President Trump and Joe Biden Go Head-to-Head in Final Debate

Posted on October 23, 2020
(Photo Illustration by Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) –  While President Trump seized on a comment about the oil industry his Democratic rival made towards the end of the debate, facts took a hit right out of the gate Thursday night.

President Donald Trump‘s first line of the night, about COVID-19 deaths, was false and set the tone as he and Democratic rival Joe Biden unleashed a torrent of claims in their last presidential debate.

Trump misrepresented the reality of the pandemic in myriad and familiar ways, insisting against obvious reality that the pandemic is drawing to a close.

Biden meanwhile pounced when Mr. Trump said, “We have to learn to live with the virus.”

Watch:

Biden, at times, was selective on the coronavirus and other matters, at one point stating that no one under Obamacare lost private health coverage. Millions did.

Meantime, President Trump seized on Biden’s comments about the oil industry in the closing moments of the debate. That’s when the former vice president said, “We need other industries to transition to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by 2025.”

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign said Biden’s comments said that meant Biden was backing banning fossil fuels.

Boarding his plane to fly home to Delaware, Biden responded, “Eventually we’re going to have to go to all. But we’re not going to ban fossil fuels.”

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Other fact-checking from last night’s debate from the Associated Press

HUNTER BIDEN

TRUMP: “Joe got $3.5 (million) from Russia. And it came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow, and it was the the mayor of Moscow’s wife. … Your family got $3.5 million. Someday you’re going to have to explain why.”

THE FACTS: There is no evidence of this. Trump is falsely characterizing a recent report by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who investigated Biden’s son, Hunter, and his business dealings in Ukraine.

The report did not allege that Joe Biden himself got $3.5 million or that Russia President Vladimir Putin had anything to do with such a payment. Nor does the report allege that Hunter Biden pocketed the money himself. The report said the sum went instead to an investment firm he co-founded. Hunter Biden’s lawyer has said in a statement to reporters that his client had no interest in and was not a founder of the firm.’

Hear more from Fox’s Jon Decker:

 

CORONAVIRUS

TRUMP: “We’re rounding the turn. We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away.”

THE FACTS: No, the coronavirus isn’t going away. It’s coming back. New cases are on the rise toward their summer peak. Deaths have also been increasing.

According to data through Oct. 21 from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks from over 42,300 on Oct. 7 to nearly 60,000 on Oct. 21.

In that time the seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths in the U.S. rose from 695 to 757.

TRUMP: “All he does is talk about shutdowns. But forget about him. His Democrat governors Cuomo in New York, you look at what’s going on in California, you look at Pennsylvania, North Carolina. Democrats – Democrats all. They’re shut down so tight, and they’re dying.”

BIDEN: “Look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. They’re the red states. They’re the states in the Midwest or the states in the Upper Midwest. That’s where the spike is occurring significantly.”

THE FACTS: Neither of them is right. Coronavirus isn’t a red-state problem or a blue-state problem. It’s a public health problem that affects people no matter where they live or what their politics are.

Some Republican-led states that were quick to reopen saw a surge of virus cases in the summer and are still struggling to get their transmission rates down. Florida’s test positivity rate is about 12% currently, a level indicating widespread transmission. South Dakota is approaching 35%.

Democratic-led states like New York that were hit hard in the initial wave closed down and got their virus transmission rates down to very low levels. But they’re now seeing rebounds in certain local communities, prompting them to target renewed restrictions.

Nevada and Pennsylvania are two states with Democratic governors and high transmission rates at currently 20% and 10% respectively, based on a 14-day trend.

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HEALTH CARE

BIDEN: “Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare, they did not lose their insurance, unless they chose they wanted to go to something else.”

THE FACTS: He’s wrong about Obamacare.

Then-President Barack Obama promised if you liked your health insurance, you could keep it under his Affordable Care Act, but that’s not what happened for some.

When Obamacare took effect in 2014, several million people lost individual health insurance plans that no longer met minimum standards established by the law. A backlash forced the White House to offer a work-around, but the political damage was done.

Health insurance is such a complicated area that almost any action has the potential for unintended consequences.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

TRUMP: The Paris accord meant “we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars…. They did a great disservice. They were going to take away our business.”

THE FACTS: The Paris accord, an international agreement that aims to halt the rise in global temperatures, is based on voluntary emission reductions. No nation was forced to do anything.

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EXTREMISTS

BIDEN: “He says about the Poor Boys, last time we were on a stage here, said — I told them to stand down and stand ready. Come on. This guy has a dog whistle as big as a fog horn.”

THE FACTS: That is not exactly what Trump said and that is not the name of the neo-fascist group.

During the last debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacist and militia groups that have shown up at some protests in the U.S. He said, “Give me a name” and Biden chimed in by saying, “Proud Boys,” a reference to the far-right extremist group that has shown up at protests in the Pacific Northwest.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said. He did not tell them to “stand ready,” though it’s debatable whether there is a material difference.

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TRUMP’S TAXES

TRUMP on his taxes: “They keep talking about $750, which I think is a filing fee. … Tens of millions of dollars (in income taxes) I prepaid.” On his China bank account: “I was a businessman in 2013 and I closed the account in 2015.”

THE FACTS: Trump is not being honest about his taxes.

Reporting by The New York Times, which obtained his tax records, contradicts his claims.

The IRS does not charge taxpayers a filing fee, though tax preparation services do. The $750 that Trump paid in 2016 and 2017 in the income taxes was to the federal government, not a tax preparation service.

It’s not clear what Trump is talking about with regard to prepaying his taxes, but what matters is what he ultimately owed the government. Americans often have their income tax payments deducted from their paychecks. The Times reported that Trump, starting in 2010, claimed and received an income tax refund that totaled $72.9 million, which was at the core of an ongoing audit by the IRS. The Times said a ruling against Trump could cost him $100 million or more.

Nor did Trump close his Chinese bank account, according to Alan Garten, a lawyer for Trump’s company. He told the Times that the account remains open, though the company’s office in China has been inactive since 2015.

Fox’s Jon Decker has more:

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MIGRANTS

TRUMP, speaking about children who were separated from parents at the U.S.-Mexico border: “They are so well taken care of; they’re in facilities that are so clean.”

THE FACTS: Not so.

At the height of the family separations in 2018, Border Patrol facilities were cramped well beyond capacity with migrants who were kept in squalid conditions, according to watchdog reports and the lawyers responsible for a federal settlement that governs how children are cared for in immigration custody. Long-term facilities for adults and children were at capacity, meaning the administration held people in the small border stations for much longer than the 72 hours normally allowed by law.

The stations are hardly meant for long-term care. Children were not provided hot meals and families slept on the floor on top of Mylar blankets. Flu and sickness ran rampant, and hundreds of small children were kept together without adequate care.

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TRUMP, on immigrants who are released from custody in the U.S. to wait out their cases being allowed to stay: “They say they come back, less than 1% of the people come back. We have to send … Border Patrol out to find them.”

THE FACTS: That’s false. There are far fewer no-shows for immigration hearings among those who are released pending their cases. According to Justice Department Statistics, a majority come back for their hearings.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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