All right, so CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett
has been fact checking some of the claims made during
last night's debate and he's joining us now.
It's always a pleasure to see you,
Major. I think one of the challenges of this new
format,
which helped to make sure that,
you know, the candidates didn't talk over each other was
that
there was not a lot of pushback when they said
things that weren't
entirely factual or when they didn't answer the question.
So let's get down to it.
When it comes to the economy,
former President Trump falsely claimed last night that under President
Biden,
the US saw the largest national deficit based on data
from the National Treasury.
We know that that's not true.
Trump also made this comment.
We have never done so well,
Every everybody was amazed by it.
Other countries were copying us.
All right, so he had talked about,
you know, we had the greatest economy in the history
of the country.
Can you dig a little deeper into the truth in
terms of how you can how the
US economy compares between the two?
Sure. Good morning, Anne Marie.
Former President Trump is a great marketer,
and that was one of his most repeated slogans,
that the US economy was the greatest that it's ever
been under his administration.
And that's simply not true.
Now, economics comes to you in the way you feel,
the way you interact with it,
but there's also statistics that can help clarify what is
or isn't the best economy in American history.
And when you talk about gross domestic product or unemployment
on those two measurements alone,
President Biden's record outdoes President Trump's.
Even pre pandemic economic performance under the Trump administration.
Stock market growth was better in Clinton years and Obama
years and during the Trump administration years.
Was it a good economy where people generally satisfied with
it?
That's true. But was it the greatest ever on those
3 matrices?
No, it wasn't. Not even close.
One point of contrast for the former president,
which came up a lot last night,
is inflation and interest rates and those bedeviled consumers now
more than during the Trump administration.
But the greatest economy ever?
By no stretch of the imagination is that true.
All right, another hot button topic,
Immigration. Trump made the claim that Biden wants open borders
last night,
while Biden claimed fewer illegal crossings are happening under the
current administration compared to
Trump's administration. Let us play some sound.
I've changed it in a way that now you're in
a situation where there are 40%
fewer people coming across the border illegally.
It's better than when he left office.
All right, Major, help us cut through the noise on
immigration.
I know you know, the former or President Biden just
implemented new policies that are having an impact right now.
But can you talk to us a little bit about
what's happening at the border and how it compares between
the two administrations?
Sure. So we rate that with the CBS News confirmed
team as partially true.
And here's why. Yes, President Biden took executive action recently
that changed policies on interdicting those seeking to cross the
border.
And there has, for one month been a 40%
reduction from the totals before that executive action was taken.
That part of it is true.
But of course, the numbers of border crossings were much,
much higher before those executive actions,
and the numbers during the Trump administration were comparatively lower
because there were stricter border policies under the Trump administration.
That's why we rate that assertion by President Biden as
partially true.
All right, So next, there were some tense exchanges between
the candidates During a discussion of our our troops and
military.
President Biden falsely claimed that he's the only president this
century that doesn't have troops dying anywhere in the world.
And President Trump tried to amend the record on alleged
disparaging comments that,
yeah, he made about U.S.
military members who were captured or killed.
Let's play some sound. First of all,
that was a made-up quote.
Suckers and losers. They made it up.
It was in a third rate magazine that's failing,
like many of these magazines.
He made that up.
OK, So the, the, he was,
I, I believe, a general that was in the administration
who he later said that he reminded everyone that he
fired.
OK, So Major set the record straight for us on
Trump's claim about his comments being completely fiction.
So former Chief of Staff John Kelly has said those
quotes are accurate and can be attributed and should be
attributed to former President Trump.
Others around the administration have also echoed that reporting that
appeared in The Atlantic magazine
last night. Former President Trump said he has 19 people.
I don't know who they are.
He didn't list them. Who said he never said it.
The fact is it's published.
Those who were close to the administration or in the
administration,
close to former President Trump at the time that this
reporting surfaced later,
confirmed and verified those things.
So that is something that the public should take due
note of just because a politician denies something and it's
attributed on the record or verified later by those who
were possible sources of that original reporting tends to confirm
it.
That's where we are on that.
All right. And just one last thing before I let
you go,
Major, set the record straight on who is the better
golfer.
I'm, I'm just, I'm just joking.
I would, I would say this,
Anne Marie, when the feistiest exchange of a presidential debate
is about golfing,
you might ask yourself, what else would you expect from
2 old white men who are rich?
Very good point, Major. Thank you very much.