In their first and perhaps only presidential debate in the 2024 election, a defensive former president Donald Trump relied on many of his favorite falsehoods to combat attacks from Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris stretched the truth on occasion, but she was no match in the falsehood department against Trump.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a roundup of 55 claims that caught our interest, in the order in which they were made. (In some cases we have grouped similar Trump statements together.) As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios when we do a roundup of facts in debates.<\/p>\n
\u201cEconomists have said that that Trump sales tax would actually result, for middle class families, in about $4,000 more a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This may be a high estimate. Trump suggested he wants to impose a 10 percent tax on every imported good entering the United States and a 60 percent tax on every imported good from China. The pro-trade Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that this would cost a typical U.S. household in the middle of the income distribution about $1,700 in after-tax income. That\u2019s because tariffs are typically passed on to consumers by importers \u2014 a standard economic concept that Trump rejects.<\/p>\n
But in one recent campaign rally, Trump mused that he would impose a 20 percent tariff. Peterson redid the numbers and estimated this would cost that typical household more than $2,600 a year.<\/p>\n
Harris is relying on an estimate from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund, which calculates the cost would be $3,900.<\/p>\n
But economist Kimberly Clausing, co-author of the Peterson study, says these studies are underestimates because they do not consider the increase in the price of goods that compete with imports. \u201cWe have every reason to think U.S. domestic prices would rise in those sectors that compete with imports\u201d and \u201cthat effect is very large,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cThe true cost I\u2019d guess is roughly twice as high as our number.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no sales tax. That\u2019s an incorrect statement. She knows that we\u2019re doing tariffs on other countries. Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we\u2019ve done for the world and the tariff will be substantial in some cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Trump is flat wrong to claim that the entire tariff is paid by a foreign country. There is no controversy among economists, who agree that tariffs \u2014 essentially a tax on domestic consumption \u2014 are paid by importers, such as U.S. companies, which in turn pass on most or all of the costs to consumers or producers who may use imported materials in their products. As a matter of demand and supply elasticities, overseas producers will pay part of the tax if there are fewer goods sold to the United States. Domestic producers in effect get a subsidy because they can raise their prices to the level imposed on importers.<\/p>\n
Through the end of his presidency, Trump-imposed tariffs garnered about $75 billion on products from China. So, ultimately, Americans footed the bill for Trump\u2019s tariffs, not the Chinese. Moreover, the China tariff revenue was reduced by $28 billion in payments the government made to farmers who lost business because China stopped buying U.S. soybeans, hogs, cotton and other products in response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had tariffs, and yet I had no inflation\u2026I had no inflation, virtually no inflation. They had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country, because I\u2019ve never seen a worse period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have inflation like very few people have ever seen before, probably the worst in our nation\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Biden did not have the highest inflation in U.S. history. Inflation spiked to 9 percent in mid 2022, a 40-year-high, but is now below 3 percent. (For all of 2022, inflation was 6.5 percent.) Inflation was 12.5 percent in 1980, 13.3 pecent in 1979 and 18.1 percent in 1946 \u2014 and many other years were higher than 6.5 percent.<\/p>\n
Higher prices for goods and services would have happened no matter who was elected president in 2020. Inflation initially spiked because of pandemic-related shocks \u2014 increased consumer demand as the pandemic eased and an inability to meet this demand because of supply-chain issues, as companies reduced production when consumers hunkered down during the pandemic. Indeed, inflation rose around the world \u2014 with many peer countries doing worse than the United States \u2014 because of pandemic-related shocks that rippled across the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is poppycock. Immigration experts know of no effort by other countries to empty their prisons and mental institutions. As someone who came to prominence in the late \u201970s and early \u201980s, Trump appears to be channeling Cuban leader Fidel Castro\u2019s 1980 Mariel boatlift. About 125,000 Cubans were allowed to flee to the United States in 1,700 boats \u2014 but there was a backlash when it was discovered that hundreds of refugees had been released from jails and mental health facilities.<\/p>\n
Helen Fair, research associate at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research in Britain, which tracks the world prison population (except for a handful of countries), says the numbers keep growing. In 2013, 10.2 million people were in prison globally \u2014 and that had grown to 10.77 million in 2021. A preliminary estimate for February 2024, not ready to be published, indicates the population has grown even more. \u201cIn short, I would disagree with Donald Trump\u2019s assertion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at Springfield, Ohio, you look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They\u2019re taking over buildings. They\u2019re going in violently\u2026 They\u2019re at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of towns don\u2019t want to talk about it because they\u2019re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they\u2019re eating the cats. They\u2019re eating, they\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Trump is channeling right-wing social media sensations. On Springfield, Trump is referencing a ridiculous social-media hoax, supposedly centered on Haitian immigrants eating cats and other animals, that has spawned thousands of memes across right-wing social media. There is no evidence that Haitians are doing this. As for Aurora, police in this Denver suburb say this claim is false \u2014 a Venezuelan gang has not taken over an apartment complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying that there\u2019s not gang members that don\u2019t live in this community, but what we\u2019re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex,\u201d Heather Morris, the interim police chief in Aurora, said in a recent video taped outside the complex.<\/p>\n
Some tenants held a news conference recently and also disputed the notion that the gang had taken over the complex. Instead, they said, the problem was that the apartment block had fallen into disrepair and was infested with bedbugs, cockroaches and rats.<\/p>\n
\u201cI created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country\u2026 We had the greatest economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses and sent unemployment soaring, the president could certainly brag about the state of the economy in his first three years as president. But he ran into trouble when he made a play for the history books to say it was the best economy in U.S. history. By just about any important measure, the economy under Trump did not doas well as it did under Presidents Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson or Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n
The gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in 2019, slipping from 2.9 percent in 2018 and 2.4 percent in 2017. But in 1997, 1998 and 1999, GDP grew 4.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively. Yet even that period paled in comparison with the 1950s and 60s. Growth between 1962 and 1966 ranged from 4.4 percent to 6.6 percent. In postwar 1950 and 1951, it was 8.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate reached a low of 3.5 percent under Trump, but it dipped as low as 2.5 percent in 1953.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025, that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
\u201cI have nothing to do as you know and as she knows better than anyone, I have nothing to do with Project 2025 that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Project 2025 is not an official campaign document, and we\u2019ve called out Democrats for sometimes falsely suggesting policies that are not in it, such as on Social Security and the definition of family. But there are definitely Trump connections.<\/p>\n
A CNN review found that 140 people who worked in the Trump administration contributed to the report. In April, at a Heritage event, Trump praised Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, and appeared to endorse Project 2025. \u201cThey\u2019re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe handed them over a country where the economy and where the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Trump is right on stock, wrong on economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 29,440 on Feb. 14, 2020, before markets swooned over the pandemic, and had risen to 31,198 by the day President Biden took office. But the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in February 2020 \u2014 and 6.4 percent in January 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Goldman Sachs has said is that Donald Trump\u2019s plan would make the economy worse. Mine would strengthen the economy. What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump\u2019s plan would actually explode the deficit. Sixteen Nobel laureates have described his economic plan as something that would increase inflation and by the middle of next year, would invite a recession.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s citations are correct. Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs issued a report saying the economy would shrink because of Trump\u2019s trade and immigration policies. The Penn Wharton Budget Model concluded that Trump\u2019s policies would add $5.6 trillion in deficits over 10 years. (Harris did not mention that PennWharton says her policies would add $1.2 trillion to the deficit.) Sixteen Nobel prize-winning economists wrote in June, before Biden dropped out of the race, that Trump\u2019s plans could \u201creignite this inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the Wharton School of Finance and many of those professors, the top professors, think my plan is a brilliant plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
We couldn\u2019t identify any. One Wharton professor posted on X during the debate: \u2018Hi! @wharton Prof here. Show me the many colleagues who say Trump\u2019s plan is any good? I count 0!\u2019 (The post was later deleted.) The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for names.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a Marxist. Everybody knows she\u2019s a Marxist. Her father\u2019s a Marxist professor in economics, and he taught her well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is a ridiculous slur. There is no evidence Harris is a Marxist; her economic proposals are generally middle-of-the-road Democratic ideas. She\u2019s been endorsed by more than 90 current and former chief executives of major companies.<\/p>\n
There is an element truth about her father\u2019s academic interests. Donald J. Harris, a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University, was the first Black person to receive tenure in Stanford\u2019s economics department and was regarded as a prominent critic of mainstream economic theory from the left.<\/p>\n
The Stanford Daily, in 1976, described him as a \u201cMarxist economist\u201d who \u201ctaught \u2018bad\u2019 courses too well.\u201d The newspaper said there had been opposition to granting him tenure because he was \u201ctoo charismatic, a pied piper leading students astray from neo-Classical economics.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no indication that Harris\u2019s father\u2019s research interest has had any impact on her thinking. Harris\u2019s parents divorced when she was a child and she has had a strained relationship with her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at these millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly, where it\u2019s, I believe, 21 million people, not the 15 that people say, and I think it\u2019s a lot higher than the 21 that\u2019s bigger than New York State pouring in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Here, he manages to take a real number \u2014 about 5 million migrants arriving during Biden\u2019s presidency \u2014 and increase it fourfold. Then he offers a prediction to make it sound even larger.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the reality: Customs and Border Protection recorded about 10 million \u201cencounters\u201d between February 2021, after Biden took office, through July. But that does not mean all those people entered the country illegally. Some people were \u201cencountered\u201d numerous times as they tried to enter the country \u2014 and others (more than 4 million of the total) were expelled, mostly because of covid-related rules that have since ended.<\/p>\n
CBP has released more than 3.2 million migrants into the United States at the southern border under the Biden administration through April, the Department of Homeland Security said. These numbers, however, do not include \u201cgotaways\u201d\u2014 which occur when cameras or sensors detect migrants crossing the border but no one is found or no agents are available to respond. That figure could add an additional 2 million, bringing the total number of migrants arriving during Biden\u2019s presidency to around 5 million.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a big number, but apparently not big enough for Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, is doing an excellent job. But the governor before he said, the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, will execute the baby. And that\u2019s why I did that, because that predominates, because they\u2019re radical.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust look at the governor, former governor of Virginia, the governor of Virginia said, we put the baby aside and then we determine what we want to do with the baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Trump once again grossly mischaracterizes remarks by former Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D), a physician. Earlier in the debate, he mistakenly called him the governor of West Virginia, but then correctly identified him later in the debate.<\/p>\n
Northam told a radio show in 2019 that late-term abortion procedures are \u201cdone in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that\u2019s not viable. So in this particular example, if a mother\u2019s in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that\u2019s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.\u201d Critics suggested the governor was endorsing infanticide. His office later said Northam was referring to medical treatment, not ending the life of a baby.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says, \u2018execution after birth\u2019 \u2014 execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born \u2014 is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Walz has not said this and \u201cexecution after birth\u201d is illegal in all states.<\/p>\n
This is a common Republican talking point \u2014 that Democrats support nationwide abortion on demand up until the moment of birth. The implication is that late-term abortions are common \u2014 and that they are routinely accepted by Democrats.<\/p>\n
The reality, according to federal and state data, is that abortions past the point of viability are extremely rare. When they do happen, they often involve painful emotional and even moral decisions.<\/p>\n
About two-thirds of abortions occur at eight weeks of pregnancy or earlier, and nearly 90 percent take place in the first 12 weeks, or within most definitions of the first trimester, according to estimates by the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights. About 5.5 percent of abortions take place after 15 weeks, with just 1.3 percent at 21 weeks or longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal conservative, they all wanted this issue [abortion] to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is absurd. The docket for Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization, the case in which the right to abortion was overturned, is filled with briefs from legal scholars saying it would be a mistake to overturn decades of legal precedent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been a leader on fertilization, IVF [in vitro fertilization].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is in conflict. The Republican party platform, which Trump points to as his true policy document instead of Project 2025, supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment. Fetal personhood bestows the same rights currently reserved for people to embryos from the moment of fertilization, which in effect would make IVF illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion, a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not exactly what Project 2025 says. Claiming that liberal states have become \u201csanctuaries for abortion tourism,\u201d the report says the Department of Health and Human Services \u201cshould use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother\u2019s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers to come into our country. And then now in the United States and told by their countries like Venezuela, don\u2019t ever come back or we\u2019re going to kill you. Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. There is no reliable data on crime in Venezuela \u2014 the government stopped publishing official data in 2015 \u2014 but at campaign rallies Trump says crime has dropped \u201ca staggering 67%\u201d in Venezuela, while at other times he has put the drop in crime at \u201c72% in a year.\u201d It\u2019s unclear where Trump gets these numbers. But they\u2019re higher than what even the government says. In May, Venezuelan security officials announced that crime indicators had fallen by 25.1% compared to 2023, claiming that security forces had been successful in large-scale operations against criminal groups. Some experts believe the impossible-to-verify numbers are intended to boost the sagging popularity of the Nicol\u00e1s Maduro government.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrime is down all over the world except here. Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof. And we have a new form of crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FBI defraud. They were defrauding statements. They they didn\u2019t include the worst cities. They didn\u2019t include the cities with the worst crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Violent crime rates, especially for homicide in large cities, have fallen sharply during Biden\u2019s presidency, after a surge during the pandemic. The violent crime rate is believed to be near its lowest level in 50 years.<\/p>\n
Trump has a point that the quarterly data released in June by the FBI is incomplete \u2014 not every law enforcement agency reports its data on time or accurately for the report \u2014 but he\u2019s wrong to suggest crime is worse today than at any time in American history. Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and consultant, maintained a dashboard that compiles crime statistics, and it shows the murder rate declining significantly, year over year, in many major cities. Overall, there have been nearly 18 percent fewer murders in 277 cities, according to Asher.<\/p>\n
The Council on Criminal Justice examines monthly crime rates for 12 violent, property and drug offenses in 39 American cities that have consistently reported monthly data over the past six years. In July, it reported steep declines in homicide and most other violent crimes back to levels that predated the pandemic.<\/p>\n
To back up Trump\u2019s claims of rising crime, the Trump campaign likes to point to the 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), a household survey of respondents age 12 and older. For the period of July 2021 to November 2022, it showed a sharp increase in violent crime and an unusual discrepancy with the FBI reports, which are crimes reported to 80 percent of the nation\u2019s law enforcement agencies by the public. As a household survey, NCVS is incomplete. It does not include people who are homeless or in institutions such as prisons, jails and nursing homes; it also does not include crimes against people younger than 12. The victimization survey also excludes murders.<\/p>\n
Moreover, crime trends of a single year are almost meaningless. Both the NCVS and the FBI show violent crime has dropped significantly since the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt [the crime data] was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Trump can offer no evidence for this claim. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a nonpartisan agency \u2013 only the commissioner is a political appointee \u2013 that is responsible for data that depicts the health of the economy and labor markets. It collects data from a variety of sources and routinely updates statistics as more data is received. In August, BLS announced a preliminary estimate that the number of jobs created over the 12 months ending in March would likely be adjusted downward \u2014 818,000 lower than the original estimate of 2.9 million jobs. A final estimate will be released in February.<\/p>\n
This was an unusually large adjustment of -0.5 percent, which the BLS acknowledged. But there was a similar adjustment in Trump\u2019s presidency (-0.3 percent, or 514,000 jobs, in March 2019) and in Barack Obama\u2019s presidency (-0.7 percent, or 902,000 jobs, in March 2009). The BLS relies on a survey of about 119,000 employers to produce its monthly estimates of jobs creation, but every year adjusts the figures after examining annual state unemployment insurance tax filings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe former vice president [sic] called for defunding federal law enforcement. 45,000 agents, get this, on the day after he was arraigned on 34 felony counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This is correct. In a post on Truth Social on April 5, Trump said (in all caps): \u201cRepublicans in Congress should defund the DOJ and FBI until they come to their sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weaponized the Justice Department\u2026.They used it to try and win an election. \u2026They have fake cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
False. \u201cWeaponized\u201d is Trump\u2019s code for the Biden administration supposedly using the resources of the U.S. government to target his political opponent. There is no evidence that Biden or Harris directed the Justice Department or local prosecutors to pursue prosecutions of Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe Biden was found essentially guilty on the documents case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Trump faced a criminal trial (now on hold) for hoarding classified documents after he left office and refusing to return them. But Biden also discovered that he had retained classified documents at his home and office. He returned them, but a special counsel was appointed to see if he, too, should face criminal charges. The special counsel, Robert K. Hur, concluded that it would be tough to win a case \u2014 because Biden had reasonable defenses, the facts were occasionally murky, and Biden (unlike Trump) had cooperated fully with the investigation.<\/p>\n
Hur made the point that, if a case were brought to trial, Biden could make a credible case that he had not willfully retained the documents, especially because he cooperated. In many cases, the special counsel decided that the documents were mishandled by mistake \u2014 or were not especially important anymore, despite the classification level.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s talk about fracking because we\u2019re here in Pennsylvania. I made that very clear in 2020, I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as vice president of United States. And in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This is spin. What Harris said in the vice presidential debate in 2020, \u201cJoe Biden will not ban fracking. He has been very clear about that.\u201d Later in the debate, she reiterated that \u201cthe American people know that Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, Harris was stating Biden\u2019s position \u2014 but not making clear her own. When she was still running for president months earlier, Harris took a firm stand against fracking.<\/p>\n
Asked in a recent CNN interview why she had changed her position, Harris responded: \u201cWhat I have seen is that we can \u2014 we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.\u201d As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that included many green-energy incentives but also increased leases for fracking.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe values I bring to the importance of home ownership, knowing not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t given $400 million. I wish I was. My father was a Brooklyn builder, a Brooklyn, Queens, and a great father, and I learned a lot from him. But I was given a fraction of that, a tiny fraction, and have built it into many, many billions of dollars, many, many billions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
It depends on inflation. In 2018, an investigation published in the New York Times revealed that Trump had received $413 million in inflation-adjusted dollars from his father. (In 2024 dollars, the value grows to $525 million.)<\/p>\n
For many years, as we have detailed, Trump had falsely claimed the only thing he received was a $1 million loan from his father. That was never credible. He benefited from numerous loans and loan guarantees, as well as his father\u2019s connections, to build his real estate business in Manhattan. His father also set up lucrative trusts to provide steady income. When Donald Trump became overextended in the casino business, his father bailed him out with a shady casino-chip loan \u2014 and Trump also borrowed $9 million against his future inheritance.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefund the police. She\u2019s been against that forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Trump, in his clumsy phrasing, got this right \u2014 Harris has never supported defunding the police.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people that burned down Minneapolis. She went out and raised money to get them out of jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This needs context. Until the 2020 killing of George Floyd in police custody, the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) was a relatively small vehicle for assisting people who needed cash for bail. Just weeks after Floyd\u2019s death, it raised an astonishing $35 million, in part because of a tweet by Harris, who at the time was a senator for California lending her name to a fundraising effort.<\/p>\n
It turned out that few people involved in the protests needed the MFF\u2019s help to get out of jail. According to an accounting by the American Bail Coalition, verified by The Fact Checker with a review of Hennepin County jail records, all but three of the 170 people arrested during the protests between May 26 and June 2, 2020, were released from jail within a week. Of the 167 released, only 10 had to put up a monetary bond to be released; in most cases, the amounts were nominal, such as $78 or $100. In fact, 92 percent of those arrested had to pay no bail \u2014 and 29 percent of those arrested did not face charges.<\/p>\n
But there have been some instances of the MFF assisting people accused of serious crimes after they were released, including murder, attempted murder and third-degree assault. The man accused of murder had been jailed originally on an indecent-exposure charge, which called for bail of $2,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she won the election, the day after that election, they\u2019ll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead. We\u2019ll go back to windmills and we\u2019ll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Domestic oil production and natural gas production already hit record highs under Biden in December, according to the Energy Information Administration. There was a slight dip in January because of production issues, but the EIA projects the December production levels will be sustained through the rest of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen are those people going to be prosecuted? When are the people that burned down Minneapolis going to be prosecuted, or in Seattle, they went in to Seattle, they took over a big percentage of the city of Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. People were prosecuted in Seattle and Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
In Seattle, two people were killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), a nonprofit. Summer Taylor, a Black Lives Matter activist, died when a car rammed into the protests. Another person, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr., was shot in an incident that ACLED said was tied to the broader unrest. (Another fatal shooting of a teen was not connected, ACLED concluded.) Dawit Kelete, 30, who drove into the protest on July 4, 2020, killing Taylor and seriously injuring another person, was sentenced to 78 months in jail. The judge said that while there was no evidence he hit the protesters intentionally, his conduct was \u201cextremely reckless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mays died in the early morning hours of June 29, 2020, while driving a stolen Jeep in Seattle\u2019s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, which protesters occupied for three weeks after police abandoned the area. No one has been charged in Mays\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
In Minneapolis, one person was killed, according to ACLED. The Max It Pawn Shop was set on fire during protests on May 28, 2020, and then two months later, police discovered a charred body in the wreckage. Surveillance video footage showed Montez Terriel Lee, 26, pouring an accelerant around the pawnshop and lighting it on fire. Lee was sentenced to 10 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019d like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers.\u2019 They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This has been repeatedly debunked. Trump and his allies have invented the claim that he requested 10,000 troops before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, twisting an offhand comment into a supposed order to the Pentagon. A Colorado judge in November considered testimony on this point and dismissed a Trump aide\u2019s account as \u201cincredible\u201dand \u201ccompletely devoid of any evidence in the record.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2021, we explored this claim twice and debunked it, each time awarding Four Pinocchios. Then, in late 2022, the Jan. 6 committee released its report and dozens of transcribed interviews that provided new details on the meetings in which Trump claims he requested troops at the Capitol.<\/p>\n
That report underscored how Trump has little basis to make this claim, saying that he brought up the issue on at least three occasions but in such vague and obtuse ways that no senior official regarded his words as an order.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the committee said that when he referenced so many troops, it was not because he wanted to protect the Capitol. He \u201cfloated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by left-wing counter protesters,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches spewing anti-Semitic hate. And what did the president then at the time say? \u2018There were fine people on each side.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s meaning is in dispute. The march on Charlottesville by white supremacists in August 2017 \u2014 and President Trump\u2019s response to it \u2014 was a central event of his presidency. Over the course of several days, Trump made a number of contradictory remarks, permitting both his supporters and foes to create their own version of what happened.<\/p>\n
Biden has frequently claimed that Trump said the white supremacists were \u201cvery fine people.\u201d But the reality is more complicated. Trump was initially criticized for not speaking more forcefully against the white nationalists on the day of the clashes, Aug. 12. Then, in an Aug. 14 statement, Trump actually condemned right-wing hate groups \u2014 \u201cthose who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Trump muddied the waters on Aug. 15, a day later, by also saying: \u201cYou had people \u2014 and I\u2019m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists \u2014 because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.\u201d It was in this news conference that he said: \u201cYou had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump added: \u201cThere were people in that rally \u2014 and I looked the night before \u2014 if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I\u2019m sure in that group there were some bad ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem for Trump is that there was no evidence of anyone other than neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the Friday night rally on Aug. 11. He asserted there were people who were not alt-right who were \u201cvery quietly\u201d protesting the removal of Lee\u2019s statue.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible Trump became confused and was really referring to the Saturday rallies. But that\u2019s also wrong. A Fact Checker examination of videos and testimony about the Saturday rallies found that there were white supremacists, there were counterprotesters \u2014 and there were heavily armed anti-government militias who showed up on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The evidence shows there were no quiet protesters against removing the statue that weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd be clear on that point, Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if \u2026 the outcome of this election is not to his liking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
Trump is being quoted out of context. Harris suggests Trump said there would be a \u201cbloodbath\u201d if he lost the election. But in a March 16 rally, Trump used the word when talking about the impact of Chinese electric vehicles on the U.S. auto industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina now is building a couple of massive plants where they\u2019re going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they\u2019re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you\u2019re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don\u2019t get elected, it\u2019s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole \u2014 that\u2019s going to be the least of it. It\u2019s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That\u2019ll be the least of it. But they\u2019re not going to sell those cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump campaign noted that one of the definitions of \u201cbloodbath,\u201d in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is \u201ca major economic disaster.\u201d It also means \u201ca notably fierce, violent, or destructive contest or struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, of course, frequently quotes his opponents out of context and unfairly twists their words.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these people [undocumented immigrants] are trying to get them to vote. And that\u2019s why they\u2019re allowing them to come into our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. There is no evidence Democrats want undocumented immigrants to vote \u2014 which would be against the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo judge looked at it [lawsuits claiming fraud in the 2020 election] and said, they said we didn\u2019t have standing. That\u2019s the other thing, they said we didn\u2019t have standing a technicality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. Many 2020 election lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies were rejected on the merits, by judges who examined the evidence. The main case involving standing was at the Supreme Court, which tossed out the long-shot lawsuit filed by Texas and several other states, asking the court to bar four states from casting their electoral votes for Biden and to shift the selection of electors to the states\u2019 legislatures. The court said Texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it \u201chas not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said he would have allowed the case to be heard, for technical reasons, but he offered little hope he would have granted Trump the relief he sought. \u201cI would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief,\u201d Justice Alito wrote, \u201cand I express no view on any other issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Biden put it back on day one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is mostly false. Trump enabled the Nord Stream 2 pipeline \u2014 which would have doubled the export of Russian natural gas to Germany \u2014 over congressional opposition. \u201cSuccessive U.S. Administrations and Congresses have opposed Nord Stream 2, reflecting concerns about European dependence on Russian energy and the threat Russia poses to Ukraine,\u201d the Congressional Research Service said in a 2021 report.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s first secretary of state essentially allowed the pipeline to proceed, and only late in Trump\u2019s administration could Congress pass a law that made the pipeline subject to sanctions that temporarily halted construction for only one year. But by then it was largely complete. Biden waived those sanctions in an effort to mend fences with Germany \u2014 but the whole project was killed after Russia invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is well known that he said of Putin that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This is partly false. Trump did not make this statement in the context of an invasion of Ukraine. In fact, Trump did not issue any invitation to Russia to invade U.S. allies, but (in his telling) was informing the leader of a NATO member country that he would not defend that country from a Russian attack if Trump deemed the nation was delinquent on payments to the military alliance.<\/p>\n
In a February rally, Trump said \u201cone of the presidents of a big country\u201d at one point asked him whether the United States would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they \u201cdon\u2019t pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I would not protect you,\u201d Trump claimed he told that leader. \u201cIn fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is well known that he said when Russia went into Ukraine it was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
Trump did not use that exact word. Before Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Trump called Putin a \u201cgenius\u201d and \u201cvery savvy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta say, that\u2019s pretty savvy,\u201d Trump said on a conservative talk radio show of Putin\u2019s decision to declare certain breakaway regions in Ukraine as independent. \u201cAnd you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn\u2019t have one for that. No, it\u2019s very sad. Very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is genius,\u201d Trump said. \u2018Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine \u2026 Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is well known he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
Trump called them \u201clove letters.\u201d In 2018, Trump said of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un: \u201cWe fell in love, okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they\u2019re great letters. We fell in love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward, in his 2020 book \u201cRage,\u201d revealed that Trump had permitted him to read and transcribe 27 letters and wrote that \u201cTrump has personally said they are \u2018love letters.\u2019\u201d Woodward quoted parts of the letters, and the full file of letters was made available to North Korea expert Robert Carlin, who analyzed them for Foreign Policy magazine.<\/p>\n
In one letter, written in 2019, Trump \u201cincredibly\u201d closes with \u201cyour friend,\u201d Carlin writes. But he said the letters are mostly an exchange of negotiating positions on North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in for 250 billion [dollars] or more [in aid to Ukraine] because they don\u2019t ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are\u2026 We\u2019re in for 250 to 275 billion. They\u2019re into a 100 to 150.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. As of June 30, European aid to Ukraine exceeds U.S. aid, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. European nations have allocated $110 billion, compared to $83 billion for the United States. Europe has also pledged an additional $85 billion, which has not been allocated, compared to $25 billion for the United States. As a percentage of the economy, the U.S. percentage ranks much lower than 21 other countries, Kiel estimates.<\/p>\n
About $36 billion in military assistance has been provided by European Union countries, compared to $56 billion by the United States, according to the State Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg] got these countries, the 28 countries at the time, to pay up, he said. I\u2019ve never seen \u2014 he\u2019s the head of NATO \u2014 he said \u2018I\u2019ve never seen.\u2019 For years we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations, both on trade and on NATO. I got them to pay up by saying one of the statements you made before, if you don\u2019t pay, we\u2019re not going to protect you, otherwise we would have never gotten it, he said. It was one of the most incredible jobs that he\u2019s ever seen done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
When he was president, Trump often attributed quotes to Stoltenberg that could not be confirmed, such as: \u201cSecretary Stoltenberg has been maybe Trump\u2019s biggest fan, to be honest with you. He goes around telling \u2014 he made a speech the other day. He said, \u2018Without Donald Trump, maybe there would be no NATO.\u2019 \u201d Stoltenberg said no such thing.<\/p>\n
Throughout the 2016 campaign, his presidency and now this election, Trump has demonstrated that he has little notion of how NATO is funded and operates. He repeatedly claimed that other members of the alliance \u201cowed\u201d money to the United States and that they were delinquent in their payments. Then he claimed credit for the money \u201cpouring in\u201d as a result of his jawboning, even though much of the increase in those countries\u2019 contributions was set under guidelines arranged during the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for 18 months we had nobody killed [in Afghanistan].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is misleading. In Trump\u2019s phrasing, it sounds as if no troops were killed in Afghanistan during the last 18 months of his presidency. A Defense Department database shows 12 deaths from hostile action in that period. There was an 18-month gap with no fatalities across Trump\u2019s and Biden\u2019s combined presidencies. We recently gave Trump Two Pinocchios for this claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have left $85 billion worth of brand new, beautiful military equipment behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false, especially because Trump referred to \u201cbrand new\u201d equipment. Over two decades of war, the United States spent $83 billion to train, equip and house the Afghan military and police \u2014 so weapons are just a part of that. Tanks, vehicles, helicopters and other gear did fall into the hands of the Taliban when the U.S.-trained force quickly collapsed. In 2022, CNN reported that a Defense Department report estimated that $7 billion of military equipment had been left behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the same individual who took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent. The Central Park Five \u2014 took out a full page ad calling for their execution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
The ad did not directly say this. In 1989, Trump placed a full-page newspaper ad calling for a return of the death penalty following a rape in New York\u2019s Central Park, but his message was strongly implied. Five Black and Latino teenagers were convicted, spent years in prison and were later cleared in the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person, kill the person ultimately. And if they pled guilty, then they pled we\u2019re not guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. The Central Park Five confessions were coerced, and then recanted. No one was killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe former president has said that climate change is a hoax.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This is true. Trump has said this several times.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs\u2026. Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Harris<\/p>\n
This is out of date. The number of manufacturing jobs rebounded since the pandemic, but growth in these jobs has essentially stalled. After a decline this year, the number of manufacturing jobs as of August is slightly lower than the number in October 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dating from February 2021, the first month of employment data for Biden\u2019s presidency, about 710,000 manufacturing jobs have been created.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs this last month.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
Trump understates the loss. The number of manufacturing jobs fell by 24,000 from July to August, according to preliminary BLS estimates.<\/p>\n
\u201cBiden doesn\u2019t go after people because supposedly China paid him millions of dollars. He\u2019s afraid to do it between him and his son. They get all this money from Ukraine, they get all this money from all of these different countries. And then you wonder, why is he so loyal to this one? That one? Ukraine? China? Why did he get $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow\u2019s wife?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. There is no evidence Biden received millions of dollars from China. Republican congressional investigators claimed Biden\u2019s son Hunter received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, a Russian billionaire and the widow of the former mayor of Moscow. The Fact Checker in 2022 investigated this transaction and learned that the investment vehicle that received the money was for a real-estate deal involving Hunter\u2019s partner, Devon Archer. In congressional testimony Archer confirmed Baturina was his client and not connected to Hunter Biden.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rebuilt our entire military.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump<\/p>\n
This is false. This is a golden-oldie claim that Trump frequently made as president. Trump has said his military budgets were the biggest in history, but adjusted for inflation his administration\u2019s budgets lag some years during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The biggest defense budget was in 2010, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it was nearly 10 percent larger than Trump\u2019s 2020 budget.<\/p>\n
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In their first and perhaps only presidential debate in the 2024 election, a defensive former president Donald Trump relied on many of his favorite falsehoods to combat attacks from Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris stretched the truth on occasion, but she was no match in the falsehood department against Trump. Here\u2019s a roundup of 55 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}