Trump's bogus list of what Biden would ban or destroy

By Miriam Valverde - PolitiFact

Based on what the President Donald Trump says, Joe Biden and their allies want to ban or destroy the things that matter most to Americans, like protections for health care, the Second Amendment, and churches.

"The radical left is hell-bent on destroying all that we love and value," Trump said at a campaign event in Sanford, Florida, on Oct. 12, sparing no exaggeration.

Three days later, Trump insisted on this issue and posted on the social network Twitter that Biden and the Democrats “will end their jobs, dismantle their police departments, dissolve their borders, release criminal aliens, increase their taxes, confiscate their weapons, they will end

, destroy their suburbs and remove God from the public square. "

As part of the 2020 election coverage, PolitiFact has been monitoring and verifying Trump claims like these, on Twitter, at campaign events, at White House events, and in media interviews.

And we've found a pattern: Their claims about things Biden and the Democrats want to eliminate are usually inaccurate, misleading, exaggerated, or simplistic reductions.

(We have also verified Biden's words.)

Here's a summary of more than a dozen things that Trump repeatedly (and wrongly) says that Biden wants to ban, abolish or destroy, along with a summary of what the true data is.

• Biden "will destroy protections for pre-existing conditions"

Biden doesn't want to end these protections.

Biden says he supports and defends Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the law enacted by former President Barack Obama that created strict protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

In fact, Trump is the one who wants to abolish the law and, although he issued an executive order without major effects on which those protections were supported, the president has not proposed a replacement that will keep them intact.

• "Biden's plan would destroy Social Security"

Biden's plan, in relation to health care and the elderly, does not propose to eliminate Social Security benefits.

Biden says that the Social Security program is one of the "great successes in public policy" in the country and assured that he will try to make the program solvent and also seek to prevent cuts to benefits for retirees.

[Learn more about our coverage of the presidential elections]

• Biden will "weaken Medicare"

Biden doesn't want to cut or eliminate Medicare.

Biden wants to allow Americans the ability to purchase a public option for government-sponsored health insurance, but he also plans to keep Medicare.

Biden said he wants to lower the age at which one can enter Medicare from 65 to 60 and he wants to protect the Medicare trust fund.

The Supreme Court will determine if it is legitimate for President Trump to divert funds for the wall

Oct. 19, 202000: 23

• "They want ... to confiscate their weapons"

Biden has not proposed to confiscate all weapons, nor to abolish the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.

To combat gun violence, Biden wants to ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as regulate the possession of existing assault weapons.

Biden says that, through a federal program, he will give those who now have assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act.

"We have the ability to end the epidemic of gun violence and uphold the Second Amendment, which is limited," says Biden's campaign page.

• "Now they want to abolish our police departments"

Biden has said on many occasions that he does not want to take funding away from the police or abolish police departments.

Biden says that these departments should receive resources to "implement structural reforms" and that federal money should depend on the implementation of these reforms.

His campaign platform includes hiring more officers, who focus on community policing.

• "They want to abolish our prisons"

Biden doesn't want to abolish prisons.

A task force from Biden's team and allies of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders met to reach an agreement on Biden's platform for the presidential election.

The document that resulted from that meeting recommended changing some of the aspects of jails and prisons, since in many of them people suffer from inhuman treatment.

Democrats support not using more private prisons.

But that is not the same as getting rid of all jails and prisons.

• “Abolish immigration detention.

  No more detention "

The Biden-Sanders task force also recommended ending for-profit detention centers, not abolishing all immigration detention centers.

The task force said the government should prioritize the use of Department of Homeland Security facilities and that arrests should be "the last resort, not the norm."

President Trump speaks to the press in Phoenix, Arizona, during a stop on his campaign tour on October 19, 2020. Carlos Barria / Reuters

• Biden "is even talking about tearing down the wall"

Biden has not said he would tear down the barriers built at the border.

What he has said is that he would not build more.

Biden says it would redirect "direct federal funds to smart border enforcement initiatives," such as cameras, sensors, large-scale X-ray machines and fixed towers at and between points of entry.

• Biden "would abolish

  fracking

  "

Biden would object to the federal government granting new permits for oil and gas exploitation on public land, but wants to allow

existing

operations to

continue to operate.

The

, officially known as hydraulic fracturing, is a technique for extracting oil and gas has helped increase domestic production over the last decade, but has also generated concern about its impacts on the environment and health.

About 10% of

is done on federal land.

[Another false claim from Trump: blame pandemic for changes in DACA]

• Biden "will destroy his suburbs"

Biden doesn't want to abolish the suburbs, force a reclassification of land, or end the zoning of single-family homes.

Trump's claim is an extreme interpretation of Biden's proposal to restore a requirement introduced during the Obama presidency that seeks to combat discrimination in housing.

• Democrats "want to close their churches permanently"

Democrats are not proposing that churches be closed.

Many states, including those run by Republicans, have forced residents to wear face masks in public, banned mass gatherings and ordered non-essential businesses to close to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Some states exempt churches from these restrictions.

• Biden and the Democrats want to "get God out of the public square"

Biden, a Catholic who speaks regularly about his faith, has not proposed this.

His campaign page says he would seek to "empower religious organizations so they can provide safe places of worship and community for their members, while reaffirming our national commitment to freedom, tolerance and inclusiveness."

Biden's plan to tackle anti-Semitism and violent attacks on places of worship includes increasing security money for religious communities, creating a religious public order program, and reducing impunity for hate crimes.

• Biden "would prohibit school choice and prohibit charter schools"

Biden's education policies include supporting

, or

, and the ability to choose public schools (

, in English).

For many Republican leaders, being able to choose a school is synonymous with giving families coupons to help pay for private school tuition.

Biden opposes using public money to pay for private school tuition.

The Biden-Sanders task force recommended opposing for

-profit and underperforming

schools

, and giving local school districts greater decision-making power about using federal funds to open new

schools

or expand existing ones.

• "No windows"

Trump has falsely said that Biden would enforce net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and that that obligation "basically means no windows, nothing."

The working group recommended setting a goal for all new buildings to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. But that recommendation did not speak of any obligations, or windows.

Furthermore, the presence of windows in a building does not imply that it cannot achieve net zero carbon emissions.

• "Forget about the cows"

Biden doesn't want to get rid of the cows, whose gas emissions contribute to climate change.

Trump said that Biden would try to pass the

(New

) and that, with this "we must forget about the cows."

That's not true.

For one thing, Biden has said he doesn't support the

.

His plan on the environment shares some of the broader goals of the

, such as having net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but leaves out other items on that agenda.

On the other hand, the proposal does not mention cows anywhere, except in a note in a supporting document saying that it would be difficult to ban "cows from farting."

The translation of this article was carried out by Pablo Medina Uribe thanks to the FactChat agreement, coordinated by the 

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