The first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle is taking place on June 27, and fact-checking began before the debate even started. This year, it isn’t just the media preparing their fact checks — both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump also have their own approaches for fact-checking each other.
Trump’s campaign launched a new website, factcheckbiden.com, where people can subscribe to get live updates during the debate.
“[Biden’s] performances are often filled with lies — about himself, about statistics, about his record, and about events that never took place,” the website says. “We are holding Joe Biden accountable for his long track record of lying.”
The Biden campaign released a fact-checking memo for the media on the day of the debate. The memo details the campaign’s “rapid response strategy,” with a look at what it calls the “lies, misstatements and exaggerations” it believes Trump will say on stage.
According to NBC, the memo states Biden’s team will also be sending out “fact-check emails” to the news outlets during the debate.
The media has already started fact-checking.
The Associated Press has laid out context to controversial takes the candidates are likely to have. Other news outlets are encouraging debate watchers to follow their live fact-checking blogs on one screen with the debate on another.
CNN is hosting the debate and has previously said its moderators will not be fact-checking the candidates during the debate. However, senior reporter Daniel Dale will be posting live fact-checks on X, providing a running fact check online.
The New York Times will have 60 staff members on hand, 29 of which will be fact-checking live. Other cable networks’ websites will be doing the same.
PolitiFact, a site dedicated to fact-checking politicians, said they will have 27 staff members available to update the website’s fact-check tally.
American’s opinions about fact-checking is fairly partisan. Pew Research found that 70% of Republicans believe fact-checkers are biased. About 29% of Democrats and 47% of Independents felt the same.
Multiple polls have shown that trust is hard to come by. Fact-checking was originally meant to serve as a tool in building trust, however, even that has a partisan divide as two candidates’ conflicting policies and personalities take center stage.
