In their final debate, President Trump unleashed an unrelenting series of false, misleading and exaggerated statements as he sought to distort former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s record and positions and boost his own re-election hopes. The president once again relied heavily on well-worn talking points that have long been shown to be false.
The president appeared determined to reinvent the reality of the last four years — and the history of the pandemic in 2020 — as he faces judgment on his actions in just 12 days. He once again falsely dismissed the Russia investigations as a “phony witch hunt.” He insisted that aside from Abraham Lincoln, “nobody has done more for the Black community,” an assertion that people in both parties find laughable. And he tried again to wish away the pandemic, saying “we are rounding the turn” even as daily cases of the virus this week topped 70,000 in the United States for the first time since July.
The clash between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump was contentious but more well-behaved than their first debate, with fewer interruptions. Mr. Biden made false statements, too: He falsely accused Mr. Trump of having “caused the deficit with China to go up,” and he exaggerated when he suggested that “red states” in the Midwest were having spikes in the virus. But Mr. Trump relied more on questionable and specious arguments about Mr. Biden’s family, Democratic policy positions and his own record, leading Mr. Biden to repeatedly express exasperation by saying, “C’mon, man!”
A team of New York Times journalists fact-checked the debate, providing context and analysis.
— Mr. Trump.
This is false.
This claim by Mr. Trump came as he was pressed over his administration’s efforts to reunite families who were separated as a result of his “zero tolerance” family separations policy. Court documents filed this week made clear that 545 of the migrant children still have not been reunited with their parents. The Trump administration fought for months against providing data on families who were separated, arguing that it was not necessary because the children had already been released from federally overseen shelters and foster homes into the care of sponsors, who are typically relatives or family friends.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the family separations policy have said the administration’s delays in providing information on the families resulted in the loss of essential time to track the families down. Mr. Trump also claimed the children detained at the border are well taken care of. The administration last year came under harsh criticism when it was discovered that children were subjected to sickness and disease in unsanitary cells for weeks longer than legally allowed without adequate soap and toothpaste.
— Mr. Trump
False.
This is one of the more unusual attacks that Mr. Trump has made about his opponent’s climate change plan, and few energy experts seem to know what to make of it. Mr. Trump made a similar accusation to Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this month saying, “I mean, they literally want to take buildings down and rebuild them with tiny little windows, O. K.? Little windows so you can’t see out, you can’t see the light.”
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
It is true that the economy has added back a lot of jobs since the depths of the pandemic recession, regaining about 11.4 million of the 22 million jobs it lost between February and April. And it’s true that those gains have been historically faster than prior economic rebounds.
But there is an obvious reason for that. People came back into work quickly because they had been temporarily furloughed as states and cities shut down, and businesses brought them back into their jobs as they reopened. The concern now is that job losses are increasingly turning permanent, which could lead to a slower recovery going forward.
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
Air pollution in China and India is indeed a serious issue — India is one of the most polluted countries in the world. But Mr. Trump is essentially talking about the countries’ contributions to climate change, and on that score, his comments fail to capture the full picture.
— Mr. Trump
Mostly true.
Criminal justice experts and critics say Mr. Biden’s work on crime legislation helped lay the groundwork for mass incarceration that has devastated America’s Black communities. In 1993, Mr. Biden boasted on the Senate floor, “The truth is every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has had the name of the Democratic Senator from the state of Delaware, Joe Biden.” Mr. Biden’s actions took place at a time when violent crime was surging in many cities. His work culminated in 1994, when as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he helped pass a vast catchall crime bill known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The law included strong punitive measures desired by law enforcement, created 60 new death penalty offenses, gave states incentives to build prisons, set aside money for 100,000 new police and codified a “three strikes” rule.
While some studies show that the bill lowered the crime rate, which had exploded in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, there is evidence that it contributed to the explosion of the prison population. Mr. Biden has apologized for portions of his anti-crime legislation. The New York Times examined Mr. Biden’s record on criminal justice in 2019.
— Mr. Trump
This is false.
Mr. Biden wants to raise taxes on high-earning individuals and on corporations, but he has made a clear-cut pledge: He says he will not raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000. Mr. Biden has reiterated that pledge repeatedly.
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
Mr. Trump was asked what he intends to do to address climate change and cited his administration’s involvement with the Trillion Tree Initiative. Begun by the World Economic Forum, the plan to preserve one trillion trees and sequester carbon is considered helpful to address climate change — but useless without also drawing down fossil fuels.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order establishing an interagency council to oversee the United States’ involvement in the Trillion Tree Initiative. Mr. Trump’s order does not actually include any funding or the planting of any trees.
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
The United States is a slightly less polluting country now than it was when President Trump entered office, but those reductions are largely because cheap natural gas prices enticed utilities to drop coal, and because of policies enacted under the Obama administration. Overall U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, dropped by 14 percent from 2007 through 2019. About 90 percent of that decline in carbon emissions took place between 2007 and 2012.
Many European nations have gone further than the United States, including Britain, which cut emissions 29 percent, and Denmark, which reduced emissions by 34 percent between 2000 and 2016. The United States remains the second highest overall greenhouse gas polluter and the 12th highest per capita polluter in the world. (An earlier version of this article misstated the United States’ global ranking of per capita pollution. It is the 12th highest not the 120th highest.)
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
This statement came as Mr. Trump was pressed on his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents and the more than 500 children who have still not been matched with their parents. The Obama administration only broke up families at the border in rare circumstances — for example, in cases in which there was a doubt about the familial relationship between a child and an accompanying adult. But the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy called for criminal prosecution of everyone who entered the country illegally. After widespread condemnation from lawmakers in both parties, immigration activists and the United Nations, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that attempted to end the practice of family separation.
However, the Obama administration did hold children in the same chain-linked enclosures the Trump administration has used to detain migrants — facilities widely decried by Democrats as “cages.” A federal judge also criticized the conditions and care provided to migrant children that were held in detention facilities during the Obama administration.
— Mr. Trump, referring to his Opportunity Zone program.
This lacks evidence.
There is no data yet available showing that Opportunity Zones, a creation of the tax overhaul that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017, have boosted incomes or wealth for Black Americans. The zones confer tax advantages — in the form of reductions in, and in some cases, the elimination of, capital gains taxes — on people who invest in so-called distressed communities designated by state governors and certified by the Treasury Department.
— Mr. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump, facing criticism for his meetings with Kim Jong Un, the pariah dictator of North Korea who has taken no steps to reduce his nuclear arsenal, has repeatedly suggested that Mr. Obama sought to do the same. Neither Mr. Obama nor officials in his administration spoke of such an effort during his presidency. As Mr. Trump has made the claim, top Obama officials have disputed it, including Mr. Obama’s former national security adviser and a deputy national security adviser.
— Mr. Trump
False.
Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that Mr. Biden used the term “super predators” in reference to criminals during debate over the 1994 crime bill. Mr. Biden never used the term, however. It was used by Hillary Clinton, then first lady.
— Mr. Trump
This is false.
Mr. Trump went on to say of Mr. Biden, “He lived there for a short period of time, before he even knew it, and he left.”
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
This is a reference to a claim and an email provided on Thursday by Tony Bobulinksi, a former business associate of Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, and his brother, James Biden.
— Mr. Trump
This is exaggerated.
A centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s assault on immigration has been an end to what he calls the policy of “catch and release.” But his description on Thursday of the immigrants being released was misleading and inaccurate.
The vast majority of migrants being caught crossing the border were families seeking asylum, not murderers or rapists. Many released into the United States did not return for their court hearings, but previous administrations have implemented programs that increased the number of migrants that showed up.
— Mr. Trump
False.
Not according to historians. Among modern presidents, historians agreed that the most significant legislative achievements belong to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who shepherded the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act.
A 2017 study that assessed modern presidents based on the analysis of editorials published in Black newspapers ranked Mr. Johnson at the top. Mr. Trump would place in the bottom third, the study’s co-author told The Times.
— Mr. Biden
True.
It’s not clear exactly what data point Mr. Biden is referencing here, but it’s in the ballpark of what small business surveys have suggested could happen if the coronavirus persists and prevents normal activity from resuming.
— Mr. Trump, on raising the minimum wage.
This is false.
Economic research has not “proven” that when governments raise minimum wages, small businesses lay off workers.
Many recent studies have suggested the opposite: that some state-level increases in the minimum wage have had no negative effect on hiring. In a 2019 study of businesses straddling the New York-Pennsylvania border, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concluded that “As the minimum wage was raised to levels above $10 per hour, leisure and hospitality employment in New York counties, if anything, increased relative to businesses over the Pennsylvania state line. Concerns of diminished employment growth in New York’s leisure and hospitality industry as a result of the rising minimum wage seem not to have been borne out.”
— Mr. Trump
This is misleading.
Mr. Biden has never called for a ban on the process for extracting oil and gas known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. He has pledged to end new permits for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands and waters, but said fracking “has to continue because we need a transition” to renewable energy. He has also assured union leaders in critical swing states like Pennsylvania that he will protect existing fracking jobs while pursuing a clean energy transition.
— Mr. Trump
Partly true.
During his 36-year Senate career, Mr. Biden supported some actions that would slow or reduce spending on Social Security, but also supported others that would protect benefits.
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