Debate Fact Check: Biden and Trump on the Economy, Immigration and Foreign Policy
President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump faced off on Thursday in the first presidential debate of the general election. We examined their policy claims, personal attacks and their records in office.
— President Biden on Mr. Trump’s proposal to increase tariffs on most American imports by 10 percent
This is exaggerated.
Estimates of the impact of an overall 10 percent tariff vary, but one recent analysis by the right-leaning American Action Forum estimated that a 10 percent tariff could impose additional annual costs of up to $2,350 per American household.
Another analysis by the Peterson Institute of International Economics found that if Mr. Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on all goods and a 60 percent tariff on China, it would cost a typical household in the middle of the income distribution about $1,700 in increased expenses each year.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Many elements of the 2017 tax cut that Mr. Trump signed into law will expire in 2025, and Mr. Biden has proposed some tax increases on high-income earners and corporations. But this does not amount to a quadrupling of taxes.
The 2017 tax cut is expected to reduce the average tax rate by 1.4 percent in 2025, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning Washington think tank. Most in the top 5 percent of income would see the greatest change, by 2.4 percent.
Mr. Biden has also consistently said that he does not support raising taxes on people making under $400,000 a year and, in his latest budget, proposed extending tax cuts for those making under that threshold. Mr. Biden’s proposals would increase the average tax rate by about 1.9 percent, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. The top 0.1 percent would see the biggest increase, of about 13.9 percent, while the low-income filers would see a reduction in taxes. That is no where near the 300 percent increase Mr. Trump warned of.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Mr. Trump made increasing European military spending a corner stone of his presidency, and it did rise during his administration.
But more countries raised their defense spending during the Biden administration. According to NATO report, in 2020, the final year of the Trump administration, military spending rose 4.6 percent and nine countries met the commitment to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
This year, NATO estimated defense spending went up 17.9 percent and 23 of the 32 allies met their financial commitments. While the Biden administration pressed for more European spending, much of the spending has been a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump has this backward. Undocumented workers often pay taxes that help fund Social Security. But, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office once noted, “most unauthorized immigrants are prohibited from receiving many of the benefits that the federal government provides through Social Security and such need-based programs as food stamps, Medicaid (other than emergency services) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Mr. Trump is distorting what Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, said. Ms. Pelosi did not admit to turning down National Guard troops. She does not have such authority.
The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee recently released a short video captured by Alexandra Pelosi, Ms. Pelosi’s daughter and a documentary filmmaker, turned over to congressional investigators of the former speaker at the time during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. The full footage has not been publicly released.
The video begins with Ms. Pelosi speaking about guidance to the Capitol Police: “We asked them to put out a piece of paper saying, ‘Go through the tunnel. Don’t go outside.’ They say they’ve got stuff, but they can’t tell us what it is. It’s too — we don’t want the other side to know. We have responsibility, Terry, we didn’t have accountability for what was going on there.”
When the person Ms. Pelosi was addressing responded, “they thought they had sufficient resources,” Ms. Pelosi cut her off. “It’s not a question of sufficient,” the speaker said, “they don’t know. They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them prepare for me, because it’s stupid because we’re in a situation like this.”
Politico reviewed roughly 45 minutes of footage and concluded that it “does not bolster G.O.P. claims” of Ms. Pelosi being at fault.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Under the Paris agreement, a voluntary global climate accord, wealthier nations agreed to help poor countries most threatened by climate change. Under President Biden, the United States has pledged $11.4 billion annually by 2024 to assist vulnerable countries in developing clean energy and preparing for the consequences of climate change.
China also contributes to developing countries, albeit not through the U.N., but through a separate “South-South” cooperation fund. The United States, under the Biden administration, has been pressuring China to donate more.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Grocery prices are up significantly since early 2021, but they have not doubled, tripled or quadrupled overall because of inflation. The “food at home” inflation index that tracks grocery prices is up about 20 percent since then, for instance.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Mr. Trump established a voluntary $35-per-month cap on insulin costs for Medicare beneficiaries, something only a limited number of Medicare plans participated in.
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in 2022, required plans to cap insulin costs at $35 each month, increasing the number of Medicare beneficiaries who would be covered by the policy. Mr. Biden has pushed to make the cap applicable to people with commercial insurance, a provision that was removed from the Inflation Reduction Act before it became law.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Mr. Trump responded to a question about what he might do in response to climate change by saying that his administration rolled back nearly 100 environmental regulations, including protections on clean air and clean water.
In terms of numbers, the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions stayed at roughly the same levels from 2017, the first year of Mr. Trump’s administration, through 2019, before declining sharply in 2020 due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on travel and economic activity.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump has previously made this claim about Mr. Biden, including at an October 2020 debate. But it was Mr. Trump’s 2016 political rival, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, who once used that term — not Mr. Biden.
In 1996, Ms. Clinton, then the first lady, said at a campaign event: “They are often connected to big drug cartels; they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”
Ms. Clinton spoke at that event in support of a 1994 crime bill that Mr. Biden had also supported at the time — and that experts later found contributed to the mass incarceration that hurt Black communities. Mr. Biden apologized in 2019 for parts of his anti-crime legislation, but also tried to downplay his involvement.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
The Veterans Choice health care program was created in 2014; Mr. Trump signed an update to that law. Similarly, the “right to try” law of 2018 allows terminally ill patients to seek access to experimental medicine that is not yet fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but a similar program has been in place since the 1970s.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Official estimates of employment do not support Mr. Trump’s statement. And estimates from various groups show that the population of unauthorized immigrants has grown in recent years, but not nearly enough to take all the jobs created under President Biden.
The economy has added more than 15 million jobs since January 2021. Two groups that advocate lower levels of migration and stricter border security have estimated that there are 2.3 million to 2.5 million more unauthorized immigrants in 2023 than in 2020.
Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 29.9 million foreign-born workers — both authorized and unauthorized — and 131.1 million native-born workers were employed in 2023. That is an increase of 5.1 million in employed foreign-born workers and 8.1 million native-born workers since 2020.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This lacks evidence.
Mr. Trump has claimed repeatedly that his numerous legal woes were orchestrated by President Biden. Of the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump, two were brought by state or local prosecutors, meaning that the Justice Department itself has no control over them.
The other two criminal cases against Mr. Trump are overseen by a special counsel, whom Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. There is no evidence that Mr. Biden is personally directing the cases against his political opponent. Mr. Biden has publicly emphasized the independence of the Justice Department.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is exaggerated.
It is impossible to know the exact number of migrants that have entered the United States, but Mr. Trump’s estimate is hyperbolic.
Since February 2021, the first full month of Mr. Biden’s presidency, Customs and Border Protection has recorded 9.6 million migrant encounters nationwide, including about 7.9 million at the southwestern border. This does not necessarily mean that nearly 10 million migrants have attempted to enter the country, as one migrant can be encountered multiple times. Government and independent analyses have estimated that repeat offenders account for a quarter to more than half of all encounters.
Many other migrants have evaded capture, but the exact number is unclear. Republicans have previously cited one estimate obtained by Fox News: about 1.6 million migrants since 2021.
But more than four million migrants have also been turned away or deported under Mr. Biden. About three million were quickly expelled under a public health law, were placed into “expedited removal” proceedings or left voluntarily.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
The U.S. trade deficit with China in goods and services was $252 billion last year, the lowest level since 2009.
— Former President Donald J. Trump.
False.
Mr. Trump was referring to President Biden and appeared to be nodding to payments from a company called C.E.F.C. China Energy and its affiliates to entities associated with Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his brother James.
No evidence has emerged that any portion of these payments, which started after Mr. Biden left the vice presidency, went to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump’s claim that President Biden orchestrated his conviction has no basis in fact. The investigation began while Mr. Trump, not Mr. Biden, was president. The case was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a local Democrat who does not answer to Mr. Biden’s administration. And Mr. Trump was convicted by a jury of 12 New Yorkers.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Independent economic research has found that government stimulus spending approved by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden contributed to the soaring inflation the nation experienced in the first two years of Mr. Biden’s presidency. But no evidence blames government spending, by Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump, for the majority of the inflation the country experienced.
A 2023 research paper by the economists Ben S. Bernanke and Olivier Blanchard found “most of the rise in inflation in 2021 and 2022 was driven by developments that directly raised prices rather than wages, including sharp increases in global commodity prices and sectoral price spikes driven by a combination of pandemic-induced kinks in supply chains and a huge shift in demand during the pandemic to goods from services.”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT“They moved a high-ranking official, a D.O.J., into the Manhattan D.A.’s office to start that case.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump regularly claims that a Justice Department official from the Biden administration was the driving force behind his recent criminal conviction in Manhattan. In fact, the investigation into Mr. Trump had begun years before that former Justice Department official even joined the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The former official was one of several prosecutors to work on the case, which recently ended with Mr. Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. But the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, was responsible for bringing the case.
— President Biden
This is misleading.
The number of daily encounters at the southern border has dropped 40 percent since a Biden administration measure essentially banning asylum took effect in early June, but border crossings were generally lower during the Trump administration.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This needs context.
Unemployment is relatively low for Black workers today by historical standards, although that was also true before the onset of the pandemic in 2019.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is exaggerated.
While there have been highly publicized cases of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants, these cases do not represent a broader trend. Numerous studies have found that immigration does not push up crime rates. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and less likely to be incarcerated than American citizens.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
The number of people trying to illegally cross the southern border whose names match those on the United States’ terrorist watch list has indeed risen in recent years. Still, those numbers are a very small percentage of total Border Patrol encounters — 0.0083 percent in the 2023 fiscal year between the northern and southern border — and what that means in terms of the terrorist threat to the United States is not entirely clear.
The watch list includes names of known and suspected terrorists, as well as people affiliated with them; the database has not been without criticism for how it is managed.
In the 2023 fiscal year, 169 noncitizens whose names appeared on the list tried to illegally cross the southern border — up from three such encounters in the 2020 fiscal year — according to Customs and Border Protection statistics. So far in the 2024 fiscal year, there have been 90 instances of those encounters. (More people with names appearing on the list have presented at legal ports of entry, especially at the northern border.)
There is no record of a terrorist attack committed on American soil by an immigrant who crossed the southern border illegally.
— Former President Donald J. Trump, referring to the Biden administration’s response to Russia’s preparation to invade Ukraine
This is false.
The Biden administration sent William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to Russia in November 2021 to tell President Vladimir V. Putin that U.S. intelligence knew of his plans to invade Ukraine and warn him not to invade. President Biden also declassified intelligence about Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine in an effort to dissuade Russia from invading and rally allied support for Ukraine.
Mr. Biden threatened — and wound up imposing — vast economic sanctions against Russia’s economy and political leadership.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is exaggerated.
Mr. Trump engaged in trade negotiations with the European Union during his presidency and the talks culminated in a limited agreement in August 2020. That deal was much smaller than what people typically refer to as a trade deal, and it did not shift the balance of trade in the United States’ favor. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services with the European Union grew steadily over Mr. Trump’s term to $146 billion in 2021 when he left office, up from $89 billion in 2017.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
The number of migrants who have crossed the border illegally has skyrocketed under the Biden administration. Migrants have come to the southern border for a number of reasons, including fleeing collapsing governments, and the Biden administration initially took a softer tone on the border, including rolling back some policies set by Mr. Trump.
But President Biden kept in place a Trump-era policy to turn back migrants quickly at the southern border after he took over.
And in the last year, the Biden administration has put in place restrictions on asylum, including a recent effort to ban it for people who cross illegally.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump, on Hunter Biden’s recovered computer.
This needs more context.
Mr. Trump is referring to efforts by President Biden’s allies to cast doubt on the authenticity of the contents of a laptop belonging to his son, Hunter Biden, that was left at a repair shop in Wilmington, Del.
The laptop contained a cache of files that shed light on Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, as well as embarrassing information about his behavior during a time when he was in the throes of addiction. The contents of the laptop were provided in 2020 to Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was serving as Mr. Trump’s lawyer. Mr. Giuliani, in turn, provided the contents to The New York Post, which published the first in a series of articles relying on material from the laptop on Oct. 14, 2020, less than a month before the presidential election.
The story prompted immediate backlash. Prompted by outreach from Antony J. Blinken, who was then serving as a Biden campaign adviser, a group of former intelligence officials drafted and signed a letter calling into question the underlying files, claiming they had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” While the letter stopped short of claiming Russian involvement, emails subsequently released by House Republicans show that the people behind it wanted to create the impression that “the Russians are interfering.”
A few days later, at a presidential debate with Mr. Trump, Joseph R. Biden Jr. cited the letter as evidence that the laptop was “a Russian plant” and “a bunch of garbage.”
Nearly three years later, no evidence has emerged to support assertions that Russia was involved in the laptop’s contents or its dissemination, and many of the emails contained on it have been authenticated by the news media through forensic analysis and interviews.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Even under sanctions that were imposed by the Trump administration, Iran’s economy plugged along. It wasn’t strong, but it wasn’t broke, and it kept trading with many nations. Mr. Trump made no mention of the fact that his withdrawal from an Obama-era nuclear deal freed Iran to resume nuclear production.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This lacks evidence.
The concept of international “respect” can be subjective, but what hard data exists shows that President Biden enjoys more approval overseas than does Mr. Trump.
The latest international poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, released earlier this month, found that “Biden is viewed more positively than his rival.” In a poll of citizens in 34 countries, 43 percent said they have confidence in Mr. Biden “to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” while just 28 percent said the same thing about Mr. Trump. In 24 of those countries, Pew found, Mr. Biden rated at least five points higher than did Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump fared better in only two: Tunisia and Hungary.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is false.
Mr. Trump was describing the Biden administration’s approach to abortion policy.
Abortion “after birth” would be infanticide, which is illegal in every state. And abortions late in pregnancy are very rare: In 2021, less than 1 percent of abortions happened after 21 weeks’ gestation, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics collected from state and other health agencies. More than 90 percent of abortions happened within 13 weeks of pregnancy, which is dated to the start of a woman’s last monthly period.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This needs context.
The quotes “losers” and “suckers” originate from an article published in The Atlantic in 2020 about former President Donald J. Trump’s relationship to the military. He continues to dispute the reports.
The article relied on anonymous sources, but many of the accounts have been corroborated by news outlets, including The New York Times, and by John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who was Mr. Trump’s White House chief of staff. Mr. Trump has emphatically denied making the remarks since the Atlantic article was published.
Here is a breakdown of the quotations.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Tens of thousands of migrants who crossed the border into the United States were offered free bus rides to Democratic cities under a program started by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas in an attempt to spread the burden of the large influx. Some cities, like New York and Denver, have housed migrants in hotels, especially during the winter months. The migrants were not in luxury hotels.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
— Former President Donald J. Trump, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade two years ago
This is false.
Three Supreme Court justices dissented in the landmark ruling in 2022, and abortion rights remain broadly popular. A majority of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, according to the Pew Research Center. Extensive polling also shows that public opinion increasingly supports legal abortion since the ruling.
— President Biden on efforts to combat drug trafficking
This needs context.
It was unclear what Mr. Biden meant exactly by this statement. But the United States and Mexican officials indeed have increased their cooperation to counter drug trafficking in recent years.
Mexico, for instance, enacted a new law to detect and punish illicit synthetic drug production, dedicated federal prosecutors to work on fentanyl cases, extradited a fentanyl trafficker, Ovidio Guzmán, to the United States and is expected to acquire scanning technology to screen for fentanyl. The U.S. government has also provided training for Mexican coroners to better identify fentanyl overdoses.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This is misleading.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly vowed during this campaign to protect Social Security and Medicare. But Mr. Biden and his campaign have at times homed in on select comments in which Mr. Trump appeared to suggest that he would be open to cuts — such as a remark Mr. Trump made during an interview in March — while ignoring clarifications.
Asked about his position on the programs in relation to the national debt, Mr. Trump told CNBC in March: “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”
Mr. Trump and his campaign quickly clarified, however, that he would not seek to cut the programs. “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Mr. Trump told the conservative website Breitbart. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”
Mr. Trump also said in a video posted to his social media platform last year that “under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”
Still, Mr. Trump has not outlined a clear plan for keeping the programs solvent.
During his time in office, Mr. Trump did propose some cuts to Medicare — though experts said the cost reductions would not have significantly affected benefits — and to Social Security’s programs for people with disabilities. They were not enacted by Congress.
— President Biden
This needs context.
Mr. Trump campaigned in 2016 on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, but Republicans in Congress failed to do so. Though Mr. Trump continues to criticize the health care law as an expensive “disaster,” he has recently suggested he would improve it rather than repeal the law altogether.
In a January rally in Iowa, Mr. Trump promised “much better health care at a lower price for you, and that will be either working on Obamacare or doing something new.”
“I’m not running to terminate the ACA,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media in March, adding that he was running to make the health care law “much, much, much better for far less money.”
Mr. Trump has not released any specific details on what this would entail. On his campaign website, he pledged to “stop all Covid mandates and restore medical freedom, end surprise medical billing, increase fairness through price transparency, and further reduce the cost of prescription drugs and health insurance premiums” and also to protect “patients with pre-existing conditions.”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Whether or not immigrants depress wages or displace some workers has been examined by economists for decades, and there is no clear conclusion. Indeed, a few studies have shown negative wage effects, particularly on African American workers and other Americans in occupations in which there are many Latino immigrants.
Several studies have found a mutually beneficial relationship between high-skilled immigrants and similarly skilled natives, as well as between low-skilled immigrants and more highly skilled native workers, contributes to higher wages for natives. They have also found that immigrants are an increasingly important part of the U.S. labor force as more Americans age and exit the work force.
— Former President Donald J. Trump, referring to the 2020 election
This is false.
The Associated Press combed through potential cases of fraud in battleground states during the 2020 election and came away with 475 possible cases of voter fraud. That is far less than the hundreds of thousands of falsely counted or changed votes claimed by Mr. Trump and his associates and supporters.
It is also a minuscule amount compared with the more than 300,000 votes that separated Mr. Biden from Mr. Trump in the close states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan.
In addition, independent studies, including from conservative elections legal experts and academics, as well as local, federal and state investigations and audits and judges across the country, have closely examined and dismissed the claims put forth by Mr. Trump and his supporters.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This lacks evidence.
Mr. Trump has not provided any evidence for this claim, and immigration experts have said that they could not corroborate Mr. Trump’s claims.
The Trump campaign has previously cited an article published in September 2022 on Breitbart, a conservative website. One unnamed source told Breitbart that officials believed that an unspecified number of Venezuelan prison inmates were headed for the United States’ southern border with Mexico. (No other news organization or government source has verified this report.) The Trump campaign also pointed to reports warning that Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang founded in Venezuela, was growing in the United States.
There is no evidence that “millions” of criminals are infiltrating the southern border. Customs and Border Protection reported apprehending 47 members of Tren de Aragua along the southern border under President Biden.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Mr. Trump is correct that the practical effect of the Supreme Court’s decision was that the justices maintained broad access to the abortion pill. However, the justices did not “approve” the drug. The court declined to rule on the merits of the case.
In a unanimous decision, the court held that the anti-abortion groups lacked a direct stake in the dispute, a requirement to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the pill, mifepristone.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Around 450,000 people in the United States had died of Covid-19 by the time Mr. Trump left office, less than a year into the pandemic. More than 1.1 million people had died from the virus by this month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning more people did in fact die during Mr. Biden’s first term.
Mr. Biden took office during a winter wave of cases, and the virus continued to change in substantial ways after Mr. Trump left office, spawning new, deadly, highly transmissible variants that remained fatal to many Americans for years to come.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This is misleading.
Mr. Biden is referring to a White House study, released in 2021, that used a “more comprehensive measure of income” than is currently assessed.
The report in question included gains made in unsold stocks, which are not taxed until the asset is sold. It estimated that the average federal income tax rate paid by the 400 wealthiest families in the United States to be 8.2 percent.
Under the law now, the top 1 percent of earners in the United States are currently estimated to pay an average federal income tax rate of more than 20 percent, according to an analysis published by the Treasury Department in November.
The White House has argued that its report presents a more accurate view of the tax rate paid by the wealthy.
— Former President Donald J. Trump on whether tariffs would increase prices
This is false.
Tariffs are designed to protect domestic industries by raising the price of foreign products, and economists anticipate that any increase in tariffs would result in some increase in prices.
Economic studies found that the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on Chinese goods during his first term were largely paid by American consumers, rather than Chinese companies. In a recent letter, 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists wrote that there was concern that Trump’s policies, including his plan to impose blanket tariffs on most imports, would reignite inflation.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Unauthorized immigrants actually improve the financial health of both Social Security and Medicare. Federal law bars them from receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits, but they pay into both programs. In a 2013 report, the Social Security Administration estimated that 3.1 million unauthorized immigrants were working and paying Social Security taxes. They contributed about $12 billion to the trust in 2010 and about $100 billion over a decade. A 2016 study estimated that unauthorized immigrants contributed about $35.1 billion to Medicare from 2000 to 2011.
And Mr. Biden has proposed plans to shore up Social Security and has vowed for years not to cut the program. During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden proposed increasing taxes on high-income earners to pay for additional Social Security benefits and reduce the program’s financial shortfall. This election cycle, Mr. Biden has also said he would raise taxes on the wealthy, make no cuts to the program and opposes raising the retirement age.
— President Biden
This is misleading.
Mr. Biden said that he inherited a broken economy when he took office. While employment collapsed at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, jobs had begun to bounce back rapidly relatively quickly, and the recovery was well underway by the time Mr. Biden took office in early 2021.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Economic research suggests that the tax cut Mr. Trump signed in 2017 spurred some additional economic growth and income growth, but nowhere close to what Mr. Trump and Republicans promised.
Researchers from Princeton University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University and the Treasury Department found in an analysis this year that the cuts delivered wage gains that were “an order of magnitude below” what Trump officials predicted: About $750 per worker per year on average over the long run, compared to promises of $4,000 to $9,000 per worker.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
It is certainly true that Mr. Trump often said, in the 2016 campaign, that he wanted to pull American troops out of Afghanistan. But at the end of his presidency, a small force remained, and while he said on social media that all forces should be home by Christmas 2020, he never executed on that promise. President Biden did pull them out. But it was poorly executed.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This needs context.
Mr. Biden is accurate that former President Donald J. Trump is the only president since World War II to leave office with a negative jobs record, but he did not make clear that this occurred, of course, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Using January 2017 as a base line, when Mr. Trump was inaugurated, there were 145.6 million jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. When he left in January 2021, there were 142.9 million jobs. That is a decline of 2.7 million jobs, or 1.9 percent.
But before the pandemic took hold, jobs had increased under Mr. Trump’s tenure, from 145.6 million jobs in January 2017 to 152 million jobs in January 2020 — a rise of 6.4 million jobs, or 4.4 percent.
About half of the nearly 22 million jobs lost in early 2020 were recovered before Mr. Trump left office.
The same data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics goes back only to 1939, several years after Mr. Hoover departed the White House in 1933. But Mr. Hoover was president at the start of the Great Depression, and when he left office, nearly a quarter of the labor force was unemployed.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
The economy has added more than 15 million jobs since Mr. Biden took office in January 2021, but it is true that some of that has been a bounce back from a sharp drop in employment during the pandemic.
That said, employment has now completely recovered to where it would have been had the pace of hiring that prevailed in the year leading up to the pandemic held steady, and employment growth has remained robust. In fact, the pace of job gains has surprised many economists, regularly beating expectations.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
The $1.5 trillion tax cut, enacted in December 2017, ranks below at least half a dozen others by several metrics. The 1981 tax cut enacted under President Ronald Reagan is the largest as a percentage of the economy and by its reduction to federal revenue. The 2012 cut enacted under President Barack Obama amounted to the largest cut in inflation-adjusted dollars: $321 billion a year.
— President Biden, on what he inherited from the Trump administration upon coming into office
This is misleading.
While employment collapsed at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, jobs began to bounce back rapidly relatively quickly, and the recovery was well underway by the time President Biden took office in early 2021.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT— President Biden
This needs context.
Mr. Trump’s comments, in April 2020, about the efficacy of disinfectants and light as treatments for the coronavirus prompted uproar and confusion. He did not literally instruct people to drink bleach, but raised the suggestion as an “interesting” concept to test out.
At the April 2020 news conference, a member of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus task force said that the virus dies under direct sunlight and that applying bleach in indoor spaces kills the virus in five minutes and isopropyl alcohol in 30 seconds.
Mr. Trump responded: “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. 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 would be interesting to check that,” he said.