President Joe Biden made some misleading and exaggerated statements during his first televised interview post-debate, admitting to an unsuccessful performance at presidential debates.
Here’s what Biden said during his 22-minute, primetime interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on July 5:
Biden exaggerated when he claimed that U.S. semiconductor production capacity has significantly declined to “virtually zero.”
Biden inadvertently suggested that former President Donald Trump advised people to inject bleach as an antidote for COVID-19, when this statement is false and deceptive.
Biden rejected claims he had lost ground to Trump in post-debate polling, insisting “nothing’s changed substantially” following their encounter in The New York Times poll that followed after. That poll had Trump leading by 6 percentage points — an increase of three points since before their last debate.
Biden repeated his misleading talking point that Trump “lost more jobs than he created”, without considering the swift and devastating economic ramifications caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden claimed that America has seen its share of global semiconductor production capacity decrease to “virtually nothing”. While that statement might have been exaggerated, that statement certainly holds some truth.
“Our nation used to account for 40% of computer chips,” according to President Donald Trump, and this number had dropped dramatically to less than 0.
A report by Congressional Research Service from 2020 stated that federal governments “played an integral part in developing semiconductors”, with North America accounting for around 40% of total semiconductor fabrication capacity back then (roughly equivalent to 40% today), outranking South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China combined as fifth in terms of capacity share in 2019. The U.S. had seen its capacity share decrease to 11% by 2019 due to reduced federal involvement (primarily from Taiwan ).
CRS described chips as small electronic devices which “play an indispensable role in nearly all modern industrial and national security activities” while acting as essential building blocks of new emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, 5G communications networks and quantum computing.
Concerns over the competitiveness of U.S. semiconductor industry led Biden to sign into law in August 2022 the CHIPS and Science Act which provided $39 billion towards increasing chip manufacturing capacity within the nation.
A report released by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting Group in May projected that investments facilitated by incentives available under the CHIPS Act could cause U.S. fab capacity to expand from 10% today to 14% by 2032 if new investments took place; otherwise it would drop down to 8% according to this projection.
Biden misrepresented Trump by falsely asserting he instructed people to inject bleach as an antidote for COVID-19.
“He said we should put bleach into our arms to treat COVID, with over one million deaths,” Biden noted of U.S. deaths caused by COVID.
As we’ve previously written, Biden mischaracterizes Trump’s words; in April 2020 press briefing at the White House he suggested scientists in DHS test the use of very powerful light and disinfectants inside humans in order to kill COVID-19 virus; not that Americans try it themselves.
Stephanopoulos asserted Biden lagged further behind Donald Trump after their June 27 debate, particularly according to a New York Times/Siena College poll which put Trump up by 6 percentage points. President Obama countered by noting the same poll showed him trailing him by 10 points prior to debate – “nothing’s changed significantly since” according to this analysis of their poll results by New York Times/Siena College pollsters!
But as Stephanopoulos noted, the latest Times/Siena poll demonstrates Donald Trump has extended his lead. Now ahead by 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationwide following last week’s debate, Trump now enjoys “49 percent to 43 percent support among likely voters nationally — marking an upward shift by three percentage points since last week and before debate,” according to The New York Times’ article on it. In fact, that marks Trump’s largest lead recorded since 2015!
Even taking into account independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s inclusion, the Times/Siena poll shows Donald Trump ahead by 5 points — 42% to 37% with Kennedy only garnering 8% among likely voters.
The margin of error for this poll was “plus or minus 2.9 percentage points for likely electorate”
Suffolk University/USA Today National Voter Poll revealed Trump “narrowly led” Biden with 41% to 38% among registered voters while Kennedy polled only 8%; these major party candidates had been tied at 37% in May.
Donald Trump holds a three point advantage within the Suffolk/USA Today poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Stephanopoulos noted that Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million, yet narrow victories in several key swing states allowed Biden to secure his election to both houses of congress and to win the presidency.
Biden Discussing Job Growth
Biden often compares Donald Trump with Herbert Hoover, the Depression-era president. According to Biden, both have “lost more jobs than they created”.
As we’ve noted previously, Biden seems oblivious to the economic ramifications associated with COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. employers created more than 6.7 million jobs during Donald Trump’s first 37 months as president, yet in March 2020 alone the economy lost nearly 20.5 million jobs according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Job creation began to rise again by May 2020; however, by the time President Trump left office four years later there were approximately 2.7 million fewer total employment positions available in America than there had been at its inception.
Under Biden, employment levels have seen an upswing from February 2020’s pre-pandemic peak — rising 6.2 million from pre-pandemic peak; with 15.6 million added since Biden assumed office in January 2021 (BLS data).
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