Fact check: Biden makes false claims about Israel, immigration and his administration’s spending

By CNN Newsource

Published July 16, 2024 12:32 PM

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — In a new interview with a youth culture media outlet, President Joe Biden made false or misleading claims about immigration, inflation, his administration’s spending, and a remark he made about Israel at last month’s CNN presidential debate.

Biden sat down Friday with Speedy Morman, a host for Complex. Here is a fact check of some of Biden’s comments, which were released in a YouTube video Monday.

Biden on his debate remark about Israel

Morman asked Biden about his debate remark that “we’re providing Israel with all the weapons they need and when they need them.” Biden responded, “I said defensive weapons. I denied them offensive weapons that they were using, 2,000-pound bombs and the rest.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. It’s not true that he specified at the debate that he was talking about “defensive” weapons. Morman quoted him correctly; Biden said at the debate, “We’re providing Israel with all the weapons they need and when they need them.” In addition, Biden’s administration has said he has withheld only a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs from Israel – not those 2,000 bombs and “the rest.” Biden himself said at the debate that “the only thing I’ve denied Israel was 2,000-pound bombs.”

After sending Israel thousands of 2,000-pound bombs during the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas’ terror attack on Israel in October, the Biden administration paused a recent planned shipment over concerns about possible harm to innocent people in highly populated areas. But the administration continues to provide Israel with 500-pound bombs and various other weapons. (There is no single definition of what constitutes an “offensive weapon,” nor a consensus about which acts by Israel should be considered defensive or offensive.)

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broadly claimed in a June video that the Biden administration was “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” US envoy Amos Hochstein told Netanyahu the claim was “completely untrue,” a senior US official told CNN. Also, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Netanyahu’s claim was “incorrect,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “it’s regular order” when it comes to providing military supplies to Israel “with the exception of that one system that we’ve talked about many times in public,” the 2,000-pound bombs.

Biden on his tightening of the border

Touting the impact of the executive action he took in June to tighten the southern border, Biden said, “Guess what? The number of people seeking to come into the country is down lower than it was at any time when he [Donald Trump] was president.”

Facts First: This is false. US encounters with migrants at the southern border did fall in June, but the number of encounters was lower during most of the Trump presidency – throughout 2017 and 2018, eight months of 2019 (there was a spike in part of that year), and again throughout 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic limited global movement and Trump tightly restricted the border.

The key number monitored by federal officials under Biden’s executive action, Border Patrol encounters with migrants on the southern border in between legal ports of entry, was 83,536 in June 2024, figures released after Biden’s interview show. This was lower than the figure in June 2019, which US Customs and Border Protection calls “the last comparable year prior to the pandemic.”

Still, the June 2024 number was higher than the numbers for June 2017 and June 2018 – and higher than every other month in those Trump-era years – plus higher than the number for June 2020 and the rest of that year.

The Biden administration has made far more modest claims than the president did. In a press release Monday, US Customs and Border Protection noted the June figure was the lowest since January 2021 – the month Biden took office – but didn’t claim it was the lowest since Trump took office in January 2017, as Biden implied.

Asked for comment, a White House official told CNN on Tuesday that the current seven-day average for encounters between ports of entry has fallen below the seven-day average as of January 19, 2021, the day before Trump left office. That’s fair, but Biden’s own claim was much broader.

Biden on his administration’s spending

Biden claimed: “All the programs that I’ve initiated have saved the government money.” He cited the $160 billion in savings that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects will be achieved through two of the main prescription drug provisions in his Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Facts First: Biden’s claim that “all” of his new programs have saved the government money is false. Though he’s right that these prescription drug policies are projected to save the government $160 billion, numerous other Biden initiatives have cost the government money.

Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group that promotes deficit reduction and tracks the issue, said in a May email: “The President has signed into law and action a mixture of deficit-increasing and deficit-reducing policies — but far more so on the deficit-boosting side.”

Biden has signed various laws and taken various actions that have resulted in more spending than savings. These include a massive pandemic relief law, a bipartisan infrastructure law, a bipartisan law to better help veterans who were exposed to toxic substances, bipartisan foreign aid packages, and administration efforts to reduce student debt and boost food stamp benefits.

A June analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded that “President Biden has so far approved $6.2 trillion of gross new borrowing and $1.9 trillion of deficit reduction.”

Biden has repeatedly boasted that the federal budget deficit has declined during his tenure. But the primary reason for the decline is that the deficit had skyrocketed to a record high at the end of Trump’s term because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending in fiscal 2020, then fell as expected when that spending expired under Biden. Goldwein said the Biden-era deficit reduction has been “largely in spite of President Biden’s efforts, not because of them.”

Biden on inflation

Touting progress against inflation, Biden claimed, “It was 9% when I got [inaudible].
It’s down to 3%.”

Facts First: Biden’s “it was 9%” claim was misleading at best – and the claim would be flat false if the president finished the claim the way he did twice in May, when he said inflation was 9% when he took over. In fact, the inflation rate was 1.4% in January 2021, the month Biden was inaugurated as president, and did not hit 9% until June 2022, after he had been president for more than 16 months.

The June 2024 inflation rate was indeed 3%, and Biden could fairly tout the decline over the last two years. But he keeps claiming, or at least suggesting as he did here, that he inherited 9% inflation from Trump. That’s not true.

Biden on being a young senator

Asked about his age, Biden talked about how he was once considered “too young” to be in government. He then repeated a biographical claim he has made on numerous previous occasions: “I was the second-youngest man in the history of the Senate to get elected.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. He was the sixth-youngest man to become a US senator, not the second youngest, when he was sworn in at age 30 and about 1½ months in 1973. FactCheck.org has previously reported that Biden was the second-youngest senator from Delaware, not for the country as a whole.