Trump was asked by debate moderator Chris Wallace to disavow white supremacy. But Trump did not denounce any far-right group, pivoting to talk about Antifa, a left-wing organization.
One Proud Boys organizer posted "President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA... well sir! we're ready!!"
The Proud Boys, a self-described "Western chauvinist" organization, is considered a violent, nationalistic, and misogynistic hate group, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Proud Boys members marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and have organized against Black Lives Matter protests in recent months.
[Pres. Trump walked back his statement post-debate, and denounced the Proud Boys].
Is that true about Portland, the site of ongoing police protests? No, Portland's Sheriff says it's not true. Excerpts from a 9/30 article in "The Hill" with headline "Sheriff from Portland quickly refutes Trump claim of endorsement":
"The sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon, which includes Portland, quickly refuted President Trump's claim of an endorsement during Tuesday night's first general election presidential debate. 'I have never supported Donald Trump and will never support him,' Sheriff Mike Reese responded on Twitter. The sheriff added: 'Donald Trump has made my job a hell of a lot harder since he started talking about Portland, but I never thought he'd try to turn my wife against me!' "
BIDEN: [Trump's] own former spokesperson said, "Riots and chaos and violence help his cause." That's what this is all about.
TRUMP: I don't know who said that.
BIDEN: I do. [Former White House advisor] Kellyanne Conway.
TRUMP: I don't think she said that.
[So we found this article from Business Insider magazine on Aug 27, 2020, headlined, "Kellyanne Conway says 'chaos and violence' after the police shooting of Jacob Blake is good for Trump's reelection"; excerpts:
"President Trump's close adviser, Kellyanne Conway, told Fox News that 'chaos and anarchy' following police shootings are good for Trump's reelection effort. 'The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order,' Conway said. Conway was referring to protests following the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin this week.
FactCheck: Did Biden use the term "super-predators"? No, not quite. Excerpts from Reason.com on Sept. 29:
Trump has attacked Joe Biden for his role in crafting the 1994 crime bill. It was Hillary Clinton, however, who infamously uttered the term "superpredators" back in 1996. (You can still find plenty of videos of floor speeches of then-Senator Biden railing against "predators" or generally demagoguing on the subject of violent crime.)
The rise of criminal justice reform as a major issue in politics has made the 1994 crime bill a liability for Biden, who has since apologized for his role in tough-on-crime legislation passed in the 1980s and '90s by large bipartisan margins.
In a speech last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Biden said those bills "trapped an entire generation," and that "it was a big mistake when it was made."
Excerpts from The Hill e-zine, March 29, 2018: "Republicans took control of the Senate in 2014 during Obama's last two years in office and did not confirm many of his nominees. The Senate's top Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, teamed up to block Democratic efforts to push forward Obama's nominees, slowing down confirmations by the most in six decades. Most notably, McConnell refused to hold a confirmation hearing on Obama's nominee for Supreme Court justice, Merrick Garland. The vacancies left behind by the Obama administration were not by choice.
FactCheck by Associated Press, Aug. 3, 2020: Actually, no massive, across-the-board cuts are in the offing for drug prices. Efforts announced last month by the president--such as allowing importation of medicines from countries where prices are lower--take time to roll out. It remains to be seen how much they'll move the needle on prices. Drug importation, for example, requires regulatory actions to be taken and supply chains to be established.
TRUMP: They've also said the opposite.
BIDEN: No serious person has said the opposite.
TRUMP: Dr. Fauci said the opposite.
BIDEN: He did not say the opposite.
TRUMP: He said very strongly, "Masks are not good." Then he changed his mind. He said, "Masks are good."
FactCheck by Associated Press, Sept. 30: Early on in the outbreak, a number of public health officials urged everyday people not to use masks, fearing a run on already short supplies of personal protective equipment needed by doctors and nurses in hospitals. But that changed as the highly contagious nature of the coronavirus became clear, as well as the fact that it can be spread by tiny droplets breathed into the air by people who may not display any symptoms.
FactCheck by Rocky Mengle in Kiplinger newsletter, Feb. 3, 2021: He wants to raise the highest personal income rate back up to 39.6% (it was lowered to 37% by the 2017 tax reform law), cap itemized deductions for wealthier Americans, limit "like-kind exchanges" by real estate investors, and phase-out the 20% deduction for qualified business income for upper-income taxpayers. He won't raise taxes for anyone making less than $400,000, though. As a candidate, Biden's tax policy proposals also included eliminating the step-up in basis for inherited capital assets, which means more taxes on wealth passed to heirs, and ending favorable tax rates on capital gains for anyone making over $1 million. Also look for the federal estate tax exemption to be increased back to pre-tax reform levels.
[OnTheIssues fact-check: Is that true? No]: Kiplinger.com analysis (9/18/20) of Biden's tax plan: He wants to raise the highest personal income rate back up to 39.6% (it was lowered to 37% by the 2017 tax reform law), cap itemized deductions for wealthier Americans, limit "like-kind exchanges" by real estate investors, and phase-out the 20% deduction for qualified business income for upper-income taxpayers. He won't raise taxes for anyone making less than $400,000, though.
FactCheck: It's absurd to say Lincoln is a "possible" exception; emancipating the slaves was obviously more important for Black Americans than anything Trump has done. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, monumental bills whose impact dwarfed the impact of any legislation Trump has signed.
Trump's actions simply directed the attorney general to enforce already-existing laws. The executive order doesn't create new laws or possible prison sentences. Trump issued the order that, among other things, directed the attorney general to "prioritize" certain cases of vandalism in accordance with "applicable law." The law has been around since 1964.
FactCheck: Testing in the US has been less than successful and has never reached levels that satisfy public health experts. After getting off the ground slowly and late, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield, admits the US has missed 90% of coronavirus cases with its testing efforts.
Trump said the US has "developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful anti-body treatment known as convalescent plasma that will save thousands of lives"
FactCheck: The US has not yet developed a single new treatment for coronavirus. The only treatments that have been shown to work against coronavirus are old treatments - dexamethasone, remdesivir, blood thinners and convalescent plasma, a 100-year-old last-ditch treatment.
FactCheck: His administration has consistently taken steps to undermine the Affordable Care Act without presenting alternative plans that would offer similar benefits. Congressional Republicans have also repeatedly put forward bills and filed lawsuits that would weaken Obamacare's protections for people with preexisting conditions.
Trump said, "Last month, I took on Big Pharma and signed orders that will massively lower the cost of your prescription drugs," and also promised to "further reduce the cost of prescription drugs."
FactCheck: The President signed four executive orders aimed at reducing drug prices, but it's far from clear whether they will ever take effect or greatly lower prices if they do. Also, drug prices have continued to rise during the Trump administration, though the growth rate has slowed by some measures.
In 2018, Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which expanded and changed the Choice program. Trump has told this lie more than 150 times.
FactCheck: As of August 7, some 275 miles of barriers had been constructed on the US border with Mexico -- but just 5 of those miles were erected in places where no barriers had existed before. 245 miles were erected in place of old barriers, while 25 miles of new "secondary wall" were erected to fortify primary barriers. The Trump-era replacement barriers are often much larger than the older ones they are replacing.
FactCheck: The economy did add about 9.3 million jobs combined in May, June and July -- but that record increase immediately followed a much bigger record loss of about 22.2 million jobs in March and April. The economy is still down nearly 13 million jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. (Also, many of the jobs added were simply people returning to work after temporary layoffs.)
TRUMP: Of course I do. Many whites are killed also. You have to say that.
WALLACE: I understand that.
TRUMP: I mean, many, many whites are killed. This is going on for decades. This is going on for a long time, long before I got here.
WALLACE: Why is it so bad right now?
TRUMP: Biden wants to defund the police.
Q: No, sir, he does not.
TRUMP: Look. He signed a charter with Bernie Sanders.
WALLACE: He says defund the police?
TRUMP: He says defund the police. They talk about abolishing the police.
(WALLACE VOICE OVER: The White House never sent us evidence the Bernie-Biden platform calls for defunding or abolishing police--because there is none. It calls for increased funding for police departments--that meet certain standards. Biden has called for redirecting some police funding for related programs--like mental health counseling.
OTI FactCheck: Trump refers to the total number of tests--the US is indeed first. The US is not first in testing per capita. For countries over a million population in early 2021:
| Country | Tests (millions) | Tests per million population |
|---|---|---|
| UAE | 29M | 2.9/M |
| Denmark | 15M | 2.7/M |
| Bahrain | 3M | 1.7/M |
| Cyprus | 2M | 1.3/M |
| Israel | 12M | 1.2/M |
| UK | 83M | 1.2/M |
| Singapore | 7M | 1.2/M |
| USA | 338M | 1.0/M |
Fact -Check: In 2019, 4,311 prescription drugs experienced a price hike, with the average increase hovering around 21%, according to data compiled by Rx Savings Solutions, a consulting group. Meanwhile, 619 drugs had price dips. And already in 2020, 2,519 drugs have increased prices. The average hike so far this year is 6.9%. Meanwhile, the prices of 70 drugs have dropped. When generics post their price increases, the 2020 average price hike will likely go up.
Fact -Check: The U.S energy boom started more than a decade ago, driven by market forces and advanced technology such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. became the world's leading producer of natural gas in 2009. More recently it surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia in crude oil production. That was helped in part after President Obama signed a bill to lift a 40-year ban on most oil exports.
Fact -Check: The agreement updates NAFTA, covering things such as digital commerce, which barely existed when the original deal was signed a quarter-century ago. But despite the president's claims, USMCA is mostly a cosmetic refreshing of NAFTA, not a wholesale replacement. On the whole, the USMCA's economic effects are expected to be modest. The main benefit of the deal is that it avoids the disruption that would have come had Trump made good on his threat to scrap NAFTA with no replacement.
Fact -Check: Support for USMCA among labor unions was mixed. While the AFL-CIO backed the agreement, others did not. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the United Auto Workers all expressed disappointment over the deal.
Fact -Check: It's not clear where this timeline comes from--the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule for hospitals and a similar rule for insurers that would require them to reveal their negotiated prices to consumers in an accessible way. But hospitals have already sued to block the first rule, and the rule for insurers has not been finalized. New practices can take effect only after these legal hurdles have been resolved.
Fact -Check: Trump here is mixing apples and oranges, comparing the labor force participation rate under President Obama with the number of jobs created under his own administration. But they are different numbers. It's true the participation rate fell from 65.7% to 62.9% during Obama's two terms in office, partly because the population was aging. It has since rebounded this year to 63.2%. But the economy also added 11.6 million jobs during Obama's two terms, and job creation has increased at a slightly slower rate under Trump.
Fact -Check: Notwithstanding Trump's desire to shrink American commitments in the Middle East, he has been sending more troops to the region and keeping in place many of those already posted there. Trump also has sent thousands more troops to the region as a hedge against a potential conflict with Iran following the U.S. killing of its top general and in the aftermath of re-imposed U.S. sanctions.
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The above quotations are from Fact-checking on 2020 Presidential, Gubernatorial, and Senatorial campaigns.
Click here for other excerpts from Fact-checking on 2020 Presidential, Gubernatorial, and Senatorial campaigns. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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