Joe Biden and Donald Trump traded blows Thursday during the first televised debate of the campaign. AFP verified some of the candidates’ claims on key issues.
• Read more: Here’s a recap of the Biden-Trump debate
• Read more: Biden faltered during the debate against Trump
• Read more: Biden-Trump debate: “It was the worst debate I’ve ever seen,” says Jean-Marc Leger
Immigrants
Trump falsely claimed that under President Joe Biden, “we no longer have borders” and that “with his ridiculous, stupid and very stupid policies, people are coming in and killing our citizens on a scale we’ve never seen.”
Faced with criticism over the influx of registered immigrants into the United States, Joe Biden signed an executive order in early June temporarily closing the border with Mexico once the daily limit was reached.
According to Nicole Hallett, director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Immigrant Rights, this amounts to “increased surveillance at the border.”
Despite some high-profile incidents, including the murder of a student in Georgia, there is “no evidence” of the wave of immigrant crime described by Trump, he told AFP, adding that “despite the increase in immigration, crime is down across the country . . .
According to 2022 FBI data, violent and property crimes are at their lowest levels in decades.
“The vast majority of violent crime in the United States is committed by civilians,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia University.
A Cato Institute report released this week shows that fewer immigrants will be convicted of murder than U.S. citizens in 2022.
According to Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the Migration Policy Institute, there is no evidence to support Donald Trump’s repeated claims during the debate that detainees and people living in mental health facilities are streaming from the Mexican border.
inflammation
Donald Trump and Joe Biden took responsibility for the rise in inflation.
Joe Biden “caused inflation — and I left him a country with almost no inflation,” lamented the billionaire, who recited his favorite — but incorrect — phrase about his arrival at the helm of the largest economy in U.S. history.
The current president said his Republican predecessor “destroyed the economy” during his four years in the White House.
Both candidates mislead by ignoring the impact of Covid-19 on the economy.
At the end of Donald Trump’s tenure, almost a year after the start of the Covid-19 crisis, inflation was 1.4%.
It began its rise in spring 2021, reaching 9.1% in June 2022, the highest level in nearly 40 years. It has since slowly declined again, to around 3% today, still well above the 2% target by the US Federal Reserve (Fed).
Several factors linked to the pandemic have been called into question, including billions of dollars in aid programs from the Trump and Biden administrations, difficulties faced in global supply chains and the war in Ukraine.
January 6
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump tried to avoid the charges he was facing when hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. The former president blamed Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the senior member of Congress at the time.
“I offered her 10,000 troops or National Guard and she refused,” he lied.
If Donald Trump had decided to do so, Nancy Pelosi would not have even had the authority to reject the deployment of the National Guard, several experts told AFP.
The Washington National Guard Division, according to its website, receives its orders “solely from the President.”
The congressional inquiry into the January 6 attack wrote in its final report that Donald Trump “never ordered the deployment of the National Guard.”
Donald Trump has reiterated that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was marred by “outrageous” fraud. The baseless allegations were later refuted, especially in court.
