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Within the closing weeks of the marketing campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has portrayed former President Donald Trump as a hazard to democracy. She additionally has warned he’ll enact insurance policies that can damage blue-collar employees, girls, seniors, and the nation’s well being care system and financial system, whereas slicing taxes for “billionaires and firms.”
That was her message at eight marketing campaign occasions that we reviewed from Oct. 18 via Oct. 22. Throughout that point, Harris appeared at three rallies in Michigan and one in Atlanta, three moderated discussions with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, and a get-out-the-early-vote occasion with singer Lizzo in Detroit.
We additionally fact-checked Trump’s remarks over the identical time interval. (See: “Donald Trump’s Closing Arguments.”)
In distinction to Trump, Harris spoke at her 4 rallies for a mean of solely half-hour. She spoke about the identical period of time on the moderated occasions, the place she shared the stage with Cheney, and far much less on the Detroit occasion with Lizzo.
We additionally discovered one other distinction with Trump: There have been far fewer falsehoods and fewer claims for us to verify.
In Trump’s case, we discovered he spoke 3 times longer than Harris at rallies, and we recognized about 5 instances as many claims.
Beneath are the statements by Harris that we discovered to be false, deceptive or missing context.
Jobs
Manufacturing jobs beneath Trump: After promising to “retool present factories, rent regionally, and work with unions to create good-paying jobs” throughout an Oct. 18 speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Harris attacked Trump for being “one of many greatest losers of producing jobs in American historical past.”
“Donald Trump has a unique method. He makes massive guarantees and he at all times fails to ship,” Harris stated. “So, bear in mind he stated he was the one one — you know the way he talks. He [was] the one one who may carry again America’s manufacturing jobs. Then, America misplaced virtually 200,000 manufacturing jobs when he was president. Information. Together with tens of 1000’s of jobs proper right here in Michigan. And people losses began earlier than the pandemic, making Donald Trump one of many greatest losers of producing jobs in American historical past.”
Harris repeated the declare, almost verbatim, twice that very same day at different Michigan rallies in Lansing and Oakland County. But it surely’s a deceptive speaking level that ignores the affect of the pandemic-fueled recession within the spring of 2020.
As we’ve written, the financial system added 419,000 manufacturing jobs in Trump’s first three years in workplace, in keeping with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However all these jobs after which some had been worn out in Trump’s fourth yr, when the pandemic struck. When Trump left workplace, the U.S. had misplaced 178,000 manufacturing jobs.
Harris is correct that the job losses beneath Trump “began earlier than the pandemic.” The U.S. shed 43,000 manufacturing jobs in Trump’s third yr in 2019. However, as of September, that’s the precise variety of manufacturing jobs which have been misplaced this yr beneath the Biden-Harris administration.
Manufacturing jobs beneath Biden-Harris: Harris additionally overlooked some vital context when she talked concerning the jobs created through the Biden-Harris administration.
“Over the past three and a half years, we introduced manufacturing again to America, creating 730,000 manufacturing jobs,” Harris said in Lansing, Michigan.
Harris is correct that, as of September, the BLS month-to-month payroll survey indicated a achieve of 729,000 manufacturing jobs through the Biden-Harris administration. However that determine comes with two caveats.
The vice chairman’s remarks ignore the financial affect of the pandemic on U.S. jobs, which included the lack of almost 1.4 million manufacturing jobs in March and April 2020. A little bit greater than half of these jobs had returned by the point Trump left workplace. It wasn’t till Might 2022 that the variety of manufacturing jobs returned to its pre-pandemic degree of February 2020.
Additionally, as we’ve written, the 729,000 manufacturing jobs cited by Harris will finally be lowered. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in August announced a preliminary estimate of its annual revision of jobs knowledge that confirmed the variety of manufacturing jobs created over the 12 months ending in March was 115,000 decrease. The ultimate revisions received’t be introduced till February.
If the September determine is lowered by the preliminary revised estimate, that would go away a achieve of 614,000 beneath Biden. That will really be a achieve of simply 22,000 jobs over the pre-pandemic degree in February 2020.
Union strikes/collective bargaining: In a speech in Lansing, Michigan, Harris appealed to union employees by distorting Trump’s remarks concerning the United Auto Employees strike in September 2023.
Harris, Oct. 18: And when the UAW went on strike to demand the upper wages you deserve, Donald Trump went to a nonunion store and attacked the UAW. He stated hanging and collective bargaining don’t make, and I’m going to cite, “a rattling little bit of distinction.”
The vice chairman is referring to remarks that Trump made at Drake Industries, a nonunion automobile elements plant in Clinton Township, Michigan, on Sept. 28, 2023. Trump, who skipped a Republican debate to talk in Michigan that day, gave what the Detroit Free Press described as a “rollicking, bellicose speech to employees towards automakers’ and the President Joe Biden administration’s efforts to push a transition to electrical automobiles.”
Right here’s what Trump stated, in context:
Trump, Sept. 28, 2023: To the hanging employees, I help you in your objective of honest wages and better stability, and I actually hope you get a good deal for yourselves and your households. But when your union leaders is not going to demand that crooked Joe [Biden] repeal his electrical automobile mandate instantly, then it doesn’t matter what hourly phrase you get, it simply doesn’t make a rattling little bit of distinction as a result of in two to a few years, you’ll not have one job on this state. … In different phrases, your present negotiations don’t imply as a lot as you suppose. I watch you on the market with the pickets, however I don’t suppose you’re picketing for the suitable factor.
We should always observe, as we’ve done before, that Biden didn’t problem an electrical automobile mandate, so Trump was incorrect about that.
Trump was referring at the moment to the Environmental Safety Company’s proposed guidelines to considerably limit the quantity of emissions from light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which incorporates passenger automobiles, vehicles and huge pickups and vans. In April 2023, the EPA said the brand new requirements are “projected to speed up the transition to electrical automobiles,” which “may account for 67% of recent light-duty automobile gross sales and 46% of recent medium-duty automobile gross sales” in 2032. The foundations had been finalized in March.
Coverage specialists advised us that carmakers can have flexibility in how they meet the proposed necessities, together with by making extra environment friendly inner combustion engines.
Autoworkers’ pay: On the Oakland Expo Heart in Waterford, Michigan, Harris said: “Donald Trump inspired automakers to maneuver their vegetation out of Michigan so they may pay their employees much less.” That’s true, though it requires some context.
Harris, who made comparable variations of this declare in Grand Rapids and Lansing, was referring to feedback that Trump made in 2015 to the Detroit Information. Throughout his first presidential marketing campaign, Trump had been vital of multibillion-dollar investments that Ford had made and deliberate to make in Mexico.
“We’ve obtained to maintain [factories] right here. It’s not that arduous to do,” Trump advised the Detroit Information. “With out motion,” he added, “fairly quickly all we’re going to have is nursing residence jobs.”
The paper stated Trump dismissed the argument that labor is cheaper in Mexico, after which steered that U.S. automakers may get monetary savings by shifting to different U.S. cities, slightly than going to Mexico.
“You may go to completely different elements of the US after which in the end you’d do full-circle — you’ll come again to Michigan as a result of these guys are going to need their jobs again even whether it is much less,” Trump advised the paper. “We will do the rotation in the US — it doesn’t should be in Mexico.”
The Detroit Information wrote that Trump went on to say “that after Michigan ‘loses a few vegetation — unexpectedly you’ll make good offers in your individual space.’” The paper, nevertheless, identified that “hourly staff for Detroit’s Massive Three are paid the identical it doesn’t matter what state they’re in, beneath the phrases of United Auto Employees contracts.”
Electrical automobile investments: In a speech to United Auto Employees Native 652 in Lansing, Harris said, “Trump’s working mate known as your jobs ‘desk scraps,’ proper?” This requires some context.
Harris is referring to Vance’s reply to a Reuters reporter at a marketing campaign rally on Oct. 8 in Detroit. The reporter requested the Ohio senator if a Trump-Vance administration would honor the $500 million grant that the Biden-Harris administration introduced in July to assist Basic Motors convert its Lansing Grand River Assembly plant to fabricate electrical automobiles. UAW Native 652 represents employees on the plant.
The Detroit Information wrote that the grant, coupled with a $900 million funding by GM, is “anticipated to create 50 jobs and retain greater than 650 jobs at an meeting plant that at the moment produces Cadillac sedans,” citing the corporate’s grant utility.
Vance told the reporter on the rally: “Neither me nor President Trump has ever stated we wish to take any cash that’s going to Michigan autoworkers out of the state of Michigan.” He then went on to say, “What we stated is that Kamala Harris is providing desk scraps — $500 million – when you could have an EV mandate that’s going to price 117,000 autoworker jobs. I feel Michigan autoworkers deserve greater than the desk scraps that Kamala Harris’ inexperienced new rip-off” would supply.
As we stated earlier, there isn’t a electrical automobile mandate; Vance is referring to EPA guidelines to considerably curb carbon emissions from automobiles. Additionally, Vance’s 117,000 determine comes from the Trump-friendly America First Coverage Institute, which is run by former prime Trump administration officers.
The UAW, which has endorsed Harris and supported the EPA rule, has rejected the notion that the stricter emission requirements will end in job losses for its members. In March, when the rule was finalized, the union issued a statement that stated: “We reject the fearmongering that claims tackling the local weather disaster should come at the price of union jobs. Bold and achievable laws can help each.”
In an Oct. 10 Reuters article, UAW President Shawn Fain responded to Vance’s remarks.
“It’s quite a bit larger than simply the Lansing Grand River funding,” he stated. “It’s factories everywhere in the United States, and it’s provide chain factories everywhere in the United States which are being put in place now. So that you’re speaking lots of of 1000’s of jobs that Donald Trump is simply writing off.”
Trump Tax Reduce Proposals
At two rallies in Michigan and one in Atlanta, Harris gave the deceptive impression that Trump would solely minimize taxes for “billionaires and firms.”
As we’re written, Trump would minimize taxes for many taxpayers.
He proposes extending all of the earnings and company tax cuts included within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed in December 2017 — together with the person earnings tax cuts, which will expire after 2025. The Tax Coverage Heart estimates that barely greater than half of the advantages from the person earnings tax cuts would go to these making about $450,000 or much less.
He additionally has proposed eliminating taxes on Social Safety advantages, suggestions and additional time pay — all with the intent of benefiting middle-income households. Trump has additionally proposed slicing the company earnings tax charge from 21% to fifteen% for firms that manufacture their merchandise in the US.
Bloomberg estimated that Trump’s “seize bag of tax minimize proposals” would price the federal authorities $10.5 trillion in income over 10 years, and the Committee for a Accountable Federal Funds said Trump’s proposals would “dramatically worsen Social Safety’s funds.” (Extra on Social Safety’s funds later.)
Challenge 2025 Proposals
Harris brings up Challenge 2025 seemingly each probability she will get, and hyperlinks Trump to a few of its extra controversial proposals — even when Trump has taken the other place.
In 5 of the eight marketing campaign occasions we reviewed for this text, Harris introduced up Challenge 2025, which is being led by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It’s not a Trump marketing campaign doc, though it was written by some former Trump administration officers and provides proposals to considerably minimize the dimensions and scope of presidency for “the following conservative President.” (For extra, learn “A Guide to Project 2025,” which particulars who was concerned in writing the doc and Trump’s feedback about it.)
In a moderated dialogue in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on Oct. 21, Harris referred to it as “Donald Trump’s Challenge 2025,” and at 4 rallies, together with in Atlanta on Oct. 19, she advised audiences to Google Challenge 2025 in the event that they wished to know what Trump would do as president.
Harris, Atlanta, Oct. 19: Now, Donald Trump, properly, he has a unique plan. Simply Google Challenge 2025. … And while you learn it, you realize it’s a detailed and harmful blueprint for what Donald Trump will do if he’s elected president. Donald Trump — Donald Trump will give billionaires and firms huge tax cuts. Like he did it final time, he would do it once more. He would minimize Social Safety and Medicare. He would do away with the factor all of us fought so onerous for: that $35-a-month cap on insulin for our seniors.
We’ve already addressed the tax minimize comment, so we’ll deal with the opposite claims right here.
Social Safety and Medicare: Harris stated Trump will “minimize Social Safety and Medicare,” however there isn’t a proof that he’ll — apart from the oblique affect that his proposed tax cuts may have on Social Safety funds and doubtlessly retirement advantages.
As we have written before, Trump has constantly stated all through the marketing campaign that he wouldn’t make any cuts to Social Safety and Medicare advantages.
When Home Republicans final yr debated learn how to cut back authorities spending, Trump posted a video to social media by which he stated, “Certainly not ought to Republicans vote to chop a single penny from Medicare or Social Safety.”
When he was president, Trump’s budgets included bipartisan proposals to scale back the expansion of Medicare with out slicing advantages. He additionally proposed reductions to the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income packages, however not reductions to Social Safety retirement benefits.
There’s the risk, nevertheless, that Trump’s many tax minimize proposals — together with a plan to repeal the tax on Social Safety retirement advantages — would exhaust Social Safety belief fund reserves by 2031, slightly than 2034, in keeping with the Committee for a Accountable Federal Funds. With out congressional motion to exchange the misplaced tax revenues or replenish the belief fund reserves, the Social Safety Administration must cut back advantages.
“Upon insolvency, the legislation requires limiting Social Safety spending to its income stream, which we’ve beforehand estimated would imply a $16,500 minimize in annual advantages for a typical dual-income couple retiring in 2033,” CRFB stated in an analysis of the affect Trump’s plans would have on Social Safety launched this month.
Challenge 2025 does lay out “4 objectives and ideas” for Medicare “reform,” however there may be nothing within the ebook that requires slicing Social Safety, which the authors of the undertaking call a “fantasy.”
When speaking about Social Safety at one other marketing campaign occasion in Lansing, Harris also said that Trump “really helpful we increase the retirement age to 70.” He did, but it surely was 24 years in the past in his ebook “The America We Deserve.” On the time, Trump was flirting with the concept of working for president as a third-party candidate. He determined towards becoming a member of the 2000 presidential race, which was won by George W. Bush.
The current age for receiving full Social Safety retirement advantages is 67 for these born in 1960 or later. Trump has stated he is not going to increase the retirement age. “I cannot minimize one penny from Social Safety or Medicare. And I cannot increase the retirement age [by] sooner or later,” he said at a rally in July.
Insulin cap: The Inflation Discount Act signed by Biden in August 2022 capped monthly insulin copays at $35 for seniors in Medicare’s prescription drug program. Trump has been vital of the Inflation Discount Act’s local weather change initiatives, telling the Financial Membership of New York in September that he would “rescind all unspent funds beneath the misnamed Inflation Discount Act.”
However he has not stated he would “get rid” of the $35 month-to-month cap, as Harris stated, and there are indications that he may preserve the cap in place. In actual fact, Trump has been making an attempt to take credit score for the $35 month-to-month cap. Throughout the June 27 debate with Biden, Trump misleadingly claimed that he was “the one which obtained the insulin down for the seniors.” A restricted undertaking capped prices for some seniors through the Trump administration, however all seniors with Medicare drug protection benefited through the Biden administration.
So, it isn’t clear that Trump would take away the $35 month-to-month cap. We requested his marketing campaign, however didn’t get a response.
In Atlanta and elsewhere, Harris cited Challenge 2025 as proof that Trump would do away with the cap. Challenge 2025 does call for the repeal of the Inflation Discount Act on web page 465. However, once more, Challenge 2025 isn’t a Trump marketing campaign doc.
Head Begin: In Detroit, Harris talked about her marketing campaign being a few “new technology of management” that can work collectively on tasks that make investments locally. “We’re not falling for the opposite man making an attempt to do away with the Division of Training and Head Begin as a result of we all know what we stand for,” she stated.
It’s true that Trump has known as for eliminating the Division of Training, as he did in Wisconsin final month. However we discovered no cases of Trump saying he would “get rid” of Head Start, a federally funded initiative throughout the Division of Well being and Human Companies that funds native packages that assist low-income kids put together for varsity.
In different speeches, together with in her acceptance speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, Harris cited Challenge 2025 when making her declare about Trump desirous to remove Head Begin. It’s true that Challenge 2025 on web page 482 calls for eliminating Head Begin, which it claimed is “fraught with scandal and abuse.” However that doesn’t imply Trump agrees with that proposal.
As president, Trump unsuccessfully proposed slicing Head Begin by $29 billion over 10 years within the fiscal yr 2019 price range. However Trump has not indicated that he endorses ending Head Begin fully.
Reasonably priced Care Act
Trump, who tried but failed to exchange the Reasonably priced Care Act as president, has struggled all through the marketing campaign to clarify what he’ll do concerning the legislation if elected president.
Harris has stuffed the void with a definitive — however unsupported — declare that Trump will repeal the ACA with out changing it and permit insurers to as soon as once more deny protection or cost extra for protection to these with preexisting medical situations.
“Donald Trump intends to finish the Reasonably priced Care Act with no plan to exchange it,” Harris said in Atlanta, calling Trump an “unserious man” whose plans can have “critical penalties.”
“As a result of, give it some thought, the person goes to threaten the medical insurance of 45 million People based mostly on an idea,” she went on to say, “and take us again to when insurance coverage firms had the facility to disclaim folks with preexisting situations.”
As a candidate, Trump has been unclear about his plans for the ACA — which at the moment insures about 45 million people, as Harris stated, via insurance policies offered on the ACA marketplaces and obtained due to the growth of Medicaid. He posted on social media in November 2023 that Republicans “ought to by no means quit” on terminating the legislation, saying the fee is “uncontrolled” and claiming to be “critically alternate options” to the ACA. In late March, Trump said he wished to make the ACA “higher” and cheaper.
However then in August, at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump stated he may preserve the ACA.
“I’m going to maintain the Reasonably priced Care Act except we will do one thing a lot better, we’ll preserve it,” he stated. “It stinks, it’s not good. If we will do one thing higher, we’re going to do one thing with it. If we will do higher, which means cheaper and higher well being take care of you, cheaper and higher well being take care of you, then we’ll do it.”
On the Sept. 10 debate, a moderator requested Trump if he had a plan to exchange the legislation. He said, “I’ve ideas of a plan,” including that he “would solely change it if we give you one thing that’s higher and cheaper.” Though he stated on the debate, “you’ll be listening to about it within the not too distant future,” Trump has but to launch any particulars about his plans for the ACA.
Though Trump might not have a plan, Home Speaker Mike Johnson promised to overtake the nation’s well being care system if Trump wins. At a closed political occasion in Pennsylvania on Oct. 28, Johnson said: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained; we’d like huge reform to make this work. And we obtained quite a lot of concepts on how to try this.” (Johnson later disputed experiences that “huge reform” means he’ll search to repeal the ACA.)
As for preexisting situations, Trump supported a 2017 GOP invoice that would have included some, however not all, of the ACA’s protections for preexisting situations. He additionally proposed cheaper medical insurance plans as an alternative choice to the ACA plans, a few of which might not have needed to adjust to the ACA’s guidelines towards denying protection or pricing protection based mostly on well being standing.
If the ACA had been repealed with no alternative, protections for preexisting situation could be considerably curtailed. However even earlier than the ACA, these with employer-based plans couldn’t be denied a coverage. They might be denied protection for a well being situation provided that that they had had a lapse in protection, as we’ve explained.
Trump as a Hazard to Democracy
A staple of Harris’ rallies is her prolonged tackle Trump’s hazard to democracy — which has help from a few of Trump’s former prime aides, together with former Chief of Workers John Kelly. Earlier this month, Kelly told the New York Times that the previous president stated “greater than as soon as … that Hitler did some good issues,” describing his former boss as assembly “the overall definition of a fascist.”
“So, a lot is on the road on this election,” Harris said in Atlanta. “And this election is just not 2016 or 2020. The stakes are even larger for apparent causes, together with as a result of just some months in the past, the US Supreme Court docket principally advised the previous president he’s successfully immune it doesn’t matter what he does within the White Home.”
Harris went on to say, “Simply think about now Donald Trump with no guardrails — he who has vowed that he shall be a dictator on Day 1.”
There was extra, however we’ll concentrate on two claims: the courtroom ruling on presidential immunity and Trump’s remarks about being a dictator.
Presidential immunity: Harris went too far when she stated that beneath a Supreme Court docket ruling Trump “is successfully immune it doesn’t matter what he does within the White Home.”
Harris was referring to a July 1 ruling in response to a movement Trump filed to dismiss a federal indictment that charged him with 4 prison counts associated to his makes an attempt to stay in energy regardless of dropping the 2020 presidential election. In his motion, Trump argued {that a} president has “absolute immunity” from prison prosecution.
In a 6-3 ruling, the courtroom stated a president ought to take pleasure in a “presumption of immunity” when finishing up “official acts.” Nonetheless, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote within the courtroom’s ruling that “[t]he President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and never every little thing the President does is official.”
In response to the courtroom’s ruling, particular counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment that removed point out of “official acts,” together with Trump’s communication with Justice Division officers concerning the election. However Smith didn’t drop any expenses, describing some actions that Trump took whereas in workplace as “private” or unrelated to his duties as president.
Dictator: When she stated Trump “has vowed that he shall be a dictator on Day 1,” Harris was referring to a remark that Trump made at a Fox News town hall in December. On the occasion, host Sean Hannity gave Trump the possibility to answer critics who warned that Trump could be a dictator if elected to a second time period.
“Certainly not, you might be promising America tonight, you’d by no means abuse energy as retribution towards anyone,” Hannity stated. Trump responded, “Apart from Day 1.” Trump went on to say, “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”
Trump later stated he was joking. In a Feb. 4 interview with Fox Information’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump stated: “It was with Sean Hannity, and we had been having enjoyable, and I stated, ‘I’m going to be a dictator,’ as a result of he requested me, ‘Are you actually going to be a dictator?’ I stated, ‘Completely, I’m going to be a dictator for sooner or later.’ I didn’t say from Day 1.”
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