US President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden clashed during their first debate on Tuesday at Cleveland, the debate was hosted by Fox News host Chris Wallace. During the course of the debate, the two presidential candidates made a slew of remarks, some of which require a closer look.

Biden Claim: Pertaining to statistics on crime, Biden stated, “The fact of the matter is a violent crime went down 17%, 15%, in our reign.”

Fact: The claim by Biden is exaggerated, crime during the Obama regime fell roughly 10% from 2008 to 2016, as per the data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program.

However, the number of violent crimes was rising by 8% during the final two years of the Obama-Biden administration, as an AP report.

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Trump Claim: “If you look at what’s going on in Chicago, where 53 people were shot and eight died. If you look at New York where it’s going up like nobody’s ever seen anything … the numbers are going up 100 150, 200%, crime, it’s crazy what’s going on.”

Fact: While the number of crime in Chicago quoted by Trump is true, it is only a snapshot of the crime statistics of the city. As for the numbers quoted by Trump regarding New York, overall crime in the city has gone down about 1.5%. Though overall crime has dwindled in New York, murders in the city have gone up by 38% and there has been a 93% increase in shooting this year.  A recently published FBI report has shown that violent crime has decreased over the past three years.

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Trump Claim: Dr Anthony Fauci “said very strongly, ‘masks are not good.’ Then he changed his mind, he said, ‘masks, good.’

Fact: Trump here is narrating a story while evading the context, health officials had initially requested people not to wear masks out of fear of dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment(PPE). The PPE’s are essential for health care sector workers and key front line workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the highly contagious nature of the pandemic ensured doctors to walk back on their statement and Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Health is on record highlighting the importance of wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.

Trump claim on coronavirus and his campaign rally: “So far we have had no problem whatsoever. It’s outside, that’s a big difference according to the experts. We have tremendous crowds.”

Fact: The Tusla City-Health County Health Department has stated that the rally “likely contributed” to the dramatic surge in coronavirus cases in the city.

Trump claim on Biden handling H1N1:  “You didn’t do very well on the swine flu. H1N1. You were a disaster.”

Fact: While Joe Biden as Vice President was not in charge of the federal response, the Swine Flu (H1N1) killed around 12,500 people, as per the Center for Disease Control.

Trump claim on Biden’s handling of COVID-19:  “If you were here, it wouldn’t be 200,000 people, it would be 2 million people. You didn’t want me to ban China, which was heavily infected…. If we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open.”  

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Fact: Biden supported the restrictions put in place by Donald Trump. Also, US President Donald Trump did not ban travel from China as 27,000 Americans returned to the US after the US restriction took effect from February 2, as per an AP report.

Biden claim: Trump will be first American President to lose jobs during his presidency.

Fact: If Trump loses re-election bids he will become the second president after Herbert Hoover who lost the 1932 election to Franklin Roosevelt due to massive job loses, as per AP report.

Trump claim:  “I’m the one who brought back football. By the way, I brought back Big Ten football. It was me and I’m very happy to do it.” 

Fact: While Trump called for the hosting of the Big Ten conference, it was not just him who demanded the return of the tournament. 

Biden claim: Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett: “She thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.”

Fact: Barrett has never called the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, though she has been critical of the law.

Trump Claim: “Drug prices will be coming down 80 or 90%.”

Fact: Trump is yet to pass any legislation in Congress that effectively lowers the price of drugs.

Trump claim: Mail-in voting will lead to “fraud like you’ve never seen.”

Fact:  False. Ellen Weintraub, of the US Federal Election Commission (CEC) stated: “There’s simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud.” She also provided exhaustive evidence in a 66 Twitter thread.

AFP quoted election expert Max Feldman stating “Voting by mail has been a secure part of our election system for many years.”

Trump claim: Trump said that his administration “built the greatest economy in history.”

Fact: The statement is an exaggeration, a hyperbole. While unemployment has hit an all-time low in December 2019, only a 3% rise in GDP was witnessed in the best year under Trump, while GDP in the Bush regime saw a 3.8% rise and during Obama’s administration saw a 3.1% rise.