in New York City, which Trump himself acknowledged as "terrorist attacks" during his 2018 State of the Union address.
There was also a December 2019 mass shooting by a member of Saudi Arabia’s air force who was studying at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. Three U.S. service members were killed and eight were wounded by the gunman, who had expressed anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments on social media. Trump’s Attorney General William Barr described the shooting as "an act of terrorism."
Trump’s Justice Department also prosecuted several cases of domestic terrorism.
Excluding unsuccessful attacks and those for which officials doubt motive, there were 220 terror incidents in the United States of varying severity during Trump’s presidency from 2017 to 2020, according to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland, which tracks incidents of terrorism.
Source: Politifact
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: 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. An enemy drone killed three U.S. service members at a desert base in Jordan on Jan. 28 of this year.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Election denial and Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol
Trump: Regarding the 2020 election, "the fraud and everything else was ridiculous." False.
There is some fraud in every election, but it was not enough to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. And some fraudulently cast ballots involved defendants who were either registered Republicans or said that they supported Trump.
Federal and state officials, including Republicans in Georgia, said the 2020 election was legitimate. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said that he had not seen fraud on a scale that would invalidate Joe Biden’s victory.
As Trump faced reelection in 2020, he said Biden could win only if the election was rigged. Numerous investigations, court cases and reviews yielded no evidence of widespread rigging in the 2020 presidential election.
Elections are administered in thousands of local areas nationwide, each with safeguards, making any attempt to "rig" a national election highly improbable.
Trump: Pelosi said "I take full responsibility for Jan. 6." False. That’s not what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
In a 41-second video taken on Jan. 6, 2021, Pelosi said, "I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more," referring to U.S. Capitol security. She did not say she took responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Records show that Pelosi approved a Jan. 6, 2021, request to seek support from the National Guard and pushed to get National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol when their deployment was delayed by hours that day.
Source: Politifact
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.” False.
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. As thoroughly documented by video, photographs and people who were there, thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.
In an internal memo on March 7, 2023, U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said that the allegation that “our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides’” is “outrageous and false.” A Capitol Police spokesperson confirmed the memo’s authenticity to The Associated Press. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot. More than 850 people have pleaded guilty to crimes, and 200 others have been convicted at trial.
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: 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.
The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol. It is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.
The House Sergeant at Arms reported to Pelosi and the Senate Sergeant at Arms reported to McConnell. There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand. Drew Hammill, a then-spokesperson for Pelosi, said after the insurrection that Pelosi was never informed of such a request.
Source: AP Fact Checking
Worst president rankings
Biden: Presidential historians "voted who was the worst president in American history. From best to worst. They said (Trump) was the worst in all of American history." True.
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, released in February, collected responses from 154 presidential historians, which included current and recent members of the American Political Science Association. The survey ranked Biden as the 14th best president in U.S. history, and put Trump last.
The historians were asked to give every president a score, from zero to 100. Abraham Lincoln topped the list with an average score of 95, while Biden scored an average of 62.66. Trump averaged just under 11 points.
Source: Politifact
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.
Source: AP Fact Checking
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. Mostly False.
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. When wildfires struck California in 2020, Trump dismissed the scientific consensus that climate change had played a role. Trump also dismissed scientists’ warnings about climate change and routinely proposed deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. Those reductions were blocked by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Source: AP Fact Checking
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.” False.
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. Just like in the Trump administration, the deals during the Biden administration that have brought home hostages and detainees involved prisoner swaps -- not money transfers.
Trump’s reference to money appeared to be about the 2023 deal in which the U.S. secured the release of five detained Americans in Iran after billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets were transferred from banks in South Korea to Qatar. The U.S. has said that that the money would be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food.
Source: AP Fact Checking
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.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute,” he said at an April 2020 press conference. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
Source: AP Fact Checking
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: This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue. It was Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, who used the term “super predator” to advocate for the 1994 crime bill that Biden co-authored more than thirty years ago. Biden did warn of “predators” in a floor speech in support of his bill.
Source: AP Fact Checking
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: 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.
Source: AP Fact Checking
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