WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden face inquisitive voters on separate stages in different cities instead of the debate that was intended.
Here’s how some of the rhetoric Thursday night compared to the facts in first time events and a day of campaigning was:
ECONOMY
TRUMP, answers questions in Miami on NBC: “We have had the largest economy in our country’s history.”
THE FACTS: According to the figures, it was not the largest in American history.
Did the US have the most jobs before the coronavirus pandemic?? The population has definitely grown. The unemployment rate of 3.5% before the recession was at a low century, but the percentage of people looking for work or work was still below a peak in 2000.
Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer looked at Trump’s economic growth record this month. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48% a year before the pandemic, only slightly better than the 2.41% increase achieved during Barack Obama’s second term. In contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Ronald Reagan’s presidency averaged 4.2% per year.
So Trump is wrong.
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ELECTION AMOUNT
TRUMP: “When I see thousands of ballot papers dumped in a rubbish bin and my name happens to be on it? I’m not happy about that. ”- from Miami.
THE FACTS: No one saw it. In contrast to Trump’s repeated, unfounded attacks on voting security, voting and election fraud are rare. No issues about thousands of ballots being thrown in the trash were reported in this election.
Trump has cited a case of military ballots marking that he was thrown in the trash in Pennsylvania as evidence of a possible conspiracy to steal the election. But he omits the details: provincial election officials say the seven ballots, along with two unopened ones, were accidentally thrown by a contract worker in an election office in a province-controlled province and that authorities were quickly called.
The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 rated the risk of vote fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies from previous elections.
In the five countries that regularly send ballots to all voters, there were no major cases of fraud or difficulty counting the votes.
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CRIME
PRAY, answer questions in Philadelphia on ABC: ‘The crime bill itself did not have mandatory sentences, except for two things, it had three strikes and you are out, against which I voted in the crime bill.’
THE FACTS: This is misleading. He underestimated the impact of the bill and the influence he exerted to make it happen in law.
Biden wrote and voted for the 1994 comprehensive crime bill, which included money for more prisons, expanded the use of the federal death penalty, and called for a mandatory life sentence for three violent offenders – the so-called provision of three strikes.
He did call the three-strike rule ‘wacko’ at one point, even when he helped write the bill. Regardless of his reservations about certain provisions, he eventually voted for the legislation, which includes the three-strike rule, and saw it in the Black Lives Matter era as a heavy and discriminatory instrument of the legal system.
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TROOPE
PRAYING in Philadelphia, about American troops in Afghanistan: “By the way, they have more people there now than when I left, when we left Afghanistan.”
THE FACTS: Not so.
The US now has about 5,000 troops in Afghanistan. The troop level did not fall below 8400 before President Barack Obama left office. The U.S. had about 8,500 troops in Afghanistan during Trump’s first few months in office.
The number of troops in Afghanistan peaked at 100,000 in August 2010 and the following year. Obama subsequently withdrew thousands of troops, but he could not keep promises to reduce the number of troops to 5,500 by the last years of his presidency.
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CORONAVIRUS
TROMP: “Just now they come up with a statement that 85% of the people who wear masks catch it like that … that’s what I heard and that’s what I saw.” – City Hall event in Miami.
TRUMP, at his rallies: “What I do is outside, it’s a big thing. And if you look at it, people, they really wear masks. I’ll tell you, I was in Iowa last night – there were many, many people wearing masks. But then you see CDC come up with a statement that 85% of the people who wear masks catch it. ‘- Fox Business Interview.
TRUMP and look out over his crowd: “Look at all the masks. You know, they still say, ‘nobody wears a mask, wear the mask.’ Although they come out with things today. Have you seen CDC? That 85% of people who wear a mask catch it, OK? ‘- remarks during a daytime protest in Greenville, North Carolina.
THE FACTS: He is repeatedly preoccupied with the findings of the study. The cited study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not find that 85% of mask wearers catch COVID-19. If that were the case, the majority of Americans would be infected.
It found something very different: that 85% of the small group of COVID-19 patients surveyed – about 150 on this question – report that they often or always wore a mask around the time they would become infected.
The group’s exposure to potentially infected people in the community varied. Most signed up to shop or be in a home with multiple people. But they were twice as likely to eat in a restaurant, where masks were set aside for the meal, as people who were not in a control group.
Most studies have shown that wearing masks reduces the transmission of the virus by blocking respiratory drops. Several studies have also shown that masks can provide some protection for people who wear them.
The findings were in a CDC weekly report on morbidity and mortality, published last month.
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TRUMP, responding to news that people associated with the Biden campaign on a recent flight with Harris tested positive for COVID-19: ‘We wish our best wishes, which is more than what they did to me but it’s OK. ‘ – Greenville Rally.
THE FACTS: This is false.
Hours after Trump’s early morning announcement on Oct. 2 that he had tested positive, both Biden and Harris sent their wishes for a speedy recovery via Twitter.
“Jill and I are sending our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a speedy recovery,” Biden wrote. “We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.”
Harris tweeted a similar message, wishing President Trump and the First Lady a full and speedy recovery. We keep them and the whole Trump family in our minds. ”
The then-Biden campaign also announced that it would stop negative advertising, with the candidate tweeting that ‘this could not be a biased moment’ after the news that Trump was going to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of his coronavirus infection. Biden’s camp resumed advertising after Trump was released from Walter Reed.
At least three people connected to Biden’s campaign tested positive for the coronavirus, which led to the suspension of personal events for Harris until Monday.
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Associated Press authors Amanda Seitz, Josh Boak, David Klepper, Darlene Superville and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR – A Look At The Truth Of Claims By Political Figures.
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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APFactCheck.
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This story has been corrected to show that August 2010 was after Obama took office, not before.