Combination image of Donald Trump and Joe Biden during their election debate on June 27, 2024.Gerald Herbert/The Associated Press
A range of false and misleading claims were made in the first debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential election with former president Donald Trump making unfounded statements about more serious topics than President Joe Biden.
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 made comments about abortion that have no basis in fact. Biden misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID-19.
Jan. 6 Capitol riot
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.”
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.
Videos posted to social media showed a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021
The Globe and Mail
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.”
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.
Insulin
Biden: “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”
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. But Biden regularly overstates that many people used to pay up to $400 monthly. People with diabetes who have Medicare or private insurance paid about $450 yearly prior to the law, a Department of Health and Human Services study released in December 2022 found.
Climate Change
Trump said that “during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever” and that he supports “immaculate” air and water.
That’s not 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.
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.”
This claim has no basis in fact. Infanticide is criminalized in every U.S. 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.
Russia
Evan Gershkovich prior to a court hearing on June 26.NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images
Trump on Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is 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.”
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 the money would be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food.
COVID-19
Biden: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.
That’s overstating a convoluted comment by Trump. 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 news 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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Economy
Trump: “We had the greatest economy in history.”
That’s not accurate. First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed US$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 labour 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.
President Joe Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance while his Republican rival Donald Trump battered him with a series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday.
Reuters
Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Elliot Spagat, Eric Tucker, Ali Swenson, Christina Cassidy, Amanda Seitz, Stephen Groves, David Klepper, Melissa Goldin and Hope Yen contributed to this report.
This article is published as part of The Globe’s initiative to cover dis- and misinformation. E-mail us to share tips or feedback at disinfodesk@globeandmail.com.