CLAIM: Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said at a town hall Thursday in Philadelphia that President Donald Trump could have kept schools and businesses open if he passed some kind of relief.
VERDICT: True.
Trump did pass relief in May 2020 when he signed into law a historic $2 trillion relief package to help small businesses and the American worker, which included sending checks directly to families and individuals and a major expansion of unemployment benefits.
He also signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law on March 27, 2020.
Biden referred to the stimulus packages during the town hall, but he also falsely claimed that “a significant portion of that money” went to wealthy corporations.
“The president had an opportunity to open and allow schools and businesses to stay open if they got the kind of help they needed, so that Congress passed a couple trillion dollars worth of help, and what happened was most of that money…,” Biden said as he was trailing off.
“A significant portion of that money went to the very wealthiest corporations in the country, didn’t get to the mom-and-pop stores, so you had one-in-five, one-in-six minority businesses closing, many of them permanently, people being laid off,” he added.
Biden then countered that his plan would have “opened businesses and schools” if they had the “guidance” and “money” to be able to do it.
“You make sure there’s testing and tracing, and you make sure that people are equipped, going to schools,” he said.