Fact check: Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden debate

Both candidates gave a more composed performance on this occasion. The debate was also more substantive. DW examines some of the issues that were discussed. 

Coronavirus pandemic:

Donald Trump claimed that the virus would soon be gone.

"It will go away. And as I say we're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. It's going away."

The figures don't bear that out.

Official numbers indicate that the US is entering a third wave. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 65,000 new cases on Thursday. That's a 30% increase compared with 14 days ago.

Trump also claimed that his administration had done a great job in handling the pandemic. A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association tells a different story. The US not only has the biggest absolute number of deaths related to the virus; over the past five months, the rate of deaths per capita was bigger than in the 18 other high-income countries in this report.

For his part, Joe Biden said "red" states, as in Republican-run, were seeing the worst of the figures:

"And look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. They are the red states, they're the states in the Midwest, they're the states in the Upper Midwest, that's where the spike is occurring significantly."

Biden's statement, however, needs to be put into context: According to the CDC, as of Thursday eight states have recorded more than 40 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past seven days. Two of those, Montana and Wisconsin, are run by Democrats, and the six others are led by Republicans. In states that have recorded 25 to 40.0 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants within a week, the gap becomes more narrow. Eight of those are run by a Republican governor and five by Democrats. 

Renewable energies:

Biden claimed that the fastest growing industries are solar energy and wind energy:

TheUS Bureau of Labor statistics reports that wind energy is indeed the fastest growing sector, followed by nursing jobs and solar energy jobs.

Trump once again claimed that "the fumes coming up to make these massive windmills is more than anything that we are talking about with natural gas, which is very clean."

In fact, wind power's carbon footprint is the smallest of any energy source just behind nuclear energy, according to a study by the University of Texas which shows that the footprint of natural gas is more than 48 times larger.

Health care:

Trump has been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, ever since he took office. During the debate, he claimed that under Biden's plan 180 million people would lose their private health care plans.

"Joe Biden is going to terminate all those policies."

This is misleading.

Biden's plan wouldn't end private insurance options. He intends to create a public program for those who want to get government health insurance and at the same time allow those with private insurance to retain them.

In 2018, 218 million people were covered by a private health-care insurance plan, while 111 million had taken out a public option.

Biden claimed that not one person lost the health insurance under Obamacare. This is false. 

When Obamacare took effect in 2014, 5.9 million people lost individual health insurance plans, according to a study by the Rand think tank. The flipside of the coin is that over 22 million Americans have health insurance through the ACA.

Foreign business dealings:

Trump has been accused of being involved in dubious business deals with a number of foreign countries, including China and Russia. During the debate he claimed: "I don't make money from China. I don't make money from Ukraine. I don't make money from Russia."

According to a New York Times report, based on his tax records, Trump holds bank accounts in China, Britain and Ireland. According to the report, these accounts do not show up on his public financial disclosures.

The Chinese account is controlled by Trump's International Hotels Management group, which the tax records show paid almost $200,000 in taxes in China from 2013 to 2015.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization has said that no deals or transactions have taken place and that, while it remains open, the account has not been used for those purposes.

Trump has attacked the Biden campaign in the past, accusing Biden's son Hunter of shady business dealings with Chinese companies, however, those allegations remain unsubstantiated.

Similar accusations have been made about Trump's business ties with Russia. For years he pursued a project to build a skyscraper in Moscow,which ultimately came to nothing. However, a Reuters report unveiled that over 60 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have invested close to $100 million in Trump-owned real estate and property in Florida.