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President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump faced off Thursday night in their first debate of the 2024 election. CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash acted as moderators at CNN’s studios in Atlanta.

The one-on-one matchup was unique, not only because it pitted a president against his predecessor, but because it had no live audience and the two candidates’ microphones were muted when it wasn’t their time to speak.

Trump and Biden also were not allowed to bring any notes or props onto the stage.

Both Trump and Biden sought to use the 90-minute debate well ahead of the Nov. 5 election to highlight their respective successes as president and to criticize the other’s policies. Some claims made from the stage were misleading or lacked adequate context.

Biden Accuses Trump of Recommending Drinking Bleach

Biden opened by claiming Trump said Americans should “drink bleach” to battle COVID-19. In July 2020, the left-leaning PolitiFact found this claim to be “mostly false.” 

At the time, Trump spoke at a briefing with William Bryan, then-under secretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security. Bryan talked about a study that found that sun exposure and disinfectants such as bleach could kill the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 when it lingers on surfaces.

Trump said at that briefing: “I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with–but it sounds interesting to me.”

‘Everybody’ Supported Overturning Roe v. Wade 

When Biden blamed Trump for the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade, in part because he appointed three of the nine justices, Trump asserted that “everybody wanted to get it back to the states.” 

In July 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling that legalized abortion on demand across America and nationalized the issue, polling found that a majority of Americans opposed overturning Roe. 

The high court’s Dobbs decision gave the abortion question back to the people and their state representatives, conservatives argue. 

However, it’s not clear that all Americans were aware it was a national issue.

Corporate Greed Is the Reason

Biden said of inflation on his watch:  “A combination of what I was left with and corporate greed is the reason we’re in this problem right now.”

“What I was left with” in part referred to the COVID-19 pandemic, which did economic damage to America, but Biden approved $4.3 trillion in new 10-year borrowing. During his presidency, Trump added $8.4 trillion of new 10-year borrowing, or $4.8 trillion excluding COVID-19 relief. 

Rising prices trace back partly to supply-chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Biden’s spending coming out of the pandemic also contributed to inflation. “Corporate greed” doesn’t explain the 20% inflation since January 2021.

‘We Are Not for Late-Term Abortion. Period. Period. Period.’

Biden declared: “We are not for late-term abortion. Period. Period. Period.”

If Biden opposes late-term abortion, that would mark a departure from his previous stance. 

The president repeatedly has advocated the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation that specifically states that the right to abortion “shall not be limited or otherwise infringed.” 

The bill would allow abortion providers to determine whether a pregnancy is considered “viable,” effectively enabling abortions at any point.

The Women’s Health Protection Act would have allowed abortion after the point of “fetal viability” when a health care provider makes a “good-faith medical judgment” that “continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

‘Lowest Taxes Ever’

Responding to Biden’s blaming him for the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said: “On Jan. 6, we had the lowest taxes ever, the lowest regulations ever.”

Trump did decrease taxes through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and he did direct the federal bureaucracy to cut regulations, but taxes and regulations during Trump’s term were still higher than at many points in American history. 

Before 1913, the United States had no federal income tax. As a result of the progressive movement, the federal government ballooned; the bureaucracy added more than 150,000 pages to the Federal Register in each year of Trump’s presidency.

However, the bureaucracy promulgated 2,964 final rules in 2019 under Trump, the lowest count since record-keeping began in the 1970s and the only tally below 3,000, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 

In 2022, Biden’s first full calendar year, the federal bureaucracy released 4,429 final rules.

Trump’s general point—that taxes and regulations were lower during his presidency than they became under Biden—is correct. But his statement that he had the “lowest taxes ever” and the “lowest regulations ever” in American history is flatly false.

This story is developing and will be updated.

Former President Donald Trump makes a point as President Joe Biden listens Thursday night during CNN’s presidential debate in Atlanta. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)