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The September 29, 2020 Debate
On September 29, 2020, the United States held its first debate for the upcoming presidential election. Facing off were the candidate for the Republican party, President Donald Trump, and the candidate for the Democratic party, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Debate topics were: the Trump and Biden Records; the Supreme Court; COVID-19; the Economy; Race and Violence in Our Cities; and the Integrity of the Election.
Despite what MSNBC host Rachel Maddow deemed Trump’s “monstrous unintelligible display of loggorhea,” and what Fox News host Sean Hannity called Biden’s refusal “to answer simple, basic, fundamental questions,” there was still enough discussion to provide a bevy of misleading, selective, and outright fake claims.
Problematic Claims From Biden
“He’s going to be the first president of the United States to leave office having fewer jobs in his administration than when he became president.”
Misleading: If he loses this election, Trump will be the first president since presidential unemployment record-keeping officially began in 1939 to leave with fewer jobs than when he became president. However, President Herbert Hoover is believed to have had fewer jobs when he left office in 1933 than when he began in 1929 due to The Great Depression.
“She thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.”
Selective: Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has said that she does not support parts of the Affordable Care Act. However, she has not said the entire Act is unconstitutional.
“There was a peaceful protest in front of the White House. What did he do? He came out of his bunker, had the military do tear gas.”
Misleading: It was actually law enforcement, not the military, who used tear gas on protestors.
“We have a higher deficit with China now than we did before.”
Fake: The deficit was at $380 billion in 2017, and is currently below $308 billion.
“We left him a booming economy and he caused the recession.”
Fake: The recession was caused by the pandemic, not Trump. A different response to the pandemic may have led to a different economic outcome, but it is difficult to hypothesize.
“The fact of the matter is violent crime went down 17 percent, 15 percent in our administration. It’s gone up on his watch.”
Fake: Taking into account population change, the number of violent crimes overall has gone essentially unchanged.
Problematic Claims From Trump
“The mayor of Moscow, his wife, gave your son three and a half-million dollars.”
Misleading: Trump brought up Biden’s son Hunter at several points, saying that he illegally received millions of dollars from Russia. This is in response to a recently-released report that makes several allegations about Hunter Biden’s relationship with Russia and the Ukraine. While investment firm Rosemont Seneca Thornton did receive $3.5 million from Elena Baturina, wife of the former Mayor of Moscow, Hunter Biden was not a co-founder of the company, as the report alleges.
“There aren’t 100 million people with pre-existing conditions.”
Fake: Between 66 million and 133 million Americans under 65 have pre-existing conditions.
“Nobody’s done it… I’ll give you an example. Insulin, it’s going to — it was destroying families, destroying people… I’m getting it for so cheap, it’s like water. You want to know the truth? So cheap.”
Fake: Insulin costs, on average, $300 a vial. Many patients require several vials a day.
"You've treated the black community as bad as anyone in the country. You called them superpredators and you've called them worse than that."
Misleading: Biden did call juvenile offenders “predators” in 1993. While the criminal justice system incarcerates black people at a higher rate than white people, Biden was not specifically referring to black people in his commentary. Hillary Clinton was the person who said the term “superpredator.”
“Portland, the sheriff just came out today and he said I support President Trump.”
Fake: Sheriff Mike Reese said that he has “never supported Donald Trump and will never support him.”
“It was driving energy prices through the sky.”
Fake: Trump claimed that he pulled back the Clean Power Plan because it was causing energy prices to skyrocket. However, the Plan was actually never fully implemented, meaning it never sent energy prices up.
“Every year, I get the call. California is burning. California is burning. If that was cleaned, if you had forest management, you wouldn’t be getting those calls.”
Selective: As we have reported on, forest management is merely one of many reasons wildfires are ravaging the West Coast.
“I had to close the greatest economy in the history of our country. And by the way, now it’s being built again.”
Fake: The economy was not the greatest it’s ever been, as we reported on before.
“I’m OK with electric cars too. I’m all for electric cars. I have given big incentives for electric cars.”
Fake: Trump got rid of tax incentives for people who buy electric cars, and also threatened to end General Motors tax credits for electric cars.
“They want to take out the cows.”
Fake: The Green New Deal was supported by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward Markey, not Biden. Further, it recommends a restructuring of agriculture, not getting rid of cows.
“I’ll have 25,000, 35,000, people show up at airports. We use airports.”
Fake: The largest crowd size at an airport for one of Trump’s rallies is around 10,000. Airports do not accommodate crowds of 25,000 to 35,000.
“They said it would take a miracle to bring back manufacturing. I brought back 700,000 jobs. They brought back nothing. They gave up on manufacturing.”
Fake: The Trump administration brought back less than 500,000 manufacturing jobs.
“We’ve had no negative effect and we’ve had 35-40,000 people.”
Fake: Several campaign staff members and many attendees became infected with COVID-19 following Trump’s rallies. Herman Cain also died from COVID-19 after he attended an indoor Trump rally.
“Hunter [Biden] got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged for cocaine use.”
Misleading: Hunter Biden was discharged for failing a drug test, but not dishonorably.
Other Notable Segments
The debate, moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, was uniquely characterized by massive interruptions and simultaneous talking, to the extent that many of the more cogent points were lost.
Wallace tried to rein in the candidates, primarily Trump, at several points. At one such juncture he said: “Mr. President, I am the moderator of this debate, and I would like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer it.” At another, he yelled, “Let him answer!” Wallace also explained the importance of letting Biden speak. He directed at Trump: “The country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions. I’m appealing to you, sir, to do it.” When Trump asked if that also applied to Biden, Wallace went on, “Well, frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting.”
Other noteworthy moments include Biden saying to Trump, “Will you shut up, man?”
They also include Trump’s refusal to disavow white supremacists, instead telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
With two more debates upcoming, Misbar asks its readers to watch critically. We will continue our mission to fact-check both sides.
