TRUMP
True: 0
Mostly/Partly/Half True: 0
False: 13
Mostly/Partly/Half False: 3
BIDEN
True: 2
Mostly/Partly/Half True: 8
False: 2
Mostly/Partly/Half False: 1
Border
Trump: Biden "allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions."
Pants on Fire! Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.
Not everyone was let in. The term "noncitizens" includes people who may have had legal immigration status in the U.S. but were not U.S. citizens.
The data reflects the people that the federal government knows about, but it’s inexhaustive. However, immigration experts said despite the data’s limitations, there is no evidence to support Trump’s statement.
Biden: "I've changed (the law) in the way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally."
Mostly True. The Department of Homeland Security announced that illegal immigration encounters dropped by 40%, to fewer than 2,400 each day, in the weeks after Biden announced a policy largely barring asylum access for people entering the U.S. at the southern border. The policy was announced June 4.
But immigration experts caution that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for any change in border crossings. For example, other factors, such as hot weather, can affect migration patterns.
Since the policy was announced only a few weeks ago, it’s unclear whether the drop in illegal immigration will continue.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told PolitiFact the policy could have a short-term deterrent effect. But Adam Isacson, defense oversight director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group, told PolitiFact, that no crackdown in the past decade has had a lasting impact.
Trump: "We had the safest border in the history of our country."
Mostly False. Illegal immigration between ports of entry at the U.S. southern border dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, compared with previous years. Apprehensions then rose, and dropped again in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, immigration dropped drastically worldwide as governments enacted policies limiting people’s movement.
In the months before Trump left office, illegal immigration was rising again. A spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in the spring 2020 during the Trump administration and generally continued to climb each month.
Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than under both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.
Biden: While talking about a bipartisan border bill, "by the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position."
Half True. The National Border Patrol Council — the U.S. Border Patrol’s union endorsed a bipartisan border security bill in February. But it didn’t endorse Biden.
Here's what Brandon Judd, the union’s president, said about the bill in February:
"While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo. This is why the National Border Patrol Council endorses this bill and hopes for its quick passage."
Biden also supported the bill and said he would sign it into law if it passed. The bill failed in the Senate on a 49-50 vote.
However, Judd and the Border Patrol union have been critical of Biden and his immigration policies and endorsed Trump in the 2020 election.
"To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden," the National Border Patrol Council said in an X post during the debate.
Trump: Biden allowed in "18 million people."
False. Immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the border 9.7 million times under Biden’s presidency. When accounting for "got aways" — people who aren’t stopped by border officials — the number rises to about 11.4 million.
But encounters don’t mean admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tried to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let in. Many encounters result in deportations. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
Abortion
Trump: "The problem (Democrats) have is they're radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth."
False. Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state.
Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this have said they support abortion under Roe v. Wade’s standard, which provided abortion access up to fetal viability. This is typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside of the womb. Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.
Medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare — less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks — and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer palliative care. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ survival to minutes or days after delivery.
Some Republicans who have made claims similar to Trump’s point to Democratic support of the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, citing the bill’s provisions that say providers and patients have the right to perform and receive abortion services without certain limitations or requirements that would impede access. Anti-abortion advocates say the provisions in the bill, which failed to advance 49-51, would have created a loophole that eliminated any limits to abortions later in pregnancy.
Alina Salganicoff, director of KFF’s Women’s Health Policy program, said the legislation would have allowed health providers to perform abortions without obstacles such as waiting periods, medically unnecessary tests and in-person visits, or other restrictions. The bill would have allowed an abortion after viability when, "in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health."
Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden debate June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP)
Inflation and economy
Trump: "He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with … essentially no inflation. It was perfect."
Mostly False. When Biden was inaugurated, year-over-year inflation was about 1.4%. However, that was shaped by the still-weak economy during the coronavirus pandemic, which was still a serious threat when Biden was inaugurated.
As the pandemic conditions improved, the economy accelerated. Consumers were ready to buy products, but the pandemic had prompted supply chain shortages. This, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which raised gasoline prices, led to inflation, peaking at 9% about a year and a half into Biden’s presidency. That was the highest in about four decades.
Economists generally say Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, the American Rescue Plan, did exacerbate inflation by putting more money into consumers’ hands at a time when supplies were running short. But they do not believe that Biden caused high inflation single-handedly.
Trump: "You look at the cost of food, where it's double, triple and quadruple."
False. Food costs have risen faster under President Joe Biden than under any of his five most recent predecessors. However, the 21% increase in food prices on Biden’s watch is well below what Trump claimed. Quadrupling food costs would be an increase of 300%, or more than 10 times larger than what Trump said.
Specific categories of food have spiked more than food prices overall. For instance, egg prices are 84% higher today than when Biden took office. But for every food category that has outrun overall food inflation, there’s another category that has risen more slowly than average.
Also, this increase was spread over three and a half years, making the annual increase about 6%, part of which has been offset by rising wages.
Biden: "Economists say (Trump’s proposed tariffs are) going to cost the average American $2,500 a year or more."
Mostly True. Most economists expect that Trump’s proposed 10% across-the-board tariff on foreign products will force consumers to pay more. The specific size of that hit is open to debate, though Biden offered a figure somewhat higher than current estimates.
Just days before the debate, the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, projected additional costs per household of $1,700 to $2,350 annually.
The Peterson Institute of International Economics, another Washington, D.C.-based think tank, projected that such tariffs would cost a middle-income household about $1,700 extra each year.
Former President Donald Trump responds to a question June 27, 2024, during a debate against President Joe Biden in Atlanta. (AP)
Jobs
Biden: Semiconductor jobs "to build these chips … pay over $100,000. You don’t need a college degree for them."
Mostly False. The average semiconductor industry salary is around $170,000, figures from Oxford Economics and Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, show. But this figure includes all jobs within the industry and doesn’t single out jobs requiring no college degree.
To earn a salary of $110,000 or higher, employees in the semiconductor industry need undergraduate or graduate-level degrees, the groups say.
The most a person would make without a four-year degree is about $70,000, according to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics.
Biden: "Black unemployment is the lowest level it’s been in a long, long time."
Mostly True. The record for low Black unemployment rate was set under Biden in April 2023, at 4.8%. It has risen modestly since then to 6.1% in May 2024, but that’s still lower than it was for much of the first two years under Trump.
Overall, Trump had success on this statistic, too. When Biden set the record, the record he was breaking was Trump’s: 5.3% in August and September 2019.
Trump: "The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs, bounce-back from the COVID."
False. Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million. (There are many more native-born Americans than foreign-born Americans, so on a percentage basis, the increase for foreign-born Americans is about 22%, compared with 6% for native-born Americans.)
It’s also wrong to say that all the foreign-born employment gains (much less all the employment gains) stem from migrants here illegally. The data for foreign-born Americans includes anyone born outside the U.S., including immigrants who have been in the United States legally for decades.
Employment on Biden’s watch passed its prepandemic level by June 2022, about a year and a half into his term. Since then, the U.S. economy has created an additional 6.2 million jobs.
Trump legal cases
Trump: Biden "indicted me because I was his opponent."
False. The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s business records began before Biden was president, but Biden was president by the time Trump was charged in 2023.
After Michael Cohen, who had been an attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. began investigating the payments, Politico reported. That was before Biden was president. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired a former Justice Department prosecutor in 2022. But experts told us that doesn’t prove Biden was involved.
Trump has also been indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury and two federal grand juries. Biden is not responsible for state or federal prosecutors’ decisions to present cases to grand juries.
President Joe Biden gestures after answering a question during the June 27, 2024, debate against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta. (AP)
True: 0
Mostly/Partly/Half True: 0
False: 13
Mostly/Partly/Half False: 3
BIDEN
True: 2
Mostly/Partly/Half True: 8
False: 2
Mostly/Partly/Half False: 1
Border
Trump: Biden "allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions."
Pants on Fire! Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.
Not everyone was let in. The term "noncitizens" includes people who may have had legal immigration status in the U.S. but were not U.S. citizens.
The data reflects the people that the federal government knows about, but it’s inexhaustive. However, immigration experts said despite the data’s limitations, there is no evidence to support Trump’s statement.
Biden: "I've changed (the law) in the way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally."
Mostly True. The Department of Homeland Security announced that illegal immigration encounters dropped by 40%, to fewer than 2,400 each day, in the weeks after Biden announced a policy largely barring asylum access for people entering the U.S. at the southern border. The policy was announced June 4.
But immigration experts caution that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for any change in border crossings. For example, other factors, such as hot weather, can affect migration patterns.
Since the policy was announced only a few weeks ago, it’s unclear whether the drop in illegal immigration will continue.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told PolitiFact the policy could have a short-term deterrent effect. But Adam Isacson, defense oversight director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group, told PolitiFact, that no crackdown in the past decade has had a lasting impact.
Trump: "We had the safest border in the history of our country."
Mostly False. Illegal immigration between ports of entry at the U.S. southern border dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, compared with previous years. Apprehensions then rose, and dropped again in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, immigration dropped drastically worldwide as governments enacted policies limiting people’s movement.
In the months before Trump left office, illegal immigration was rising again. A spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in the spring 2020 during the Trump administration and generally continued to climb each month.
Illegal immigration during Trump’s administration was higher than under both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.
Biden: While talking about a bipartisan border bill, "by the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position."
Half True. The National Border Patrol Council — the U.S. Border Patrol’s union endorsed a bipartisan border security bill in February. But it didn’t endorse Biden.
Here's what Brandon Judd, the union’s president, said about the bill in February:
"While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo. This is why the National Border Patrol Council endorses this bill and hopes for its quick passage."
Biden also supported the bill and said he would sign it into law if it passed. The bill failed in the Senate on a 49-50 vote.
However, Judd and the Border Patrol union have been critical of Biden and his immigration policies and endorsed Trump in the 2020 election.
"To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden," the National Border Patrol Council said in an X post during the debate.
Trump: Biden allowed in "18 million people."
False. Immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the border 9.7 million times under Biden’s presidency. When accounting for "got aways" — people who aren’t stopped by border officials — the number rises to about 11.4 million.
But encounters don’t mean admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tried to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let in. Many encounters result in deportations. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
Abortion
Trump: "The problem (Democrats) have is they're radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth."
False. Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state.
Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this have said they support abortion under Roe v. Wade’s standard, which provided abortion access up to fetal viability. This is typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside of the womb. Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.
Medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare — less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks — and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer palliative care. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ survival to minutes or days after delivery.
Some Republicans who have made claims similar to Trump’s point to Democratic support of the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, citing the bill’s provisions that say providers and patients have the right to perform and receive abortion services without certain limitations or requirements that would impede access. Anti-abortion advocates say the provisions in the bill, which failed to advance 49-51, would have created a loophole that eliminated any limits to abortions later in pregnancy.
Alina Salganicoff, director of KFF’s Women’s Health Policy program, said the legislation would have allowed health providers to perform abortions without obstacles such as waiting periods, medically unnecessary tests and in-person visits, or other restrictions. The bill would have allowed an abortion after viability when, "in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health."
Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden debate June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP)
Inflation and economy
Trump: "He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with … essentially no inflation. It was perfect."
Mostly False. When Biden was inaugurated, year-over-year inflation was about 1.4%. However, that was shaped by the still-weak economy during the coronavirus pandemic, which was still a serious threat when Biden was inaugurated.
As the pandemic conditions improved, the economy accelerated. Consumers were ready to buy products, but the pandemic had prompted supply chain shortages. This, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which raised gasoline prices, led to inflation, peaking at 9% about a year and a half into Biden’s presidency. That was the highest in about four decades.
Economists generally say Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, the American Rescue Plan, did exacerbate inflation by putting more money into consumers’ hands at a time when supplies were running short. But they do not believe that Biden caused high inflation single-handedly.
Trump: "You look at the cost of food, where it's double, triple and quadruple."
False. Food costs have risen faster under President Joe Biden than under any of his five most recent predecessors. However, the 21% increase in food prices on Biden’s watch is well below what Trump claimed. Quadrupling food costs would be an increase of 300%, or more than 10 times larger than what Trump said.
Specific categories of food have spiked more than food prices overall. For instance, egg prices are 84% higher today than when Biden took office. But for every food category that has outrun overall food inflation, there’s another category that has risen more slowly than average.
Also, this increase was spread over three and a half years, making the annual increase about 6%, part of which has been offset by rising wages.
Biden: "Economists say (Trump’s proposed tariffs are) going to cost the average American $2,500 a year or more."
Mostly True. Most economists expect that Trump’s proposed 10% across-the-board tariff on foreign products will force consumers to pay more. The specific size of that hit is open to debate, though Biden offered a figure somewhat higher than current estimates.
Just days before the debate, the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, projected additional costs per household of $1,700 to $2,350 annually.
The Peterson Institute of International Economics, another Washington, D.C.-based think tank, projected that such tariffs would cost a middle-income household about $1,700 extra each year.
Former President Donald Trump responds to a question June 27, 2024, during a debate against President Joe Biden in Atlanta. (AP)
Jobs
Biden: Semiconductor jobs "to build these chips … pay over $100,000. You don’t need a college degree for them."
Mostly False. The average semiconductor industry salary is around $170,000, figures from Oxford Economics and Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, show. But this figure includes all jobs within the industry and doesn’t single out jobs requiring no college degree.
To earn a salary of $110,000 or higher, employees in the semiconductor industry need undergraduate or graduate-level degrees, the groups say.
The most a person would make without a four-year degree is about $70,000, according to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics.
Biden: "Black unemployment is the lowest level it’s been in a long, long time."
Mostly True. The record for low Black unemployment rate was set under Biden in April 2023, at 4.8%. It has risen modestly since then to 6.1% in May 2024, but that’s still lower than it was for much of the first two years under Trump.
Overall, Trump had success on this statistic, too. When Biden set the record, the record he was breaking was Trump’s: 5.3% in August and September 2019.
Trump: "The only jobs (Biden) created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs, bounce-back from the COVID."
False. Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million. (There are many more native-born Americans than foreign-born Americans, so on a percentage basis, the increase for foreign-born Americans is about 22%, compared with 6% for native-born Americans.)
It’s also wrong to say that all the foreign-born employment gains (much less all the employment gains) stem from migrants here illegally. The data for foreign-born Americans includes anyone born outside the U.S., including immigrants who have been in the United States legally for decades.
Employment on Biden’s watch passed its prepandemic level by June 2022, about a year and a half into his term. Since then, the U.S. economy has created an additional 6.2 million jobs.
Trump legal cases
Trump: Biden "indicted me because I was his opponent."
False. The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s business records began before Biden was president, but Biden was president by the time Trump was charged in 2023.
After Michael Cohen, who had been an attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. began investigating the payments, Politico reported. That was before Biden was president. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired a former Justice Department prosecutor in 2022. But experts told us that doesn’t prove Biden was involved.
Trump has also been indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury and two federal grand juries. Biden is not responsible for state or federal prosecutors’ decisions to present cases to grand juries.
President Joe Biden gestures after answering a question during the June 27, 2024, debate against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta. (AP)