Last Tuesday night, Sept. 29, was the first presidential debate of 2020, in which Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden faced off with Incumbent Republican candidate, President Donald Trump. Chris Wallace of Fox News moderated the debate. The candidates interrupted each other to the point that Wallace had to stop the debate several times.
“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,” he said to Trump.
“And him, too?” replied the President, motioning to Biden.
“Well, frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting,” said Wallace.
Biden, in turn, raised his voice several times and even told Trump to “shut up, man.” However, much of Wallace’s distress was directed at Trump—he pleaded with him several times, appealing to the fact that the President’s team had agreed beforehand that the President would not interrupt. “Your campaign agreed that both sides would get two-minute answers, uninterrupted,” Wallace said. “Well, your side agreed to it, and why don’t you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule?”
The debate has received massive amounts of criticism from all sides, as within the 90 minutes actual policy was rarely discussed. The six topics chosen by Wallace beforehand were the Supreme Court, the coronavirus, race and violence in cities, the economy, each candidate’s political record, and the integrity of the election. Technically, they made it through all of them but there was little tangible information.
They did talk about racism and the police, and dozens of political commentators and politicians, including several GOP Senators have criticized Trump for refusing to denounce white supremacy. For the most part, however, the debate was filled with hurling insults and rambling tangents. CNN Correspondent Jake Tapper said afterwards, “That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”
Here is a list of some of the false claims made at the debate. This is a compilation of information from individual fact checks done by the Associated Press, the New York Times, and BBC News.
Trump: “The (Portland, Oregon) sheriff just came out today, and he said ‘I support President Trump.’”
“The sheriff, Mike Resse, tweeted: ‘As the Multnomah County Sheriff I have never supported Donald Trump and will never support him.’” —Associated Press
Biden: “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.”
“It was law enforcement, not the military, that used chemical irritants to forcefully remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House on June 1.
And there is no evidence President Trump was inside a bunker in the White House as that happened. Secret Service agents had rushed Trump to a White House bunker days earlier as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the executive mansion, some of them throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades.” —Associated Press
Trump (referring to COVID at his rallies): “So far we have had no problem whatsoever. It’s outside, that’s a big difference according to the experts. We have tremendous crowds.”
“The Tulsa City-County Health Department director said the rally ‘likely contributed’ to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases there. By the first week of July, Tulsa County was confirming more than 200 new daily cases, setting record highs. That’s more than twice the number the week before the rally.” —Associated Press
Biden about Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett: “She thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.”
“Barrett has been critical of the Obama-era law and the court decisions that have upheld it, but she has never said it’s not constitutional.” —Associated Press
Trump (on his taxes): “I paid millions of dollars. Millions of dollars.”
In 2017, “Trump chose to pay $750 in federal income taxes. That was the case even though he reported earning some $15 million for the year, through a variety of sources.” —NY Times
Trump: “There aren’t 100 million people with pre-existing conditions.”
“According to the US government’s Department of Health and Human Services, between 50 and 129 million non-elderly Americans have some type of pre-existing health condition.” —BBC
Biden: “We left him a booming economy. And he caused the recession.”
“The economy was not ‘booming’ in the final year of Mr. Biden’s time as vice president, and Mr. Trump did not ‘cause’ the pandemic recession.” —NY Times
Trump (about children being affected by COVID): “Young children aren’t. Even younger people aren’t.”
“The vast majority of children do not become visibly ill when infected with the coronavirus. But while a strong immune system may protect them from becoming sick, they are far from immune. Several studies have shown that children can get infected and harbor high levels of the coronavirus. And a small proportion of children seem to develop a condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a severe and sometimes deadly overreaction of the immune system.” —NY Times
Trump: Postal ballots increase will cause “a fraud like you’ve never seen”
“Studies have not found evidence of widespread fraud, although there have been a couple of recent isolated cases.” —BBC
