Trump, Biden deliver misleading claims during debate

Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden recently squared off in their first debate in anticipation of the presidential election in November. According to The Associated Press, a variety of false information was presented during the event, with Trump making fake claims and Biden offering “exaggerations and embellishments.”

Trump, referring to Jan. 6, 2021, said, “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”

But the attack on the Capitol building was “the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years,” the AP said. More than 1,400 people involved with the insurrection have been charged with crimes. Of those, more than 850 people have pleaded guilty and 200 others have been convicted at trial.

A March 7, 2023, internal memo from U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger stated, the allegation that “our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides’” is “outrageous and false.”

Biden addressed military deaths that occurred during his time in office.

“The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did,” Biden claimed.

However, that’s not quite right, the AP said.

Since the president took office in January 2021, there have been at least 16 members of the military killed in hostile action.

On Aug. 26, 2021, as U.S. troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan, 13 service members were killed in a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. And on Jan. 28, 2024, three service members died when an enemy drone hit a military base in Jordan.

Trump, who has claimed he “was able to kill Roe v. Wade,” according to NBC News, claimed Democrats have no limits on abortion.

“The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth,” Trump said.

But this is wrong, the AP said. Abortion after birth, or infanticide, is illegal in all states and no states have any laws that allow for it. Abortions later in a pregnancy are rare, accounting for less than 1% of abortions, and are often due to complications that put the mother at risk.

Biden claimed he is responsible for lower prescription costs.

“It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400,” he said, repeating a previous claim that people used to pay $400 monthly.

Although he did sign the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 that capped the price of insulin, previously people with diabetes usually paid nearly $450 per year, not each month, for insulin.

Trump said, during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”

But this is false. During the demonstration, the National Guard was deployed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Biden claimed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump said Americans should “inject bleach” into their arms.

Not quite. During a news conference in April 2020, Trump asked medical officials if it would be possible to inject a disinfectant into people’s lungs to fight off the virus.

Video of Trump plane is fake

A video posted on social media appears to show former President Donald Trump’s plane flying recklessly.

“Trump Force One conducted an authorized low altitude, high speed pass over an airport near D.C. after winning the debate,” reads the text on a June 20 Instagram post that includes a video showing a plane flying low.

But this didn’t really happen, according to USA Today. The clip is from a video game.

The video was originally posted by a different Instagram user who created it using the video game Microsoft Flight Simulator. That user has posted other clips using the flight simulator game.

Clues that it is a video game include blurriness and, at the beginning of the video, pieces of buildings are floating. The aircraft in the clip also is different from the Boeing 757 that Trump uses.

Clip from ’70s movie

Following a Ukrainian attack on Crimea last month in which four people were killed, a video appeared on social media showing people scrambling to get out of the water.

“In Crimea, vacationers came under missile fire from RUSSIAN air defense: there were deaths,” the June 23 X post begins.

But this video is unrelated to the activity in Crimea at that time, according to Reuters. It’s actually an edited clip from the 1975 movie “Jaws.”

The clip was altered to add an explosion and smoke on the horizon.

Video from the actual attack, which was broadcast on Russian state television, shows people running from a beach while others were carried off.

• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.