“Let’s just take a look at the facts,” President Joe Biden said on Thursday while speaking in Syracuse, New York. Then he misstated the facts.

“When I took office, the economy was in ruins,” Biden said.”

“My predecessor was the first President since Herbert Hoover, not a joke, to lose jobs in the entirety of his administration, the first. Unemployment, when I was sworn in, was at 6.4 percent. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses had closed.”

In the final year of his presidency, Donald Trump was grappling with the COVID pandemic that derailed his once-thriving economy. Biden is taking credit for the pandemic rebound, as Americans return to work and COVID panic ebbs.