During a speech in South Carolina on Feb. 27, Joe Biden touted his record as president while criticizing his successor, President Donald Trump. But during his remarks, Biden made several false, misleading, or exaggerated claims.
- The former president claimed that his administration created “2.2 million additional jobs” during his last year in office compared with “185,000 jobs” in the first year of Trump’s second term. But the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that Biden inflated job gains on his watch and undersold job gains under Trump.
- He claimed that the economy experienced “record growth” during his administration, which is not supported by data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. There was higher quarterly and annual economic growth under other presidents.
- He also said that “border crossings” in the U.S. were lower the day he left office than when he entered office. Yes, but total apprehensions of people illegally crossing the southern border in Biden’s last year were still more than double the number in the last year of Trump’s first term.
Biden was in South Carolina to celebrate winning the state’s Democratic presidential primary six years earlier. Biden’s win there helped propel him to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
