Analysis | Fact checking Biden’s post-NATO news conference (2024)

— Biden

Biden is basically correct on what former president Donald Trump said, but he has the chronology wrong. Trump was admiring of Russian President Vladimir Putin the day before the invasion, not the day after.

“You gotta say, that’s pretty savvy,” Trump said on a conservative talk radio show of Putin’s decision to declare certain breakaway regions in Ukraine as independent. “And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.”

“This is genius,” Trump said. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”

Trump made his remarks on Feb. 23, 2022. Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“As a consequence, working with Mexico, border encounters have gone down over 50 percent. The current level is lower today than when Trump left office.”

A White House official, citing internal Department of Homeland Security figures, says the seven-day average of Southwest border encounters between ports of entry was 1,838 as of July 11. That compares to a seven-day average of Southwest border encounters between ports of entry of 2,415 on Jan. 19, 2021, Trump’s last full day in office.

“The UAW just endorsed me.”

The United Auto Workers endorsed Biden in January. After Biden made this statement in response to a question about UAW support, there was an increase in search traffic about whether the union had endorsed him, perhaps because during his debate with Donald Trump, Biden falsely said he had been endorsed by the Border Patrol union. He quickly corrected himself at the time to say the union had endorsed the bipartisan border bill.

“There are at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower numbers than I have now later in the campaign.”

Biden’s whistling past the graveyard here. According to the presidential ratings tracked by FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating, 36.8 percent, at this point in his presidency is lower than any other presidents besides George H.W. Bush (36.7 percent) and Jimmy Carter (33.9 percent). Gerald Ford had an approval rating slightly higher. All three lost.

The statistics go back to Harry S. Truman and the advent of modern polling, so it’s unclear why Biden claimed five presidents had lower numbers. He could have been referring to election polling numbers, though approval ratings of incumbent presidents are a good guide to chances of victory. Presidents with approval ratings of at least 50 percent have won reelection — and Biden is far below that.

“As you recall, understandably, many of you and many economists thought my initial initiatives that I put forward, ‘can’t do that, it’s going to cause inflation, things are going to skyrocket, debt’s going to go up.’”

Inflation spiked to 9 percent one year after Biden passed his covid relief plan. Whether the bill made inflation worse is still subject to debate. As we have explained before, deficits (and thus the national debt) went up because of Biden’s policies.

“More children are killed by the bullet than any other cause of death.”

Biden is using a statistic on gun deaths of “children and teens,” meaning it includes deaths of 18- and 19-year-olds, who are legally considered adults in most states. When you focus only on children — 17 and younger — motor vehicle deaths (broadly defined) still rank No. 1, as they have for six decades, though the gap is rapidly closing. Deaths of children from gun violence have increased about 50 percent from 2019 to 2021, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows.

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