Headline RoundupSeptember 14th, 2020

Fact Checkers Disagree On Whether Biden Called Trump's China Travel Ban 'Xenophobic'

2020 Election Fact Checking, Elections, 2020 Election, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Facts And Fact Checking

Summary from the AllSides News Team

TJ Ducklo, a national press secretary for the Biden campaign, claimed on Fox News Thursday that "the vice president was not against the travel ban" on China, which President Donald Trump enforced on January 31. When asked if Biden was for the China travel ban, Ducklo said he would send "fact checks." The day after Trump announced the travel ban, Biden tweeted on Feb 1, “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering." On March 18, Trump used the words "Chinese Virus" in a tweet; Biden responded on Twitter by saying "Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering." On March 26, Trump stated in a Sean Hannity interview that, "I had (Joe) Biden calling me xenophobic. … He called me a racist, because of the fact that he felt it was a racist thing to stop people from China coming in.” A fact check from left-rated fact checker site Politifact covered this story in March. Politifact said that while Biden didn't directly tie Trump's restrictions to xenophobia, Biden did not spell out which part of Trump’s tweet was xenophobic in his response. Center-rated FactCheck.org covered the story in July, framing Trump's comments about Biden as "misleading" and "unsupported," while pointing out that Biden did not take a position on the initial China travel ban.

Featured Coverage of this Story

From the Right

Yes, Biden Called Trump’s Travel Restrictions Xenophobic

National Review (News)

See rating details

National Review (News)

Analysis

Biden campaign national press secretary TJ Ducklo had a disastrous interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier on Thursday in which Ducklo appeared to be as eminently unprepared as your typical Trump White House surrogate, and grew increasingly agitated as the segment progressed. After Baier played clips of two experts that Biden has relied upon downplaying the coronavirus in late January, Ducklo claimed that “the vice president was not against the travel ban” placed on China by President Trump on January 31. Baier pressed Ducklo on this point, repeatedly asking if...

Open on National Review (News)

Possible Paywall

From the Left

Fact-checking whether Biden called Trump ‘xenophobic’ for restrictions on travel from China

PolitiFact

See rating details

Fact Check

Amid criticism of his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump routinely flags one action as efficient and bold: restricting travel from China into the United States.

Trump has said he instituted a travel ban against everyone’s wishes and that "nobody," not even doctors, wanted him to restrict travel. But "probably tens of thousands" of people would be dead now if he hadn’t done so, he claimed on Fox News March 24.

Open on PolitiFact

From the Left

Trump’s Misleading Comments on Biden and the Coronavirus

FactCheck.org

See rating details

Fact Check

In July 14 remarks in the White House Rose Garden, President Donald Trump made a series of false, misleading and unsupported statements about the novel coronavirus and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s position on it.We’ll examine the errors one by one.

Not a “travel ban.” First, as he repeatedly does, the president incorrectly describes the action that he took regarding travel from China, where the coronavirus was discovered last December. As we have previously reported, it wasn’t a “travel ban.”

On Jan. 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex...

Open on FactCheck.org

More headline roundups

Common Ground on Facts and Fact Checking