Donald Trump pulled out several of his favorite lies at his debate with President Biden, who had a few of his own.
Viewers of the televised debate hosted by CNN, however, had no idea about the fact checkers' work unless they went online to check information about the false claims.
CNN fact checker Daniel Dale detailed at least 30 "false claims" by Trump in the Thursday night debate — and nine by Biden.
One Trump standby: Democrats support abortion after birth. After-birth "abortions" do not exist. Abortion by definition only occurs during birth. A killing after birth would be infanticide, which is illegal in every state.
Trump insisted he was the military's favorite commander in chief ever, even though he referred during his administration to dead war veterans as "losers" and "suckers," according to his own chief of staff, retired Gen. General John Kelly.
Trump also again insisted that then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned down his offer of National Guardsmen at the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, a claim absolutely no one — most of all Pelosi — has ever corroborated. In fact, Pelosi has no authority over the National Guard.
At the debate Trump even insisted Pelosi turned down his offer of the Guard "in writing," a document which has never been provided to anyone.
Trump also claimed that Pelosi said (and he's quoting now): "I take full responsibility for Jan. 6," which she did not say.
Other thoroughly debunked false claims Trump pressed yet again: China, not American companies and consumers, pay the tariffs on imported Chinese goods, that Iran didn't fund terror groups while he was president, that the 2020 election was rigged, that the U.S. has provided more funds to Ukraine than Europe, and that Biden plans to quadruple taxes.
PBS and the Poynter Insitute's Politifact also called out Trump's false claim that the Biden administration allowed "millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions." In fact Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows.
And that's just a smattering.
Trump also falsely claimed that the U.S. currently has its biggest budget deficit and its biggest trade deficit with China. Both actually occurred during Trump's administration.
Biden twice used incorrect numbers for two of his Medicare policies, and falsely claimed that no U.S. troops had been killed during his administration, that Trump wants to eliminate Social Security (though Trump has said he's open to cuts to both Social Security and Medicare) and that the unemployment rate was 15% when he took office.
