The stark differences between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden were on display during their competing town halls, and in no space was that clearer than the magnitude and frequency of their falsehoods. The fact that the second debate was cancelled after Trump backed out of the proposed virtual format deprived Americans of a chance to see the two candidates sparring on the same stage. But where Biden scattered in a small number of exaggerations or misstatements over about an hour and a half, Trump unleashed a barrage of dishonest claims over about an hour. Trump falsely claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 85% of people who wear masks get the coronavirus, again argued inaccurately that there is widespread fraud with mail-in voting, defended as mere “opinion” a baseless conspiracy theory he retweeted about Osama bin Laden and the US military, and repeated familiar false or misleading remarks about the state of the pandemic, Biden’s tax plan, job creation, and his own positions on DACA and pre-existing conditions. Biden falsely claimed that Trump did nothing on unemployment after the initial round of congressional aid expired, wrongly asserted that there are more troops in Afghanistan today than there were when he left the vice presidency, and seemed to incorrectly deny that his website called the Green New Deal a “crucial framework.”
Fact Check: Trump and Biden hold dueling town halls
