Trump came into the debate needing to clean up from his first performance and he clearly listened to his advisers who urged him to turn down the heat and stop his incessant interruptions. But the President relied heavily on the same rhetoric that fills his raucous rallies and Twitter feed, just set at a lower volume. His lies ranged from the political, like when he falsely claimed the coronavirus was “going away” or that a vaccine to end the pandemic was ready, to the personal, like when he falsely said Biden has “houses all over the place” or lied about Biden receiving millions of dollars from Russia. And his lies were clearly aimed at politically important issues, like health care, the economy and coronavirus, three topics that voters say are critical to them as they head to the ballot box.
Biden’s misstatements were more on the margins, like when he falsely claimed that he never said he opposed fracking, understated the number of people for whom Trump has granted clemency and made a misleading claim about health care coverage losses under Obamacare.
Coronavirus
Trump: Coronavirus is ‘going away’
Trump claimed the virus is going away. “We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” Trump said.
Facts First: This is false. The US coronavirus situation — as measured by newly confirmed cases, hospitalizations and the test positivity rate — is getting worse, not better. There is no basis for his vague claim that we are “rounding the corner.”
Trump has baselessly claimed for eight months that the virus would disappear or was currently disappearing.
— Holmes Lybrand
Trump: 2.2 million people were initially expected to die from coronavirus
Trump claimed 2.2 million people were “expected to die.”
Facts First: This is false.
In other words, that would be the loss of lives if no action were taken at all to mitigate it.
The report did not analyze what would happen if just the federal government took no action against the virus but rather what would occur if there were absolutely no “control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behavior.”
— Holmes Lybrand and Tara Subramaniam
Trump: Biden called him “xenophobic” following travel restrictions on China
“When I closed and banned China from coming in … he was saying I was xenophobic, I did it too soon,” Trump said.
Facts First: This needs context.
It’s not clear the former vice president even knew about Trump’s China travel restrictions when he called Trump xenophobic on the day the restrictions were unveiled; Biden has never explicitly linked his accusation of xenophobia to these travel restrictions.
Biden’s campaign announced in early April that he supports Trump’s travel restrictions on China. But the campaign did not say the former vice president had previously been wrong about the ban, much less apologize. Rather, the campaign says Biden’s January 31 accusations — that Trump has a record of “hysterical xenophobia” and “fear mongering” — were not about the travel restrictions at all.
The campaign says Biden did not know about the restrictions at the time of his speech, since his campaign event in Iowa started shortly after the Trump administration briefing where the restrictions were revealed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
Given the timing of the Biden remarks, it’s not unreasonable for the Trump campaign to infer that the former vice president was talking about the travel restrictions. But Biden never took an explicit position on the restrictions until his April declaration of support.
— Holmes Lybrand
Trump: He was ‘kidding’ when he suggested injecting bleach
Biden attacked Trump on comments he made over disinfectants and the coronavirus.
“What did the President say? He said don’t worry, it’s going to go away. Be gone by Easter. Don’t worry…Maybe inject bleach,” Biden said. “He said he was kidding when he said that but a lot of people thought it was serious.”
Trump replied that he “was kidding on that.”
During an April 23 press briefing, Trump expressed interest in exploring the possibility of “injection inside or almost a cleaning” with disinfectants.
Here’s what he said: “[T]hen I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. 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.”
The next day Trump claimed he was “asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.”
— Daniel Dale and Holmes Lybrand
Trump: Obama administration was a ‘disaster’ on swine flu
In attacking Biden over his handling of the H1N1 epidemic, Trump said Biden had handled the epidemic poorly for the Obama administration and it was “a total disaster.”
“And frankly, he ran the H1N1 swine flu and it was a total disaster. Far less lethal, but it was a total disaster,” Trump said. “Had that had this kind of numbers, 700,000 people would be dead right now, but it was a far less lethal disease.”
Facts First: This claim is misleading and needs context. The swine flu killed an estimated 12,500 Americans and Trump praised the Obama administration’s early handling of it.
Trump said the Obama administration’s handling of the swine flu was “a total disaster,” claiming 700,000 would have died if the swine flu had been more deadly. Trump’s claim appears to be citing an article from the Wall Street Journal opinion page and not an academic study.
“It’s going to be handled,” Trump said on Fox News. “It’s going to come. It’s going to be bad. And maybe it will be worse than the normal flu seasons. And it’s going to go away. I think it is being handled fine. I think the words are right.”
Later in the interview, Trump downplayed the swine flu and referenced the false assertion that vaccines might cause autism (there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism).
“It’s called the flu,” Trump said. “Have you had the flu many times, Neil (Cavuto)? Probably. You know, we all have.”
– Andrew Kaczynski
Russia
Trump: Biden received $3.5 million from Russia
Trump claimed that Biden received $3.5 million from Russia and that it “came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow, and it was the mayor of Moscow’s wife. You got $3.5 million. Your family got $3.5 million.”
Facts First: This is false.
Trump was seemingly trying to raise an allegation previously made against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, but there’s no connection to Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden also denies the allegation he received $3.5 million. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, told CNN that Hunter Biden was not an owner of the firm Senate Republicans allege received the $3.5 million payment in 2014.
Hunter Biden was a co-founder and CEO of the investment firm Rosemont Seneca Advisors. But Mesires said Hunter Biden did not co-found Rosemont Seneca Thornton. It’s not clear what connection exists between Rosemont Seneca Advisors and Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Neither the Senate report nor Trump have provided any evidence that the payment was corrupt or that Hunter Biden committed any wrongdoing.
— Jeremy Herb
Foreign policy
Trump: Obama sold ‘pillows and sheets’ to Ukraine
Trump claimed that while he “sold tank busters to Ukraine,” the Obama administration sold “pillows and sheets.”
Facts First: Trump is being hyperbolic about the Obama administration.
Obama did refuse to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, but he didn’t send mere pillows; he sent counter-mortar radars, armored Humvees and night vision devices, among other things. You can read a full fact check here.
—Tara Subramaniam
The rest
Trump: Biden has houses ‘all over the place’
Trump, who has long touted his own prosperity as a selling point, attacked Biden’s lifestyle, saying, “You have houses all over the place.”
Facts first: This is false.
While Biden has reported earning millions since leaving office, the former vice president doesn’t have houses “all over the place.”
He owns two properties in Delaware.
Biden’s main home in Greenville, a suburb of Wilmington, was constructed on land he bought in 1996 for $350,000.
Biden bought a vacation home, also in Delaware, for $2.7 million in 2017 — after he finished his tenure as vice president and signed a lucrative book deal.
— Anneken Tappe
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
