Presidential debate fact check: What Trump, Biden got right (and wrong)

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both strayed repeatedly from the truth as they squared off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season.

Here are some of the claims the USA TODAY Fact Check Team dug into:

Trump claim: Everybody wanted Roe v. Wade overturned

“I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted.”

This is not an accurate summary of public opinion on the question. Numerous polls show most Americans were not in favor of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. For example, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2022 found that 57% of respondents said they disapproved of the overturning of the landmark decision. A PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll conducted in May 2022 (before the case was decided) found that 64% of respondents were opposed to reversing Roe v. Wade.

There is little evidence opinions have changed much since the decision. A Marquette Law School poll conducted in February 2024 found that 67% of adults opposed the ruling, while a Gallup poll from June 2023 found that 60% of respondents said overturning Roe v. Wade was a “bad thing.”

-Brad Sylvester

Biden claim: Historians voted Trump ‘worst’ president in history

“(Trump) was the worst in all of American history. … He can argue (the historians) are wrong, but that’s what they voted.”

Biden was presumably referring to the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, a joint project of University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus and Coastal Carolina University professor Justin Vaughn.

The survey respondents in late 2023 voted Trump the lowest in “overall presidential greatness,” behind James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce. Abraham Lincoln was rated highest. Biden ranked at No. 14.

Respondents included scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in related scholarly journals or academic presses and current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which the survey described as “the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics.”

Out of 525 respondents invited to participate, the survey received 154 usable responses, yielding a 29% response rate.

–Andre Byik

Biden claim: We lowered the cost of an insulin shot from $400 to $15

“We brought down the price of prescription drugs, which is a major issue for many people, to $15 for – for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”

This is false. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August 2022 capped the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month for all seniors on Medicare, according to the White House. Several pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, limited the monthly cost of the drug to $35 per month as well. But there is no evidence Biden limited the cost of insulin beyond this.

The price of insulin was also never set at $400, though many paid about that much. The price a person pays for insulin depends on a variety of factors, including what type of insulin they are using, insurance status and whether they're eligible for a rebate from the drugmaker, according to NBC News. While estimates vary, one government study published in December 2022 reported that in 2019, the average insulin user with private insurance spent $456 on insulin annually, while those with Medicare spent $449 a year and those without health insurance paid $996, comparatively.

-Brad Sylvester

Trump claim: Record ‘approval rating’ from VA

“I had the highest approval rating in the history of the VA.”

This is both false and a mischaracterization of what the quarterly customer experience surveys from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs measure.

The Veteran Signals surveys track the proportion of servicemembers who express having trust in the VA. It's not a presidential approval rating.

It has topped 80% twice: It was at 80% in 2020 during Trump’s administration, and it reached a high of 80.4% in May under Biden.

Trump made a similar version of the claim during a May rally in Wisconsin, according to a report from Wisconsin Watch.

– Joedy McCreary

Trump claim: Food prices have 'doubled and tripled and quadrupled' under Biden

"You look at the cost of food where it's doubled and tripled and quadrupled."

The cost of food has gone up under Biden, but not to the extent Trump claimed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's all-food consumer price index shows food prices rose by 25% from 2019 to 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused changes in consumer behavior and led to supply chain disruptions, driving large increases in some foods. In 2022, food costs increased faster than any year since 1979, "partly due to a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that affected egg and poultry prices," according to the department's report.

But grocery prices have stabilized over the last year, increasing by just 1.2% in the past 12 months, according to the Consumer Price Index report from March 2024.

- Chris Mueller

Trump claim: Biden called African Americans ‘super predators’

"He did a crime bill. 1994. Where you called them super predators. African Americans. Super predators. And they've never forgotten it. They've never forgotten it."

While Biden once warned of “predators” in 1993 while advocating for a 1994 crime bill he sponsored as a senator, he never referred to African Americans as “super predators.” Rather, it was then-first lady Hillary Clinton who linked that term to the 1994 crime bill, as USA TODAY previously reported

While campaigning for her husband in 1996, Clinton praised the 1994 crime bill for curbing gangs, saying, "We need to take these people on, they are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscious, no empathy,"

Notably, she did not connect this comment to Black people.

-Brad Sylvester

Trump claim: Unprecedented numbers of murders by immigrants under Biden

“People are coming in and they’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen.”

There is no data that point to a wave of homicides being led by people illegally in the U.S.

A review of 2024 crime data by NBC News suggests the opposite might be true. Overall crime levels have fallen in cities where a Texas program has sent migrants from the border, the network reported in February.

Crime is down year over year in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York and Los Angeles, according to the report. Washington experienced a rise, but officials do not attribute that spike to migrants, NBC News reported.

Trump previously made a version of the claim during a speech in Eagle Pass.

Research suggests immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U.S.

– Joedy McCreary

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check of presidential debate: What did Trump, Biden get wrong?