It was supposed to be the second presidential debate. Instead, President Donald Trump refused a virtual debate and followed Joe Biden’s lead of doing a town hall on network television. NBC host Savannah Guthrie started the Trump town hall by trying to nail down his last negative test for the coronavirus. He said he couldn’t […]
Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris invoked Abraham Lincoln to say why a nominee to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should not be confirmed until the next president is sworn in. Harris brought a “history lesson” to the vice presidential debate on Oct. 7. Harris said that Lincoln was up for reelection when […]
Shortly before the 1980 election, Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan urged voters to ask themselves a simple question that became a bombshell: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” The answer soon became clear that Americans felt they weren’t better off, and Reagan ousted President Jimmy Carter by winning all but […]
In a new campaign ad, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden offers an optimistic, can-do pitch to American voters struggling with the coronavirus and economic insecurity. In the minute-long ad, released Oct. 4, Biden touts a scientific approach to fighting the coronavirus before turning to aid for the economy: “Joe listened to both small business owners […]
Around every corner, 2020 seems to produce a new surprising crisis. The latest: A president infected with COVID-19, little more than a month before Election Day. Not to mention a president who had been standing feet away from the opposing candidate at a debate just 48 hours before the president’s infection was confirmed. In other […]
The rival camps of President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spent the hours before their first general-election debate sparring over the issue of commercial breaks. “Biden’s handlers have asked for multiple breaks during the debate, which President Trump doesn’t need, so we have rejected that request,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told […]
PolitiFact was barely four months old when we published our first fact-check of Joe Biden. It came almost 13 years ago, in mid-October 2007, during the thick of the Democratic presidential primary contest, and it involved a somewhat arcane point on troop withdrawals from Iraq during a debate. Biden, who would drop out of the […]
PolitiFact’s first fact-check Donald Trump was Feb. 14, 2011, for a statement related to the “birther” conspiracy theory, which doubted the American birth of then-president Barack Obama. Birtherism was the issue that effectively turned the real estate developer into a major political figure. Trump focused on Obama’s college years: “The people that went to school […]
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was always expected to set up a huge political battle over confirming her replacement. With her death coming so close to the election, the process has become even more fraught. Because they control the presidency and the Senate, Republicans have the power to install a successor […]
2020 has been quite a year of history and news: a presidential impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic, racial justice protests, economic hardship, rampaging wildfires and hurricanes. Now, as the year enters its final months, another potentially seismic moment: a potentially chaotic Election Night that might turn into an Election Week. Some states (though not all) have […]
From an outdoor stage erected in the middle of a baseball field parking lot, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Sept. 17 pitched himself to voters as a leader equipped to really look out for American workers. Biden took the spotlight in his birth state of Pennsylvania during a socially distant drive-in town hall event […]
In a speech focused on the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden poured cold water on President Donald Trump’s talk about an imminent vaccine. “I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump,” Biden said in his Sept. 16 speech in Delaware, which followed a meeting with […]