President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump met on the debate stage for the first time in 2024 on Thursday, June 27.
Under rules from CNN, which hosted the debate, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not qualify.
The broadcast was historic in several ways, marking the earliest general election debate and the first time since 1960 that a presidential debate was held without a live audience.
VERIFY fact-checked these claims made by Biden and Trump during Thursday night’s debate.
THE CLAIM
Trump: “[Biden] inherited almost no inflation and it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn't know what they were doing."
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The inflation rate when President Joe Biden took office was low, but did increase over time.
When Biden took office in January 2021, the year-over-year inflation rate was 1.4%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.
The inflation rate steadily rose over the course of the following 17 months, peaking at 9.7% in June 2022.
A White House official told VERIFY that “the pandemic caused inflation around the world by disrupting our economy and breaking our supply chains.”
The inflation rate of 1.4% in January 2021 was fairly in line with the inflation rate of the previous six months, which fluctuated between 1% and 1.4%.
The lowest inflation rate during the pandemic was seen in May 2020, when there was a 0.1% inflation rate.
THE CLAIM
Biden: "Unemployment rate [under Trump] rose to 15%."
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, for one month during the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate under Trump did reach nearly 15%.
In April 2020, while Trump was in office, the unemployment rate was at 14.8%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. By August, the unemployment rate dropped below 10%. It was at 6.4% in January 2021, when Biden took office.
The unemployment rate was between 3.5 and 3.8% from February 2019 to February 2020, the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on the U.S. economy.
The unemployment rate did not make it back down to 3.8% again until February 2022. Since then, the unemployment rate has fluctuated between 3.4 and 4.0%.
THE CLAIM
Trump: “More people died [of COVID-19] under [Biden’s] administration than our administration, and we were right in the middle of it, something which a lot of people don't like to talk about, but he had far more people dying in his administration.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
It’s true that more people have died of COVID-19 during Biden’s term than Trump’s. However, COVID-19 only broke out in the final year of Trump’s term. People have been dying of COVID-19 for all three and a half years of Biden’s term.
The CDC tracks deaths related to COVID-19 using the National Vital Statistics Surveillance system, which is based on death certificates. The data is published on a weekly basis.
The first COVID-19 death recorded by the CDC happened during the week of Jan. 11, 2020, while Trump was in office. Trump officially left office the day Biden was inaugurated, Jan. 20, 2021.
Between the week of the first recorded death and the week Trump left office, the CDC reports 467,407 people died of COVID-19.
As of May 25, 2024 – the most recent week for which the CDC has data – a total of 1,192,282 people have died of COVID. That means since Biden was inaugurated, there have been 724,875 COVID deaths – significantly more than during Trump’s term, as the former president claimed.
However, these numbers need context. COVID-19 didn’t exist until the final year of Trump’s presidency, whereas it has existed for the entirety of Biden’s nearly four years in office.
The 467,407 deaths under President Trump occurred over a 379-day period, while the 724,875 deaths under Biden occurred over 1,219 days. In the first 379 days of Biden’s term, 476,705 people died of COVID, a nearly identical number to Trump’s.
THE CLAIM
Trump: Democrat-run states allow after-birth abortions.
THE SOURCES
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data
- Sarah Prager, M.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington
THE ANSWER
Democrat-run states do not allow after-birth abortions. Killing a child after birth is infanticide, which is illegal in all 50 states.
Experts also told the Associated Press that it is not physically possible to perform an abortion if a woman has already gone into labor naturally.
“Patients who are laboring at term are never having an abortion,” Sarah Prager, M.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, told the AP. “They are having a delivery.”
Abortions later in pregnancy are also incredibly rare. In 2021, approximately 93% of abortions in the U.S. occurred at or before 13 weeks’ gestation, while less than 1% occurred at 21 weeks or later, according to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
THE CLAIM
Biden: "We brought down the price of prescription drugs, which is a major issue for many people, to $15 for an insulin shot as opposed to $400."
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in August 2022, did cap insulin prices at $35 a month for seniors who have Medicare starting in 2023. Biden mistakenly said $15 instead of $35. He corrected himself later in the debate and said the cost of insulin was capped at $35.
However, the president exaggerated how much money people were paying for insulin shots before the law took effect.
Biden suggested insulin used to cost people $400 per shot. But government data show that’s false.
In a 2022 report on the affordability of insulin, the Department of Health and Human Services provided an estimate for out-of-pocket insulin costs. It found that people enrolled in Medicare or private insurance paid an average of $452 per year for insulin in 2019 – not per shot, as Biden claimed.
THE CLAIM
Biden: “We have 1,000…billionaires in America. And what's happening? They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% taxes.”
THE SOURCES
- Report published by White House economists in 2021
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS) report on top 400 individual income tax returns
- Vanguard, an investment management company
- Erica York, senior economist and research director for the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy
- Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
THE ANSWER
Billionaires do not pay an average of 8.2% in federal taxes, as Biden claimed. The top 400 wealthiest American taxpayers actually pay an average federal income tax rate of about 23%, according to the most recent IRS data from 2014.
In comparison, the average income tax rate for all taxpayers in 2020 was 13.6%.
So where does the 8.2% number come from?
When Biden mentions the billionaire tax rate, he’s referring to a White House estimate of taxes paid by the top 400 wealthiest American families that includes the increase in value of unsold stocks, or “unrealized” gains, in a person’s total income.
“Gains that are ‘on paper’ only are called ‘unrealized gains.’ For example, if you bought a share for $10 and it's now worth $12, you have an unrealized gain of $2. You won't pay any taxes until you sell the share,” Vanguard says on its website.
The 2021 analysis from White House economists estimated that from 2010 to 2018, the 400 wealthiest families paid an average of 8.2% in federal taxes on their income using a formula that includes unrealized gains.
But that’s not the way the U.S. tax system currently works. These “unrealized” gains are “generally not considered taxable income,” experts with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center say.
Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told VERIFY that Biden is “accurately describing” the taxes that wealthy Americans may owe “under a theoretical tax system.”
“But he is not accurately describing the taxes that they owe under the tax system that we actually have,” Gleckman added.
THE CLAIM
Biden: “Trump had the largest national debt of any president in a four-year period.”
THE SOURCES
- U.S. Department of Treasury
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
- VERIFY analysis of Federal Reserve data
THE ANSWER
It’s true that more was added to the national debt under former President Donald Trump’s term than in any other single, four-year presidential term in U.S. history.
The national debt rose by $7.8 trillion during Trump’s presidency between 2017 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
This is the greatest growth in national debt during any single presidential term in history. The national debt increased by $9.2 trillion under eight years of the Obama presidency, but that was split between $5.7 trillion in his first term and $3.5 trillion in his second term.
So far, the national debt has increased by $6.8 trillion during Biden’s first term, which still has three fiscal quarters left before it ends.
However, the national debt has increased by a greater percentage under some other presidents than it did under Trump.
Trump’s $7.8 trillion increased the national debt by 39%, according to quarterly data from the Federal Reserve.
Ronald Reagan’s first term, in which he added over $700 billion to the national debt, increased the national debt by 77%. The national debt was just $930 billion when Reagan took office. It was $1.6 trillion at the end of his first term and $2.6 trillion at the end of his second term.
THE CLAIM
Trump: “I offered [Nancy Pelosi] 10,000 soldiers or National Guard [on Jan.6, 2021], and she turned them down.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
It’s false that Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House at the time, would have had the power to turn down an offer of soldiers or National Guard to stop the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The Speaker of the House does not have the authority to request the National Guard to the U.S. Capitol. That power is designated to the Capitol Police Board, which is made up of the House sergeant at arms, the Senate sergeant at arms, and the architect of the Capitol. They did not request assistance from the National Guard until after the insurrection had already begun.
After that request, the National Guard was activated by Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, according to a press release from Jan. 8, 2021. It took more than two and a half hours for the troops to reach the Capitol and assist law enforcement.
THE CLAIM
Donald Trump: “[Biden’s] given $200 billion now or more to Ukraine.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the United States has not given more than $200 billion to Ukraine.
The United States has allocated approximately $175 billion in funding to Ukraine, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget both report.
“In four supplemental appropriations in March, May, September, and December 2022, Congress provided more than $113 billion in funding for the Ukraine response across 11 U.S. Government departments and agencies,” the Office of Inspector General reported.
A fifth bill was passed in April 2024, worth $61 billion. That brings the total to nearly $175 billion for Ukraine. But not all of this funding goes directly to the Ukrainian government.
Some of the $175 billion is funding for “various U.S. activities associated with the war in Ukraine, and a small portion supports other affected countries in the region,” the Council on Foreign Relations explained.
For example, the funding covers payments for American factories and workers who are manufacturing weapons to be shipped to Ukraine.
Approximately $117 billion is allocated to defense and security related funding, while $57 billion is for refugee assistance, energy recovery and other non-defense funding, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains.
This story is also available in Spanish / Lee este artículo también en español: Verificamos afirmaciones del debate presidencial entre Trump y Biden
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