FactChecking the Biden-Trump Debate

Summary

The much-anticipated first debate of 2024 between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump featured a relentless barrage of false and misleading statements from the two candidates on immigration, the economy, abortion, taxes and more.

• Both candidates erred on Social Security, with Biden incorrectly saying that Trump “wants to get rid” of the program, and Trump falsely alleging that Biden will “wipe out” Social Security due to the influx of people at the border.

• Trump misleadingly claimed that he was “the one that got the insulin down for the seniors,” not Biden. Costs were lowered for some under a limited project by the Trump administration. Biden signed a law capping costs for all seniors with Medicare drug coverage.

• Trump warned that Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times,” but Biden has not proposed anything like that. Trump was also mostly wrong when he said Biden “wants the Trump tax cuts to expire.” Biden said he would extend them for anyone making under $400,000 a year.

• Biden repeated his misleading claim that billionaires pay an average federal tax rate of 8%. That White House calculation factors in earnings on unsold stock as income.

• Trump repeated his false claim that “everybody,” including all legal scholars, wanted to end Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to abortion.

• Trump falsely claimed that “the only jobs” Biden “created are for illegal immigrants and bounced back jobs that bounced back from the COVID.” Total nonfarm employment is higher than it was before the pandemic, as is the employment level of native-born workers.

• Biden claimed that Trump oversaw the “largest deficit of any president,” while Trump countered that “we now have the largest deficit” under Biden. The largest budget deficit was under Trump in fiscal year 2020, but that was largely because of emergency spending due to COVID-19.

• Biden misleadingly said that “Black unemployment is the lowest level it has been in a long, long time.” The rate reached a record low in April 2023, and it was low under Trump, too, until the pandemic.

• Biden said Trump called U.S. veterans killed in World War I “suckers and losers,” which Trump called a “made up quote.” The Atlantic reported that, based on anonymous sources. A former Trump chief of staff later seemed to confirm Trump said it.

• Trump claimed that Biden “caused the inflation,” but economists say rising inflation was mostly due to disruptions to the economy caused by the pandemic.

• Trump grossly inflated the number of immigrants who have entered the country during the Biden administration — putting the number at 18 million to 20 million — and he said, without evidence, that many of them are from prisons and mental institutions.

• Trump claimed that “we had the safest border in history” in the “final months” of his presidency. But apprehensions of those trying to cross illegally in the last three full months of his presidency were about 50% higher than in the three months before he took office.

• Biden criticized Trump for presiding over a loss of jobs when he was president, but that loss occurred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Trump falsely claimed that “some states” run by Democrats allow abortions “after birth.” If it happened, it would be homicide, and that’s illegal.

• Trump made the unsupported claim that the U.S. border with Mexico is “the most dangerous place in the world,” and suggested that it has opened the country to a violent crime wave. The data show a reduction in violent crime in the U.S.

• Trump overstated how much food prices have risen due to inflation. Prices are up by about 20%, not double or quadruple. 

• Trump boasted his administration “had the best environmental numbers ever.” Trump reversed nearly 100 environmental rules limiting pollution. Although greenhouse gas emissions did decline from 2019 to 2020, the EPA said that was due to the impacts of the pandemic on travel and the economy.   

• Biden said he joined the Paris Agreement because “if we reach the 1.5 degrees Celsius, and then … there’s no way back.” Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees would reduce the damages and losses of global warming, but scientists agree that climate action is still possible after passing the threshold.

• Trump said immigrants crossing the border illegally were living in “luxury hotels.” New York City has provided hotel and motel rooms to migrant families, but there is no evidence that they are being placed in “luxury” hotels. 

• Trump falsely claimed that there was “no terrorism, at all” in the U.S. during his administration. There were several terrorist acts carried out by foreign-born individuals when he was president.

• While talking about international trade, Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. currently has “the largest deficit with China.” In 2023, the trade deficit in goods and services with China was the lowest it has been since 2009.

• Trump wrongly claimed that prior to the pandemic, he had created “the greatest economy in the history of our country.” That’s far from true using economists’ preferred measure — growth in gross domestic product.

• As he has many times before, Trump wrongly claimed, “I gave you the largest tax cut in history.”