In his first televised interview since his “bad” presidential debate, President Joe Biden made several exaggerated and misleading statements.
During a 22-minute, primetime interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on July 5, Biden said the U.S. share of global semiconductor production capacity has declined to “virtually nothing.” He also incorrectly claimed that former President Donald Trump told the public to inject bleach as a treatment for COVID-19. Additionally, Biden denied that he had fallen further behind Trump in post-debate polling, asserting “nothing’s changed substantially since the debate” in the New York Times poll. However, the Times post-debate poll showed Trump ahead by 6 percentage points, an increase of 3 points.
Biden also repeated his assertion that Trump “lost more jobs than he created,” ignoring the rapid economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Semiconductors
Biden stated that the U.S. share of global semiconductor production capacity has declined to “virtually nothing,” which is an exaggeration. He said, “We used to have 40% of computer chips. We invented the chip, the little chip, the computer chip. It’s in everything from cellphones to weapons. And so, we used to have 40%, and we’re down to virtually nothing.”
According to a Congressional Research Service report published in 2020, the U.S. used to account for about 40% of semiconductor fabrication capacity in 1990. By 2019, the share in North America, primarily the U.S., had declined to 11%, ranking fifth behind South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China.
Concerns about the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry led to Biden signing the CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022, which included $39 billion to boost chip manufacturing capacity in the country. A report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Boston Consulting Group projected that investments under the CHIPS Act would increase the U.S. share of global fab capacity to grow from 10% today to 14% by 2032.
Bleach
Biden wrongly claimed that Trump told the public to inject bleach as a treatment for COVID-19, saying, “This is a guy who told us to put bleach in our arms to deal with COVID, with a million — over a million people died.”
Trump suggested during an April 2020 press briefing at the White House that scientists test the use of “very powerful light” and “disinfectant” in the body to kill the virus but did not tell Americans to try it themselves.
New York Times Poll
Stephanopoulos noted that Biden fell “further behind” Trump in national polling after the June 27 debate, including the latest New York Times/Siena College poll showing Trump up by 6 percentage points. Biden countered, saying the New York Times/Siena College poll showed him “behind 10 points” prior to the debate and “nothing’s changed substantially since the debate.”
However, the latest Times/Siena poll showed Trump had widened his lead to 49% to 43% among likely voters, a three-point swing toward Trump from just a week earlier. That was Trump’s largest lead in a Times/Siena poll since 2015. Including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump led Biden by 42% to 37%, with Kennedy receiving 8%.
Other polling showed similar results, with the Suffolk University/USA Today National Voter Poll finding Trump edging ahead of Biden 41% to 38%, with Kennedy polling 8%. The Suffolk/USA Today poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Biden’s Talking Point on Jobs
Biden compared Trump to Depression-era president Herbert Hoover, stating Trump “lost more jobs than he created.” This comparison ignores the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. added nearly 6.7 million jobs in Trump’s first 37 months in office, but the economic downturn in March 2020 led to significant job losses. By the end of Trump’s four years, the U.S. had about 2.7 million fewer jobs. Under Biden, employment is up 6.2 million from the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020, resulting in a total increase of about 15.6 million jobs since he took office in January 2021.