Trump Gives Facts Short Shrift in Acrimonious Debate With Biden

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden began their first debate on an acrimonious note and quickly made it personal, with each candidate interrupting and talking over each other. Along the way, Trump made a raft of assertions that didn’t stand up to fact-checking.

Here’s a rundown of the most hotly contested issues from Tuesday’s face-off between the candidates in Cleveland:

Election integrity

TRUMP: “You’re sending out 80 million ballots. They’re not equipped. These people aren’t equipped to handle it, No. 1. No. 2, they cheat. They cheat. Hey, they found ballots in a wastepaper basket. Three days ago. They were military ballots. They all had the name Trump on them. Do you think that’s good?”

BIDEN: “Some of these ballots in some states can’t even be opened until Election Day. And if they’re thousands of ballots it will take time to do it. No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots.”

TRUMP: “It’s already been established.”

FACTS: Voter fraud is extremely rare. One study found just 31 incidents of voter fraud in elections from 2000 to 2014 in which more than 1 billion ballots were cast. Another study found it was more likely that an American would be struck by lightning than impersonate another voter.

Also, there’s no substantive difference between mail-in and absentee voting, although Trump tries to make one. The security safeguards are the same for both.

The FBI is investigating a case in a Pennsylvania county where a mailroom contractor discarded ballots from military voters. Authorities sifted through county dumpsters and found nine ballots, seven of which were cast for Trump.

Trump’s income taxes

TRUMP: “I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax ... As soon as it’s finished you’ll see it.”

BIDEN: “He says he’s smart because he can take advantage of the tax code, and he does take advantage.”

FACTS: The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017. Trump said he paid “millions” in federal income taxes but has also acknowledged using the tax breaks and loopholes in the tax code. In his first debate with Hillary Clinton four years ago, he said avoiding taxes made him “smart.”

It’s true that some of the tax maneuvers Trump used were included in a law that President Barack Obama signed allowing taxpayers to use more years of losses to cancel out current tax liabilities. But tax lawyers say the details in the New York Times story include aggressive tax moves that could violate the law, including classifying a family home as an investment property, writing off personal expenses including haircuts and paying consulting fees to his children.

Trump is the first president since Gerald Ford not to release details of his tax returns, so Trump’s claims that he’s paid millions in taxes are impossible to verify. Trump says he can’t release his tax returns while they’re under audit, but a president’s returns are automatically audited — and that hasn’t stopped previous presidents from disclosing their returns.

Coronavirus vaccine

BIDEN: “This man is talking about a vaccine. Every serious company is talking about maybe having a vaccine done by the end of the year, but the distribution of that vaccine will not take place until sometime beginning in the middle of next year to get it out.”

TRUMP: “I’ve spoken to the companies. We can have it a lot sooner. It is a very political thing.”

FACTS: There are more than 190 experimental vaccines in development, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 40 have entered human studies.

Experimental shots from Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca Plc, and Moderna Inc. are among the vanguard. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla has stated that he expects to get conclusive data on his shot’s efficacy by the end of October. Bourla has also said it’s “likely” the U.S. will be able to deploy that vaccine, contingent on an approval from regulators, to the broader public before year-end, pushing back against more tepid expectations shared by health authorities.

Estimates from top health officials for broad availability of a vaccine, however, range from the end of March to the end of 2021 because of the demanding production and distribution requirements.

Pre-existing conditions

BIDEN: “There’s 100 million people with pre-existing conditions and they will be taken away as well. Those pre-existing conditions, insurance companies are going to love this.”

TRUMP: “There aren’t 100 million with pre-existing conditions... We guaranteed pre-existing conditions but took away the individual mandate.”

FACTS: Pre-existing conditions are illnesses or injuries that began before someone enrolled in a health insurance plan. Insurers prefer not to cover them, arguing that if they did, people would wait to buy insurance only when they’re sick.

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, required health-care plans to cover pre-existing conditions. An analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 said 113 million non-elderly people — about three in 10 Americans — were eligible for coverage for pre-existing conditions because of the law. But Biden may have exaggerated the potential impact of removing the requirement because some employer insurance and other policies would continue to cover pre-existing conditions.

The Trump administration is backing a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is scheduled to be argued shortly after the election, though a verdict isn’t likely until next year.

If the court strikes down Obamacare, people with pre-existing conditions could lose their coverage. Trump has championed alternatives like short-term health plans, but detractors call them “junk plans” because they have limited coverage and can exclude pre-existing conditions.

Trump signed an executive order last week stating that it is the government’s “policy” to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. But it doesn’t have the force of law.

Antifa threat

TRUMP: “I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left. Because this is not a right-wing problem. It’s a left-wing problem.”

BIDEN: “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.”

TRUMP: “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding... Antifa is bad. Can I tell you what? Antifa is a dangerous, radical group. And you ought to be careful with them. They’ll overthrow you in two seconds.”

FACTS: Antifa, a loose collection of anti-fascist and anarchist groups that has risen to prominence in the backlash of the Trump presidency, has deep roots in Portland, Oregon, and Trump blames it for much of the violence that’s happened there.

But earlier this month, FBI Director Chris Wray declined to say that the movement is the biggest domestic threat.

“Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction,” Wray told a congressional committee. “But it’s not an organization or a structure. We understand it to be more of a movement or maybe you could call it an ideology.”

Law enforcement agencies have consistently identified right-wing groups as the biggest source of domestic terrorist activities. Chad Wolf, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency in charge of curbing domestic terrorism, told senators just last week that White supremacists pose the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the U.S. from within the country.

Hunter Biden

Trump: “Hunter got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged for cocaine use. He didn’t have a job until you became vice president. And once you became vice president, he made a fortune in Ukraine, China, Moscow, and various other places. ... I know he gets $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow.”

Biden: “That report was totally discredited. That’s not true.”

FACTS: Biden’s younger son, Hunter, was administratively discharged from the Navy for cocaine use in 2014. Joe Biden has acknowledged his son’s drug problem and said he has received treatment.

Hunter Biden later got a $50,000-a-month job as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company, and he also invested $420,000 in a Chinese-backed private equity firm, according to his lawyer. That makes the current value of his stake difficult to estimate, but it probably falls far short of the millions Trump has claimed.

Still, Hunter Biden’s involvement in foreign companies while his father was serving as vice president raised eyebrows because of the potential for conflicts of interest. In 2015, Obama administration officials had raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian oil company Burisma, according to a Senate investigation by Republicans released last week. But the report didn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

That report also alleged that Hunter Biden received $3.5 million from the widow of a former mayor of Moscow through a consulting firm, Rosemont Seneca Thorton. But Hunter Biden’s lawyer denies that Biden has an interest in that firm, and the Senate report failed to substantiate the connection.

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