Forget alternative facts and political spin: Thursday’s presidential debate was more like a tsunami of falsity. Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of misinformation on topics from terrorism to taxes during the first debate of the 2024 general election, while President Joe Biden flubbed figures and facts about military deaths and insulin prices. More than a dozen NBC News reporters, editors and correspondents fact-checked the key claims the presidential candidates made Thursday night. Here they are by topic:
Economy, trade and health care
Fact check: Did Biden inherit 9% inflation?
“He also said he inherited 9% inflation. Now, he inherited almost no inflation, and it stayed that way for 14 months, and then it blew up under his leadership,” Trump said about Biden. This is false. The inflation rate when Biden took office in January 2021 wasn’t 9%. It was 1.4%. It has risen on his watch, peaking at about 9.1% in June 2022, but by last month it had come down to 3.3%. Pandemic-related stimulus policies put in place by both Trump and Biden were blamed, in part, for the rise in the inflation rate.
Fact check: Did Biden lower the cost of insulin to $15 a shot?
“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,” Biden said. This is false. Biden capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month under Medicare, not $15 a shot, and some drug companies have matched that cap. The price cap doesn’t apply to everyone, however. What’s more, Biden’s also significantly overstating how much insulin cost before the change. A 2022 report by the Department of Health and Human Services found that patients using insulin spent an average of $434 annually on insulin in 2019 — not $400 a shot.
Fact check: Did Trump lower the cost of insulin?
Trump claimed credit for lowering the cost of insulin for seniors, saying, “I am the one who got the insulin down for the seniors.” That is mostly false. In 2020, Trump created a voluntary program under Medicare Part D. The program allowed Medicare Part D plans to offer some insulin products for no more than $35 per month. It was active from 2021 to 2023, with fewer than half of the plans participating each year. In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a provision that lowered the out-of-pocket cost for people on Medicare to $35 a month and covered all insulin products. The cap didn’t apply to those with private insurance. However, after the law was implemented, insulin manufacturers voluntarily lowered the out-of-pocket cost to $35 a month for people with private insurance.
Fact check: Does Biden want to raise ‘everybody’s taxes’ by four times?
“Nobody ever cut taxes like us. He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody’s taxes by four times,” Trump claimed. “He wants the Trump tax cuts to expire.” This is false. Biden’s tax plan “holds harmless for 98% of households,” said Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. And Biden wants to extend the majority of the Trump tax cuts, too, though he has advocated for hiking taxes on very high earners.
Fact check: Biden said the U.S. trade deficit with China is at its lowest since 2010
“We are at the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010,” Biden said. This is true. The U.S. had $279 billion more in imports than exports to China last year, the lowest trade deficit with the world’s second-largest economy since 2010. The decline has been driven largely by tariffs that Trump imposed in office and that Biden has maintained and in some cases expanded.
Fact check: Are immigrants taking ‘Black jobs’?
Asked about Black voters who are disappointed with their economic progress, Trump claimed Black Americans are losing their jobs because of illegal border crossings under Biden’s administration. “The fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come through the border. They’re taking Black jobs now,” Trump said. This is false. There’s no evidence that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from Black Americans. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Black unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in April 2023 — an all-time low.
Immigration
Fact check: Did Trump end catch and release?
