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In his third marketing campaign for the nation’s high workplace, former President Donald Trump’s closing messages have run the gamut, bearing on the economic system, immigration, the navy, crime, taxes and extra. In prolonged speeches, he rattles off a stream of claims, citing his time as president and drawing contrasts with Vice President Kamala Harris.
We reviewed Trump’s remarks from Oct. 18 via Oct. 22, which included 4 rallies — in Detroit; Latrobe, Pennsylvania; and Greensboro and Greenville, North Carolina — a city corridor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and roundtable occasions in Miami and Auburn Hills, Michigan. We recognized greater than 60 false, deceptive and unsupported claims, many who now we have fact-checked weeks, months and typically even years in the past.
We additionally fact-checked Harris’ remarks over the identical time interval. (See: “Kamala Harris’ Closing Arguments.”)
In distinction to Harris’ rallies, Trump spoke for a mean of about an hour and a half, 3 times longer than Harris. Nonetheless, we flagged about 5 instances as many factual inaccuracies by Trump.
In 2015, Trump’s first 12 months as a politician, we named him the “king of whoppers” in our annual recap of the worst falsehoods of the 12 months, saying that we had “by no means seen his match” — each when it comes to the massive variety of inaccurate statements he makes and his propensity to double-down on claims which were proven to be mistaken. 9 years later, that’s nonetheless the case.
Studying about greater than 60 claims in a single story is exhausting — we get it. However it’s what it’s.
Now we have organized the claims by subject:
Election Integrity
Economic Issues
Immigration
Energy
Taxes
Defense/Military
Crime/Guns
Miscellaneous
Election Integrity
Trump has continued to hawk the falsehood that he really gained the 2020 presidential election, and steered President Joe Biden’s win was the results of dishonest.
“You already know, we gained twice right here,” Trump mentioned in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Oct. 22, including, “and we gained twice all over the place, if you wish to actually know.” Trump did win North Carolina in each 2016 and 2020, however opposite to his many assertions, he didn’t win twice “all over the place.”
In Greenville on Oct. 21, Trump mentioned of Republican Nationwide Committee Chair Michael Whatley, “He’s going to cease the dishonest. … Are they dishonest? They’re making an attempt, however they won’t get away with it, proper? They didn’t get away with it on this state. They bought away with it in loads of locations.”
As we have written, there’s no proof that Trump’s defeat was attributable to fraud or dishonest. State and federal judges across the nation have rejected Trump’s claims, usually saying that his authorized crew supplied no proof of fraud. And Trump’s personal election safety officers on the time called the 2020 election “probably the most safe in American historical past.”
Trump’s aides within the White Home advised him that his claims of election fraud have been baseless, too, according to testimony given to the Home Choose Committee to Examine the January sixth Assault on the USA Capitol. What Trump characterised as “fraud” was simply a part of the “regular course of,” as former Legal professional Normal William Barr mentioned in a single occasion.
“My opinion then and my opinion now’s that the election was not stolen by fraud,” Barr told the committee.
In two of his speeches, Trump additionally steered that immigrants who got here to the U.S. illegally are “undercutting the voting energy of our personal residents” and that Democrats are “making an attempt to get them to vote.”
However as now we have written, noncitizens usually are not legally permitted to vote in presidential elections, and there may be no evidence — opposite to Trump’s repeated claims — that it’s occurring on any large scale. As immigration consultants have explained to us, the disincentives for it are huge. Except for being unlawful, it’s a deportable offense that makes an individual completely inadmissible for return to the U.S.
Financial Points
Not the ‘Biggest Financial system’
“We had the best economic system within the historical past of our nation,” Trump wrongly mentioned on the city corridor in Lancaster on Oct. 20.
We take into account this amongst Trump’s Biggest Hits, as he has been repeating it, incessantly since he left workplace, and even earlier than. The truth is, it was one of many claims we wrote about in our final “Trump on the Stump” story throughout the 2020 marketing campaign.
As we wrote most not too long ago, the U.S. didn’t have “the best economic system” throughout the Trump administration. Economists look to actual (inflation-adjusted) gross home product development to measure financial well being, and that determine exceeded Trump’s peak year of three% development greater than a dozen instances earlier than he took workplace.
Each president for the reason that Nineteen Thirties apart from Barack Obama and Herbert Hoover has seen a 12 months with at the least 3% development in GDP.
Didn’t ‘Destroy’ the Financial system
In a number of rallies, Trump falsely mentioned that Harris “destroyed our economic system.” Except for inflation, which has moderated significantly since 2022, a number of financial measures present a robust economic system below the Biden-Harris administration.
GDP growth has been robust: 6.1% in 2021, 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023 and a pair of.8% for the third quarter of 2024, the newest estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. As we mentioned, the very best annual GDP development below Trump was 3%, and the bottom was -2.2% in 2020.
The unemployment rate went down below the Biden-Harris administration and has stayed decrease for longer than at any level of the Trump administration. The newest determine was 4.1% in September, 2.3 proportion factors beneath the place it was when Biden took workplace.
Job development has been robust. Greater than 15 million jobs have been added, and employment is now about 6 million larger than it was pre-pandemic (and that’s accounting for revisions to the employment figures that the Bureau of Labor Statistics seemingly will do subsequent 12 months).
On the destructive facet, inflation went up. Throughout Biden’s presidency, the Consumer Price Index has gone up 19.9%. Inflation has moderated significantly since hitting a 9.1% improve for the 12 months ending in June 2022. The CPI rose solely 2.4% within the 12 months ending in September, the latest determine out there.
Wages have gone up, however haven’t fairly saved tempo with inflation. Common weekly earnings for manufacturing and nonsupervisory staff have gone up 18% throughout this administration, however when adjusted for inflation, wages are down 1.8% as of September.
Causes of Inflation
Trump has misleadingly blamed Harris for inflation, claiming it was attributable to “what they did with power,” as he claimed in Lancaster. The first reason for excessive inflation, notably in 2022, was the unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and inflation rose in international locations all over the world.
Specialists told us that the financial fallout from the pandemic created points with provide and demand, in addition to labor, and inflation was additional exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and subsequent sanctions the U.S. (and different international locations) placed on Russian oil.
Pandemic stimulus spending below Biden additionally contributed, however wasn’t the basis of the matter. Economists additionally mentioned some stage of stimulus was wanted for a strong financial restoration.
Vitality costs went up, however that, too, was a pandemic fallout issue. Demand, and provide, fell in 2020, Trump’s final 12 months in workplace, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The next provide crunch, when demand returned, brought about costs to go up.
Not the ‘Worst’ Inflation
Trump mentioned in Lancaster that the economic system is the most important election situation for voters partly due to inflation, which he falsely mentioned “is the worst we’ve ever had.” He additionally wrongly mentioned in Greenville that “we had no inflation” when he was president.
The biggest 12-month improve within the Client Value Index occurred from June 1919 to June 1920, when the CPI rose 23.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a 2014 publication marking the one centesimal anniversary of the company’s monitoring value modifications. Beneath Biden, the biggest 12-month increase occurred throughout the interval ending in June 2022, when the CPI rose 9.1% (earlier than seasonal adjustment).
As of September, the CPI rose 2.4% within the 12 months ending that month. That’s solely 0.1 proportion level larger than the two.3% improve for the 12 months ending in February 2020, which was earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic helped ship the annual charge of inflation to below 2% for a number of months. Beneath Trump, the most important annual improve was 2.9% for the 12-month durations ending in June and July 2018.
Tariffs on China
Trump mentioned in Greensboro that he’ll make U.S. corporations that don’t manufacture their merchandise within the nation “pay a fairly stiff tariff,” and he talked about imports from China for instance.
“You know the way a lot China paid us throughout my time?” he requested. “Tons of of billions of {dollars}. No different president bought them to pay, not 10 cents. … China didn’t pay 10 cents.”
Trump’s declare is fake. The quantity of customs duties on Chinese language imports elevated after Trump raised tariffs, however the U.S. already had been accumulating billions in customs duties for years. As we’ve reported, in 2016, the 12 months earlier than Trump took workplace, the U.S. collected $13.3 billion in customs duties on Chinese language imports.
Moreover, that cash didn’t come from China, as Trump falsely claimed. The tariffs are paid by U.S. importers within the type of customs duties, and at the least a part of these prices are handed on to U.S. shoppers within the type of larger costs.
Black and Hispanic Jobs
In Detroit on Oct. 18, Trump claimed that “Kamala’s migrant invasion can also be devastating our nice African American neighborhood” as a result of “they’re taking their jobs.” He additionally mentioned individuals who immigrated illegally are “taking numerous Hispanic jobs” as nicely. However Trump’s marketing campaign has not supplied proof of this, and Bureau of Labor Statistics information don’t assist his claims, as we’ve written.
The Black unemployment rate in September was 5.7%, which is decrease than the 9.3% charge in January 2021, at the beginning of the Biden administration, and decrease than the 6.1% charge in February 2020, simply earlier than the pandemic started. The speed was as little as 4.8% in April 2023.
As for Hispanics or Latinos, the unemployment rate in September was 5.1%, which is decrease than the 8.5% charge in January 2021, however larger than the 4.3% charge in February 2020. In September 2022, the speed was 3.9%, which tied the file low first hit below the Trump administration.
Additionally, the variety of Black and Hispanic or Latino people who find themselves unemployed is down from when Biden and Harris took workplace. There have been even fewer Black folks unemployed in September than there have been in February 2020.
Native- and International-Born Employment
Trump adopted his unsupported remarks about migrants taking Black and Hispanic jobs by falsely claiming that “the roles created by Biden are all being taken by folks coming into the nation illegally.”
In September, employment of native-born workers was up practically 7.6 million from January 2021. In the meantime, employment of foreign-born workers elevated by roughly 6.1 million in that interval.
BLS says the foreign-born inhabitants, that means those that weren’t residents at start, contains “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, non permanent residents resembling college students and non permanent staff, and undocumented immigrants.” There isn’t a employment breakdown for under folks within the U.S. illegally.
Manufacturing jobs
Trump cherry-picked the info when he claimed in Michigan and North Carolina that “below Kamala Harris, this 12 months alone, the USA has misplaced practically 50,000 manufacturing jobs.”
It’s true that manufacturing jobs have declined by 49,000 since January, in line with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nevertheless it’s additionally true that 778,000 manufacturing jobs have been added within the three years previous to that, going again to the beginning of Biden’s presidency.
As we wrote, the development for manufacturing jobs below each Presidents Trump and Biden adopted an identical sample: two years of development after an financial downturn, adopted by job losses within the third 12 months.
Value Will increase
At a number of occasions, Trump misleadingly claimed that the everyday household’s prices have elevated by tens of 1000’s of {dollars} below Harris. For instance, in Greenville, he mentioned, “Kamala’s inflation has already value the everyday household over $30,000 in larger costs.”
In response to a state inflation tracker produced by the Republican workers of the Joint Financial Committee, as of September, common family prices in the USA have risen by about $30,000 since January 2021. The estimate is based on Bureau of Financial Evaluation information for state-level private consumption expenditures, together with meals, shelter, power and transportation.
However some economists have said that ignores the truth that actual incomes have risen as nicely, minimizing the rise in costs. In an electronic mail, Gary Burtless, senior fellow emeritus in financial research for the Brookings Establishment, made the purpose to us that the BEA’s seasonally adjusted estimate of actual disposable private earnings, in 2017 {dollars}, is at the moment larger than it was on the finish of Trump’s presidency. “[T]hese numbers present that Individuals’ actual (inflation-adjusted) after-tax incomes have been larger within the Biden Administration than they have been on the shut of the Trump Administration,” he mentioned.
As well as, in July, the Treasury Division updated a report on “The Buying Energy of American Households” that mentioned, primarily based on new earnings and client value information, “We discover that within the 12 months ending within the second quarter of 2024, the median American employee might afford the identical items and providers as they did in 2019, plus an extra $1,400 to spend or save per 12 months.”
Automotive Gross sales
In Detroit, Trump claimed: “U.S. automotive gross sales are down 38% since I left workplace.” Passenger automobiles have declined since 2020, though not as a lot as Trump claimed. Trump additionally ignores the rise in home lightweight vans, together with common minivans and sport utility automobiles, or SUVs.
Common month-to-month retail gross sales of home passenger automobiles went down by 20.6% from 2020, Trump’s final 12 months in workplace, to the primary 9 months of 2024, whereas gross sales of home lightweight vans went up by 15.5%.
Retail gross sales of home automobiles typically have been on a downward trajectory for a few years. Gross sales declined by 50.3% throughout Trump’s time period, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (The figures on “home” automobiles embrace these assembled within the U.S., Canada and Mexico.) In the meantime, sales of domestic light-weight trucks have been growing. These gross sales went up by 2.1% below Trump.
We will get roughly to Trump’s 38% determine by discounting 2020 fully, the primary 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when gross sales of each automobiles and vans went down. Measuring from 2019 to 2024, gross sales of home automobiles declined by 42.7%, however additionally they went down by 31.1% throughout Trump’s time period via 2019.
Lightweight truck gross sales went up by 14% below Trump up till 2019, they usually climbed one other 3.4% since then.
Gross sales of all automobiles and light-weight vans within the U.S., home or overseas, declined below Trump and have gone up a bit below Biden. Gross sales totaled 15.5 million in 2023, up from 14.5 million in 2020 — however down from practically 17 million in 2019. This 12 months’s figures thus far point out a slight improve from 2023.
Mortgage Charges
As he does when he compares different statistics below his administration and Biden’s — see gasoline costs, beneath — Trump cherry-picks and exaggerates in the case of mortgage rates of interest.
In Lancaster and Greensboro, Trump wrongly claimed “once I was president, curiosity was 2.2%. Now it’s 10% and you’ll’t get any cash, so it’s a lot larger than 10%.”
In response to the Federal Reserve’s 30-year fixed rate mortgage average within the U.S., the speed hit a weekly low of two.65% the primary week of Jan. 7, 2021. That’s the bottom weekly charge within the Federal Reserve’s chart going again to 1971. Two weeks later, it was 2.77% in Trump’s final week in workplace. (The common charge throughout Trump’s presidency was 3.87%.)
Mortgage charges rose dramatically in 2022 and 2023, reaching a weekly peak of seven.79% in October 2023 (so, nicely in need of 10%). The common charge was down to six.44% for the week ending Oct. 17.
Immigration
Deceptive Immigration Chart
In any respect of his rallies, Trump displayed a misleadingly labeled chart on unlawful border crossings. Trump referred to the chart as “My all-time favourite graph,” as a result of he had turned to gesture to it at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 when an murderer’s bullet hit his ear.
The info within the chart is correct, however among the labeling will not be.
“See that arrow on the underside?” Trump mentioned in Lancaster. “That arrow was my remaining day in workplace, and we had the bottom unlawful immigration that now we have had within the recorded historical past of our nation,”
As we wrote in April when Trump started referring to the chart at rallies, the arrow on the chart that purports to level to when “Trump leaves workplace” really factors to apprehensions in April 2020, when apprehensions plummeted throughout the peak of the pandemic.
They rose each month after that. In his final months in workplace, apprehensions had greater than quadrupled and have been larger than the month he took workplace.
The truth is, apprehensions over the past three full months of Trump’s presidency have been about 24.4% higher than the final three months below Biden, ending in September. The entire variety of apprehensions was additionally larger throughout Trump’s presidency than both of President Barack Obama’s four-year phrases.
Apprehensions went up considerably below the Biden administration, however have dropped in latest months after Biden implemented new emergency insurance policies to briefly prohibit asylum eligibility and promptly take away many who cross the border illegally as soon as apprehensions attain a sure stage.
Emptying Jails/Psychological Establishments
As he has in just about each public speech over the previous couple of years, Trump made the unsupported declare in all of his appearances we reviewed that different international locations, resembling Venezuela and Congo, are emptying their prisons and psychological establishments and sending these folks to the U.S.
In Greensboro, Trump referred to as the U.S. a “dumping floor for the entire world to place their criminals into.”
Immigration consultants told us there’s merely no proof for that. One skilled mentioned Trump’s declare seemed to be “a complete fabrication.” Trump hasn’t supplied any credible assist for it.
In Lancaster, Trump repeatedly singled out Venezuela, the place, he mentioned, “they opened up their prisons they usually allowed the folks to come back out.” In his Oct. 18 Auburn Hills roundtable occasion, Trump added this as proof: “Their crime is down 72% in Venezuela.”
As we have written, reported crime is trending down in Venezuela, however crime consultants within the nation say there are quite a few causes for that they usually don’t have anything to do with sending criminals to the U.S.
“Now we have no proof that the Venezuelan authorities is emptying the prisons or psychological hospitals to ship them overseas, whether or not to the USA or another nation,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the unbiased Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, advised us.
He mentioned the drop in crime is partly attributable to worsening financial and dwelling circumstances, which have brought about nearly 8 million folks to depart the nation since 2014. The vast majority have settled in close by South American international locations.
False Convicted Murderers Declare
In just about all of his latest appearances, Trump has supplied some variation of the false claim that “below Kamala Harris 13,099 unlawful alien convicted murderers are on the free proper now in the USA of America.” That’s the variety of noncitizens convicted of homicide who weren’t being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however the overwhelming majority entered earlier than Biden took workplace. Many are in jail.
Right here’s how Trump put it in Miami on Oct. 22: “Now we have 13,099, precisely. … That is throughout their three and a half 12 months that they’ve been there. … These are those that have been in jail, they usually’re murderers. Some are up for the demise penalty however some killed far multiple individual. … Each considered one of them has been launched into the USA of America.”
ICE’s non-detained docket, as it’s recognized, reveals that there have been 13,099 noncitizens, who had been convicted of homicide, within the U.S. however not in ICE custody, as of July 21, in line with a letter despatched by the ICE appearing director to a Republican congressman on Sept. 25.
However as we wrote final month, the “overwhelming majority” of those noncitizens — not simply those that entered the nation illegally — got here to the USA previous to the Biden administration and had their custody standing decided “lengthy earlier than this Administration,” because the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned.
“The info goes again a long time; it contains people who entered the nation over the previous 40 years or extra,” DHS mentioned in an announcement. “It additionally contains many who’re below the jurisdiction or at the moment incarcerated by federal, state or native legislation enforcement companions.”
Springfield, Ohio
In Lancaster, Trump mentioned, “In a single city in Ohio, a city of — consider this, a city of 52,000 folks, they put 32,000 unlawful migrants on this city, proper? 32,000 unlawful migrants right into a 52,000-people city.”
There are a number of issues mistaken in Trump’s declare. First, he inflates the variety of immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. As we have written, Mayor Rob Rue put the town’s whole immigrant inhabitants at between 12,000 and 15,000, which can also be on the town’s FAQ web page.
Additionally, no one “put” the largely Haitian immigrants in Springfield. On its web site, the town says, “No authorities entity is liable for the inflow of Haitians into Clark County. As soon as an individual with Non permanent Protected Standing enters the nation, they’re free to find wherever they select.”
The inflow of immigrants helped clear up a labor scarcity, the Wall Road Journal reported, but in addition strained the town’s providers. In early September, Gov. Mike DeWine announced that the state would supply state troopers to assist with visitors management and enforcement in Springfield and $2.5 million to assist the town broaden main well being take care of its residents.
Lastly, whereas Trump referred to as them “unlawful immigrants,” a metropolis commissioner told us that “many of the Haitians dwelling in Springfield do have Federal paperwork as nicely that permit them to be right here.”
Aurora, Colorado
Trump claimed in a number of appearances that members of the Venezuelan jail gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) have taken over communities like Aurora, Colorado. Trump’s claims have been sparked by a viral video that confirmed closely armed males coming into an condo advanced within the metropolis. And as we have reported, there may be evidence that quite a few Tren de Aragua gang members have been arrested making an attempt to illegally cross the border into the U.S. Nonetheless, Aurora’s mayor and police chief say claims like Trump’s concerning the gang taking on the town are overblown.
“It’s the savage Venezuelan jail gang, Tren de Aragua,” Trump mentioned in Detroit. “They have been gang members in Venezuela. We allow them to into our nation. By the best way, they’re taking on elements of cities all over. However in Aurora, Colorado, and communities in all 50 states, this gang is terrorizing law-abiding residents, together with taking on a number of condo complexes.”
In Lancaster, Trump mentioned of the gang, “They’re taking on like Aurora and in Colorado.”
A press release issued on Sept. 11 by Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, and different metropolis officers acknowledged, “As for the notion and actuality of public security in Aurora, please perceive that points skilled at a choose few properties don’t apply to the town as an entire or massive parts of it. TdA has not ‘taken over’ the town. The overstated claims fueled by social media and thru choose information organizations are merely not true. Once more, TdA’s presence in Aurora is restricted to particular properties, all of which the town has been addressing in numerous methods for months.”
To that time, they wrote, the Aurora Police Division had “linked 10 folks to TdA and has arrested eight of these folks. Two of the eight people who have been taken into custody have been concerned in a July taking pictures at one of many particular properties within the metropolis which have skilled points with TdA exercise. Consistent with these arrests, we are able to additionally now affirm that prison exercise, together with TdA points, had considerably affected these properties.”
In August, the Aurora Police Division introduced that whereas it thought of TdA’s prison exercise in Aurora to be “remoted,” a regional task force was fashioned to handle the gang’s rising prison actions.
Nonetheless, Coffman and the police chief say the issues in Aurora are being overblown for political functions.
“It’s a political atmosphere proper now going into the election,” Coffman said at a city corridor on Oct. 26. “There’s one facet that mentioned there’s by no means been an issue. There’s one other facet that claims, yeah, the entire metropolis is overrun. … And I believe that the reality lies within the center.”
“Is there an issue now? … I don’t imagine there may be,” Coffman said.
“We did have an issue, there’s no query about it,” Coffman mentioned. “There was an issue, however there was a legislation enforcement response to that drawback. And I believe there are are those that wish to say now we have an issue and run that narrative all through the election.”
Police Chief Todd Chamberlain echoed that sentiment.
“This metropolis will not be overrun by TdA,” Chamberlain mentioned on the city corridor assembly. “This metropolis will not be managed by TdA. I’m going to face up in entrance of you proper now and say that’s an extremely false narrative. It’s a narrative that’s not validated or backed up by any statistics, any information, any data.”
Closing the Border
Trump claimed that, and not using a invoice from Congress, he was capable of unilaterally “shut the border.” He claimed that Harris “might stroll into the White Home, say ‘Wake Biden up, I would like him to signal one thing’ and all he has to do is say, ‘shut the border.’ He doesn’t want a invoice.”
Really, Trump tried that very factor as president — to bar migrants caught crossing into the U.S. illegally from pursuing asylum — and the courts blocked him.
In November 2018, as reports circulated a few “caravan” of migrants from Central America making their means via Mexico en path to the U.S. border, Trump issued a proclamation barring the entry of migrants except they entered at ports of entry. The identical day, the administration issued new regulations making those that entered the U.S. illegally between ports of entry ineligible for asylum.
A federal District Courtroom decide in California briefly halted Trump’s effort, after concluding that barring migrants who enter outdoors of designated ports of entry from in search of asylum violated federal immigration legislation, worldwide legislation and “the expressed intent of Congress.”
In the end, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Courtroom, however its movement to remain the District Courtroom ruling blocking enforcement of the coverage was denied.
A bit over a 12 months later, because the pandemic hit, Trump invoked Title 42, a public well being legislation that allowed border officers to instantly return a lot of these caught making an attempt to enter the nation illegally, even those that sought asylum. That proclamation was additionally being challenged in courtroom and was heading towards the Supreme Courtroom when the federal public well being emergency for COVID-19 ended, and Biden lifted Title 42 in Could 2023.
Immigration legislation consultants advised us the bipartisan Senate border invoice Trump helped to kill would have granted the authority Trump talked about, in emergency conditions.
In June, Biden enacted new measures to limit asylum eligibility for these apprehended whereas making an attempt to enter the U.S. illegally throughout the southern border. The order, because the Division of Homeland Safety explained, “typically restricts asylum eligibility” when the variety of folks apprehended crossing the southern border illegally reaches a every day common of two,500 encounters or extra for seven straight days. That provision has contributed to a dramatic drop in unlawful border crossings ever since.
Numerous immigrant rights teams are challenging Biden’s emergency border measures in court.
Inflating Unlawful Immigration Numbers
Trump repeatedly inflated the variety of immigrants who crossed into the nation illegally throughout the Biden administration.
“Twenty-one million folks got here in below their rule,” he mentioned in Detroit. He added in Latrobe the next day, “What they’ve completed to our nation is unbelievable, permitting greater than 21 million folks into our nation.”
As we have written, that’s double the whole variety of folks caught making an attempt to enter the nation illegally (7.1 million, which incorporates repeat makes an attempt), those that got here to authorized ports of entry with out authorization to enter (1.2 million), and the estimated quantity who evaded seize (2 million). Complete DHS information on the preliminary processing of those encounters reveals that 2.9 million have been eliminated by CBP and three.2 million have been launched with notices to seem in immigration courtroom or report back to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or given different classifications, resembling parole.
Opposition to Bipartisan Border Invoice
In a little bit of revisionist historical past, Trump mocked Democrats for saying he advised senators to vote in opposition to the bipartisan border invoice that failed in late January. “Ted, did I ever inform you to not signal that invoice?” Trump mentioned in Greenville, gesturing to North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd. “No, proper? I didn’t inform anyone.” In Greensboro, Trump claimed that “the reality is I had nothing to do with” killing the invoice.
Trump made it well-known on the time that he opposed the invoice, calling it “an important reward to the Democrats, and a Dying Want for The Republican Social gathering” and saying “solely a idiot, or a Radical Left Democrat” would vote for the invoice.
In a Fox News interview in April, Republican Sen. James Lankford, one of many architects of the invoice, mentioned it was “painful” to look at because it “bought stirred up in all of the presidential politics, and a number of other of my colleagues began on the lookout for methods — after President Trump mentioned, ‘Don’t repair something throughout the presidential election. It’s the one greatest situation throughout the election. Don’t resolve this. We’ll resolve it subsequent 12 months.’ — Fairly a couple of of my colleagues backed up, appeared for a motive to shoot in opposition to it after which walked away.”
“Former President Trump has indicated to senators that he doesn’t need us to unravel the issue on the border,” Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said in late January. “He needs to put the blame on the border at Biden.”
Certainly, in a speech in Las Vegas on Jan. 27, Trump appeared comfortable to take credit score for killing the invoice.
“I seen numerous the senators, numerous the senators are attempting to say respectfully, they’re blaming it on me,” Trump said of the demise of the invoice. “I mentioned, ‘That’s okay. Please blame it on me, please,’ as a result of they have been on the brink of go a really dangerous invoice.”
Border Invoice Misinformation
In Miami, Trump wrongly mentioned of the Senate bipartisan border bill, “They hold mentioning a phony invoice, that invoice. The invoice was horrible, 2 million individuals are allowed in.”
As we wrote earlier this 12 months, a lot of the controversy centered on a piece of the invoice that may have supplied emergency authority to the administration to “summarily take away” individuals who cross into the U.S. illegally between ports of entry, even when they’re in search of asylum. Trump and different Republicans claimed the invoice would have permitted as much as 5,000 unlawful entries per day — or 1,825,000 per 12 months, which Trump rounded as much as 2 million. That’s not correct.
We’ll let Lankford, one of many architects of the invoice and one of many most conservative members of the Senate, clarify.
“This frequent misnomer of the 5,000 a day — a few of my [Republican] colleagues have talked about this — that’s really factually not true,” Lankford mentioned in a Fox Information interview in April. “The way in which the invoice was arrange is the very first person who got here throughout would have been detained, rapidly screened and deported. So it was a really fast turnaround from the very first person who got here throughout the border. Nevertheless it additionally did arrange an excessive measure that if we had these massive caravans and people that are available and we get 5,000, it takes away due course of once you get to that quantity they usually’re simply detained and deported. So the primary individual detained, screened rapidly and deported. When you get to five,000 they’re simply detained and deported. Nevertheless it doesn’t wait until 5,000 to do one thing. It did it on the very first second. That was the nice misnomer.”
Migrants and Medicare, Social Safety
In Latrobe, whereas speaking about unlawful immigration, Trump falsely claimed that “Kamala’s invasion can also be bankrupting Medicare and Social Safety.”
The truth that the belief funds for the Medicare and Social Security packages are financially unstable will not be due to unlawful immigration. Folks within the nation illegally are typically not eligible to obtain advantages via both entitlement program. Nonetheless, tens of millions of these people contribute to these packages anyway by paying payroll taxes on their earned wages.
Even the Center for Immigration Studies, a suppose tank that favors decreased immigration, reported in 2023, “Unlawful immigration improves the funds of Social Safety and Medicare for a easy motive: Though unlawful immigrants are typically not eligible to gather Social Safety and Medicare advantages, many nonetheless pay taxes into the system. These taxes perform as free contributions to the belief funds, so long as the unlawful immigrants stay ineligible for advantages.”
If folks within the nation illegally have been granted amnesty, permitting them to completely dwell within the U.S., and made eligible for advantages, they might develop into a internet drain on the packages, the CIS mentioned, as a result of they might obtain extra in advantages than the pay in taxes. On her campaign website, Harris says she helps “an earned pathway to citizenship” for folks illegally within the nation, however she has not detailed how that may work. It’s additionally not clear that Congress would assist such a plan.
Human Trafficking
Trump claimed that human trafficking was 10 instances, 12 instances, or 15 or 16 instances larger than the extent it was when he left workplace. We discovered no proof for such figures, and his marketing campaign didn’t present any proof.
In Greenville, Trump claimed that his administration had “stopped” human trafficking, saying “we might examine in each automotive, each trunk in each automotive the place they put numerous them,” however now the quantity was up “10 instances extra.” On the Detroit rally, he mentioned the day he left workplace, “They’d human trafficking at a stage, the bottom stage. Now it’s about 12 instances larger.” And on the Miami occasion, he mentioned that trafficking was up “15 or 16 instances” the extent of 4 years in the past, once more saying, “they put them largely in trunks of automobiles.” Trump made these feedback when speaking about unlawful immigration on the southern border.
Amy Farrell, director and professor of criminology and prison justice at Northeastern College, researches human trafficking and the prison justice system. She advised us she had “no concept” the place Trump’s figures have been coming from. There’s “no good measure of the phenomenon,” she defined.
We will take a look at prosecutions, arrests and different response measures. Nonetheless, the info now we have on arrests or prosecutions of human trafficking don’t present us what’s occurring on the border. Farrell mentioned most federally prosecuted intercourse trafficking instances, and people recognized domestically, are home instances, not instances involving overseas nationals. Intercourse trafficking instances have been steadily rising over a decade or so, attributable to extra investigation and prosecution of human trafficking, she mentioned.
Farrell additionally mentioned Trump’s description of stopping trafficking by discovering victims within the trunks of automobiles on the border “doesn’t make numerous sense,” as that’s not what usually occurs. “We very not often interdict people who find themselves victims of trafficking on the border,” she mentioned. Folks can illegally cross the border and later be exploited by nefarious folks.
In 2019, once we appeared into Trump’s claims tying unlawful immigration to human trafficking, consultants told us that usually the instances they cope with regarding overseas nationals are folks introduced via authorized ports of entry, resembling airports and land border management factors.
Functions for T nonimmigrant status, often known as the T visa, have elevated considerably, however nowhere close to the degrees Trump cited. The T visa is for noncitizen victims who’re within the U.S. or at a authorized port of entry and have assisted authorities, when requested, with the investigation or prosecution of trafficking crimes. The visa is granted for as much as 4 years, and approvals are capped at 5,000 per 12 months, a determine that has by no means been reached.
The numbers are difficult, as a result of it takes greater than a 12 months on common for functions for be adjudicated, so approvals for one 12 months characterize largely functions that had been acquired in prior years. Approvals in fiscal year 2023 — 2,181 — have been solely 9% larger than in fiscal 2020. Functions, nevertheless, tripled from 2,150 in 2020 to eight,598 in 2023.
Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of the Human Trafficking Authorized Heart, referred us to information out there in State Division studies on investigations opened by the Division of Justice and Division of Homeland Safety. There have been 1,282 investigations by DHS in fiscal year 2023, a 35% improve from the quantity in fiscal 2020. The DOJ investigations have been practically the identical in these years: 664 and 663. There was a few 72% improve in new purchasers served by DOJ-funded packages, however funding for these packages additionally elevated.
Figures from the Nationwide Human Trafficking Hotline don’t point out a 10-fold or extra improve in trafficking, or any measurable improve for that matter. The hotline has figures on the “indicators” it receives, that means calls, texts and different tips about trafficking cases, and the variety of indicators that come from victims or survivors of trafficking. These numbers have been really decrease in 2023 than they have been in 2020, although the figures fluctuate and we don’t suppose a lot needs to be learn into that.
The rise in immigration flows and apprehensions of these making an attempt to cross the southern border total below the Biden administration might point out that extra individuals are vulnerable to trafficking. The newest State Division report mentioned: “Regional instability mixed with U.S. asylum insurance policies and processes leading to massive numbers of migrants and asylum-seekers alongside the southern border contributes to elevated dangers of human trafficking by establishing excessive concentrations of weak populations, together with many unaccompanied migrant kids.”
Migrant Youngsters ‘Lacking’
“Have you learnt that … 325,000 kids are useless or lacking below their [watch]. They got here throughout the border or they didn’t,” Trump said on the city corridor in Lancaster, distorting a report from DHS. “They’re all useless, lacking, or into intercourse slavery or slavery.” Trump repeated the speaking level in Miami, saying, “It’s really 325,000 kids are lacking, intercourse slaves, slaves — or useless.”
An August report from the Division of Homeland Safety inspector common mentioned about that many unaccompanied minors who illegally entered the U.S. had not proven up for immigration courtroom between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, or had not acquired a summons to seem in courtroom. The report didn’t say they have been “lacking.”
The report mentioned that greater than 32,000 minors didn’t present up for his or her immigration courtroom hearings in that interval, which incorporates time throughout the Trump and Biden administrations. As well as, as of Could 2024, ICE had not issued a Notice to Appear in courtroom to greater than 291,000 minors, the report mentioned. Such notices are despatched at the beginning of elimination proceedings.
“By not issuing NTAs to all UCs [unaccompanied children], ICE limits its probabilities of having contact with UCs when they’re launched from HHS’ custody, which reduces alternatives to confirm their security,” the report mentioned. “With out a capability to watch the placement and standing of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are protected from trafficking, exploitation, or pressured labor.”
In a response letter included as an appendix to the report, ICE indicated that it could delay sending notices for numerous causes, together with if the kid has already utilized for asylum or one other authorized standing with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers.
Noncitizens and ‘Welfare’
In Greensboro, Trump claimed that “Kamala is importing tens of millions of illegals throughout our borders and giving them taxpayer advantages at your expense.” In the meantime, in Greenville, he promised that he “will ban all welfare and federal advantages for illegals” if elected.
However, below a 1996 federal law, folks within the U.S. illegally are already broadly disqualified from accumulating federal advantages from authorities packages, with solely restricted exceptions.
Because the Migration Coverage Institute, a nonpartisan suppose tank that researches immigration points, mentioned in an October explainer: “Noncitizens — a time period that covers immigrants of all statuses apart from naturalized residents — are typically ineligible for federally funded packages together with the Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program (CHIP), Medicaid, Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP), Supplemental Safety Earnings (SSI), and Non permanent Help to Needy Households (TANF) if they don’t seem to be refugees or in a refugee-like standing and haven’t spent 5 years with a inexperienced card (or different such standing). Youngsters can entry SNAP throughout their first 5 years on a inexperienced card, and in some states which have elected to complement federal protection with their very own sources, kids and pregnant ladies can entry Medicaid and/or CHIP throughout their first 5 years as authorized everlasting residents.”
Aside from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, which gives diet and well being providers for pregnant and postpartum ladies and younger kids, the coverage institute mentioned, “unauthorized immigrants are typically ineligible for federally funded helps apart from emergency Medicaid, main and preventive well being care at Federally Certified Well being Facilities (FQHCs), free/decreased college lunch, and short-term entry to shelters and soup kitchens in emergency conditions.”
Trump’s Wall
Trump wrongly mentioned he constructed 571 miles of wall. It was 458 miles and most of it, 373 miles, was substitute obstacles for main or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or outdated, in line with a January 2021 Customs and Border Protection status report. Simply 52 miles of it was added in locations the place there was no wall earlier than.
Trump additionally falsely mentioned he “constructed far more than I mentioned I used to be going to construct.”
The border is considerably extra strong than when Trump took workplace, however together with obstacles that existed earlier than Trump took workplace, there are actually about 706 miles of obstacles, overlaying about 36% of the whole southwest border. That’s far lower than the 1,000-mile-long wall that Trump promised repeatedly throughout the 2016 marketing campaign.
Trump went on to assert that “we had the most secure border within the historical past of our nation.” As we wrote in “Trump’s Final Numbers,” unlawful border crossings, as measured by apprehensions on the southwest border, have been 14.7% larger in Trump’s remaining 12 months in workplace in contrast with the final full 12 months of Obama’s time period.
CBP One App
In Latrobe, Trump misrepresented the CBP One App, which he mentioned the Biden administration created “for the prison cartels to name up” and ask “the place do I eliminate my unlawful migrants they usually inform you the place to drop them off.” That’s not the app’s function.
The CBP One app was launched in January 2023 for migrants in Mexico who wish to make an appointment to request asylum or parole at a authorized port of entry within the U.S. DHS says the method is “safer, humane, and extra orderly” than processing between ports of entry, the place migrants illegally cross the border and wait to be apprehended by border officers.
To get an appointment, migrants should submit details about themselves, together with contact data and a photograph. On the appointment, they’re screened and may very well be topic to expedited elimination, however the majority are launched into the U.S. with a discover to seem in immigration courtroom, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an affiliate coverage analyst on the Migration Coverage Institute, a nonpartisan suppose tank that researches immigration points, advised us when we wrote about immigration in February.
CBP says, via September, greater than 852,000 folks have made appointments with the app.
Harris on ICE
Trump wrongly claimed “Kamala Harris vowed to abolish ICE. … And he or she needs to eliminate them. She needs to eliminate ICE.”
Whereas serving as a senator in June 2018, Harris was crucial of the best way ICE operated throughout the Trump administration — resembling its enforcement of Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy that resulted in kids being separated from their mother and father who have been detained for coming into the U.S. illegally. Harris said the federal government ought to “critically reexamine” ICE’s position, including which may imply “ranging from scratch.”
In a subsequent interview in July 2019, Harris was requested if she would eliminate the Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees ICE.
“I’d not,” Harris mentioned. “We have to restructure and reform it. … We have to cope with it and repair it, however I don’t imagine in eliminating it.” A number of instances, Harris added, “I imagine in border safety.”
Harris referred to as for reexamining the best way ICE was functioning below the Trump administration, and she or he talked about the opportunity of “ranging from scratch.” However she by no means referred to as for abolishing the company and its features altogether.
Border Czar
Trump repeated the false declare that Harris was the “border czar” answerable for unlawful immigration on the U.S. border with Mexico.
“She doesn’t wish to be referred to as border czar. However you already know what? I don’t care,” Trump mentioned in Latrobe. Biden “put her answerable for the border,” he mentioned.
As we’ve written, Biden asked Harris in March 2021 to guide federal efforts to handle the basis causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The Central American initiative seeks to discourage migration from these international locations by, amongst different issues, offering funds for pure disasters, combating corruption, and creating partnerships with the non-public sector and worldwide organizations.
Harris’ accountability didn’t embrace safety on the southern border, because the “border czar” title implies. That’s the job of DHS, which has been led by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas since February 2021.
Decriminalizing Border Crossings
A video performed at a number of Trump rallies features a quote from Harris saying, “I’m in favor of claiming that we’re not going to deal with people who find themselves undocumented and cross the border as criminals.”
That comes from a 2019 interview on ABC’s “The View.” Harris went on to say, “I’d not make it a criminal offense punishable by jail. It needs to be a civil enforcement situation, however not a prison enforcement situation.”
That was her place in 2019. However Harris has made it clear that’s not her place.
“I don’t imagine in decriminalizing border crossings and I’ve not completed that as vp,” Harris mentioned in an interview on Fox Information on Oct. 17. ”I can’t do this as president.”
Vitality
Vitality Value Promise
In a number of rallies, Trump has made the doubtful pledge that, if elected, he would “minimize your power costs in half inside 12 months” of taking workplace by growing power manufacturing. “We are going to frack, frack, frack and drill, child, drill,” Trump mentioned in Detroit. “I’ll minimize your power costs in half inside 12 months. … That’s going to convey every little thing down.” Specialists we interviewed didn’t see a means for Trump to chop power payments by that a lot.
As we’ve written, economists and power consultants mentioned growing the home provide of oil and pure gasoline — if worldwide demand stayed fixed — might decrease costs, at the least considerably or for a brief time frame. However ramping up the availability is a call oil and gasoline corporations must make, they usually wouldn’t be inclined to supply extra for a lower cost. And even when they may very well be incentivized to supply extra oil and gasoline for much less in revenue, worldwide producers would react to the elevated U.S. provide by pulling again on their manufacturing.
Cullen Hendrix, senior fellow on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics, advised us: “My net-net is that Trump wouldn’t be capable of ship on this promise except the worldwide economic system craters, the US cuts itself off from world power markets, and US producers are satisfied to supply at value ranges that may not maintain operations.”
Vitality Independence
As he usually does, Trump in Greenville and at different rallies misleadingly contrasted his administration with Biden and Harris’ saying, “4 years in the past, we have been power unbiased. Are you able to imagine it? … Now we’re shopping for tar from Venezuela.” However by Trump’s definition, the nation stays power unbiased below the Biden-Harris administration.
What Trump seemingly means is that the U.S. both produced extra power than it consumed, or exported extra power than it imported. However as we’ve written, the U.S. by no means stopped importing sources of power, including crude oil, from different international locations throughout Trump’s administration.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, after years trending in that course, the U.S. did hit a tipping level the place exports of main power exceeded power imports from overseas sources in 2019 — the primary time that had occurred since 1952, according to the Vitality Info Administration. It occurred once more in 2020.
However opposite to Trump’s suggestion, the U.S., throughout Biden’s presidency, continues to export extra power, including petroleum, than it imports, and it produces extra power than it consumes. Additionally, the U.S. is producing file quantities of oil and natural gas below Biden.
Fuel Value Comparability
“Our power was unbelievable,” Trump mentioned in Greenville. “We had it right down to $1.87 a gallon, and it went as much as 5 and a half {dollars}.” He’s cherry-picking on the entrance finish and exaggerating on the again finish.
Gasoline costs did dip to $1.87 in Could 2020 when Trump was president, however that was throughout the pandemic when gasoline utilization plummeted. Costs have been the bottom in Trump’s presidency that month and the month earlier than, in line with the EIA. Costs rose to $2.33 per gallon in January 2021, when Trump left workplace. That’s nearly precisely the value of gasoline when Trump took workplace in January 2017, $2.35.
Beneath Biden, the value of gasoline rose to a peak of $4.93 in June 2022, largely as a result of post-pandemic world provide points and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has dropped since, and was $3.14 this month. Importantly, as we have written numerous times, U.S. presidents have little management over the value that customers pay for gasoline.
Crude Oil Reserves
In his Greensboro remarks, Trump said that in his administration drilling would improve as a result of “now we have extra liquid gold than anyone on the planet.” That’s not correct.
The U.S. already produces extra crude oil than another nation. Nevertheless it doesn’t have extra confirmed crude oil reserves than another nation – a false declare that Trump recurrently makes.
The EIA says proved reserves “are the estimated portions of all liquids outlined as crude oil, which geological and engineering information show with affordable certainty to be recoverable in future years from recognized reservoirs below present financial and working circumstances.”
As of 2023, Venezuela, with roughly 303 billion barrels, had the most important estimated confirmed crude oil reserves, according to the EIA’s February 2024 nation evaluation transient on Venezuela, which cited 2023 information from the Oil & Fuel Journal. Russia and Saudi Arabia are two of the seven different international locations forward of the U.S, which had fewer than 100 billion barrels and ranked ninth.
Harris on Fracking
“She needs to ban fracking,” Trump said in Detroit, including in Pennsylvania, “you already know she’s going to ban fracking, proper? 100%.”
When she was a candidate within the 2020 race for president, Harris mentioned that she was against fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a way that makes use of water, sand or chemical compounds to extract oil and pure gasoline from underground rock formations. Throughout a September 2019 CNN city corridor, Harris was requested by a local weather activist if she would decide to a federal ban on fracking due to environmental issues for native communities. Harris answered, “There’s no query I’m in favor of banning fracking, so sure.”
Harris has since modified her place. In an Aug. 29 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Harris said, “As vp, I didn’t ban fracking. As president, I can’t ban fracking.”
Electrical Car Charging Stations
In Miami, Trump repeated his false declare that the Biden administration “spent $9 billion for eight charging stations” for electrical automobiles, including that “when you did the entire nation, you’ll have spent $30 trillion.”
Trump appears to be distorting media articles from earlier this 12 months on the gradual progress at that time of constructing charging stations with $7.5 billion permitted by Congress to assist assemble a network of EV chargers throughout the nation over 5 years. It’s sufficient cash to assist construct 1000’s of charging stations and greater than 30,000 particular person charging ports, consultants mentioned.
The brand new charging stations are being constructed with the federal cash awarded to states, in addition to non-public funding, and never the entire $7.5 billion has been awarded but.
In mid-August, once we wrote about this declare, the Federal Freeway Administration advised us the funding had helped construct 15 charging stations that had 61 charging ports, and one other 14,900 ports have been in progress.
As for Trump’s declare that it could value $30 trillion to construct EV stations throughout the nation, that’s a major inflation of his already false claims this summer season that it could value $5 trillion or $10 trillion. Pete Gould, a coverage skilled in transportation and a lobbyist for the EV and charging business, told E&E News that Trump’s multitrillion figures “sound too ridiculous to be true … as a result of they aren’t true.”
On the Miami occasion, Trump went on to make the false declare that EV semi-trucks would “weigh two and a half” instances the load of standard gasoline or diesel vans and, due to this fact, “you’d must rebuild each bridge in the USA.” The Washington Publish Truth Checker called that declare “nonsense,” writing that there’s a authorized weight restrict for all semi-trucks, EV or in any other case, of 80,000 kilos, a weight that bridges are constructed to face up to.
Extra on EVs
In Detroit and Greenville, Trump mentioned, if elected, he “will terminate Kamala’s insane electrical car mandate.” However there is no such thing as a such EV mandate.
In March, the Environmental Safety Company announced its finalized gasoline effectivity requirements for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. The brand new requirements are for mannequin years 2027 via 2032 and can stay in place thereafter except the principles are rescinded or new ones are adopted.
These Biden administration rules, which goal to scale back air pollution from tailpipe emissions, might significantly improve the variety of electrical automobiles bought within the U.S. However the rules don’t imply that U.S. residents will solely be allowed to purchase and drive EVs. Coverage consultants previously told us that carmakers would have flexibility in how they meet the brand new federal requirements, together with by making gas-powered automobiles, or these with inner combustion engines, extra environment friendly.
Sea Stage Rise
Trump solid doubt on local weather change by telling his Greensboro viewers that “nuclear weapons and having silly folks working our nation” is “the actual world warming, not this nonsense of the ocean’s going to rise over the subsequent 400 years by one-eighth of an inch, and we’re going to be worn out.”
However the declare that the ocean will rise by lower than an inch over 4 centuries is fake. As we’ve reported, the present charge of sea stage rise is already slightly greater than one-eighth of an inch yearly. In response to the latest data from NASA, the present charge of worldwide sea stage rise is 4.2 millimeters, or 0.17 inches, per 12 months.
Taxes
80% Tax Charge Falsehood
Harris “needs to boost your taxes to 70% or 80%,” Trump falsely said in Lancaster.
At rallies, Trump additionally has been taking part in a video montage that features a clip of Megan McCain on ABC’s “The View” saying, “Every part from a 70 to 80% tax charge,” adopted by Harris saying, “I believe that’s implausible.”
Harris didn’t endorse that high federal tax charge. And the video is clipped in a really deceptive means.
Trump’s declare can also be primarily based on that January 2019 interview of Harris on “The View,” and right here’s the way it really performed out: McCain requested Harris if she believed that “socialist left” insurance policies proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, resembling a “70% to 80% tax charge,” might splinter the Democratic Social gathering.
“No.” Harris mentioned. “I believe she is difficult the established order. I believe that’s implausible.”
“I believe that she is introducing daring concepts that needs to be mentioned,” Harris mentioned. “And I believe it’s good for the celebration, and admittedly I believe it’s good for the nation. Let’s take a look at the daring concepts and I’m keen that now we have these discussions. And once we are capable of defend the established order, then do it. And if there’s not benefit to that, then let’s discover new concepts.”
On the time, Ocasio-Cortez had floated growing the highest earnings tax charge to 70% or extra — however just for U.S. residents making at the least $10 million yearly. However Harris by no means mentioned she supported that hypothetical coverage.
Whereas working for president in 2019, Harris proposed elevating the highest earnings tax charge on the highest 1% of earners again to 39.6%. This election, she has equally proposed growing the highest charge again to 39.6% for people incomes greater than $400,000 or married {couples} making greater than $450,000. Trump reduced the highest charge to 37% in 2017, when he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Video Distorts Harris’ Tax Feedback
At a number of rallies, Trump directed the viewers’s consideration to a video of an advert that we fact-checked in early October. We concluded it was a “traditional instance of how political adverts mislead viewers by utilizing out-of-context quotes.”
The advert features a truncated quote from the New York Occasions saying Harris “is in search of to considerably elevate taxes.” The remainder of that sentence within the Occasions mentioned: “on the wealthiest Individuals and enormous companies.” The advert additionally includes a clip of Harris saying, “Taxes are going to must go up.” Within the July 2019 occasion, Harris really mentioned, “Property taxes are going to must go up for the richest Individuals.”
A narrator within the video says, “Kamala’s plan will elevate households’ taxes by practically $2,600 a 12 months,” citing the Tax Basis on Could 7. As we wrote, “That’s not what the Tax Basis mentioned.”
As an alternative, the Tax Basis article analyzed the impression on taxpayers if the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions expire on the finish of 2025, as scheduled. “With out congressional motion, most taxpayers will see a notable tax improve relative to present coverage in 2026,” the Tax Basis mentioned.
The video assumes — with out explicitly saying so — that Harris’ “plan” is to let the entire particular person tax cuts within the 2017 act expire. However whereas Harris hasn’t detailed how she would deal with that expiration, she has mentioned she “will ensure that nobody incomes lower than $400,000 a 12 months pays extra in taxes” and can “roll again Trump’s tax cuts for the richest Individuals,” as her financial coverage ebook says.
Wanting on the entirety of Harris’ proposals — and never together with an extension of the TCJA cuts, the Tax Basis’s analysis of Harris’ tax proposals on Oct. 16 discovered that her plans typically “would redistribute earnings from excessive earners to low earners.”
Deceptive Jobs Declare
In Detroit, Trump mentioned Harris’ “proposals are estimated to kill nearly 1,000,000 full-time jobs” and that if he’s elected, “You’re going to have jobs coming in like by no means earlier than.”
Trump is referring to an analysis of Harris’ tax plans from the Tax Basis, which concluded her insurance policies would result in 786,000 fewer jobs over 10 years. So Trump’s declare of 1 million is a really wholesome rounding up.
In contrast, the Tax Basis concluded that Trump’s tax proposals would improve employment by 597,000 full-time equal jobs (although it estimated Trump’s plans would add greater than Harris’ to the nation’s finances deficits).
However one of many main wild playing cards in estimating the impression of Harris’ plans is the uncertainty of how she would deal with the expiring particular person tax cuts contained within the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Harris has not particularly addressed her place on the tax cuts set to run out on the finish of 2025, saying only that she helps Biden’s pledge that “when it pertains to anyone making lower than $400,000 a 12 months, your taxes is not going to go up.” After we requested the Harris marketing campaign in early October about her place, the marketing campaign pointed us to a line in Harris’ financial coverage ebook that says she “will ensure that nobody incomes lower than $400,000 a 12 months pays extra in taxes” and can “roll again Trump’s tax cuts for the richest Individuals.”
If which means Harris would permit the tax cuts to run out just for these making greater than $400,000, that might impression the Tax Basis’s estimates for jobs misplaced below her insurance policies, Erica York, a senior economist on the Tax Basis advised us through electronic mail. However quite a bit would depend upon how she applied the cutoffs, York mentioned, and the extent of any tax hikes Harris may suggest to offset the loss in income.
“Harris has not supplied sufficient specifics on how she would deal with the expirations for us to have the ability to mannequin it,” York mentioned.
Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget clearly acknowledged that he supported extending the TCJA tax cuts for folks incomes lower than $400,000, and that he would offset the associated fee by enacting new taxes on “rich folks and large companies” in order that the tax extensions wouldn’t add to the debt.
“Harris would presumably do one thing alongside these traces however has not specified whether or not which means extending all of the expiring provisions, together with the offsets that might probably elevate taxes on a few of these taxpayers, nor specified what tax will increase she would use to pay for that partial extension,” York mentioned. “It’s doable that the tax will increase used to pay for the extension might offset the financial enhance from persevering with the tax cuts, however since none of it has been spelled out intimately, we merely don’t know.”
What if Harris merely prolonged the tax cuts to folks making lower than $400,000 with none commensurate tax hikes to offset the associated fee?
“Including $2 trillion of deficit-financed particular person earnings tax cuts would scale back the projected decline in jobs,” York mentioned.
Some economists have reached completely different conclusions concerning the impression of Harris’ and Trump’s coverage proposals on jobs.
“Job development is predicted to proceed below both Harris or Trump attributable to underlying secular traits, no matter their insurance policies,” Kent Smetters, a professor of enterprise economics and public coverage on the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton College, advised us through electronic mail. “Nonetheless, if the query is whether or not their plans would create extra jobs, the reply isn’t any.”
An analysis of the candidates’ tax plans by the Penn Wharton Price range Mannequin projected “a discount in whole hours labored of 0.7% below Harris after 10 years and 0.3% below Trump,” Smetters mentioned.
An analysis of the financial penalties of the Trump and Harris proposals by Moody’s Analytics concluded that there could be extra jobs below a Harris administration, if there’s a divided Congress.
Company Tax Charge
In Detroit, Trump claimed, “So we introduced the speed down and also you noticed this from near 40% to 21%.” As we wrote not too long ago, whereas Trump often says he minimize the company tax charge from 39% to 21%, the federal statutory company tax charge was actually 35% previous to the implementation of the TCJA, which lowered the speed to 21%. Trump is together with the federal tax plus the typical of state and native taxes to get to “near 40%.” But when these are included, then the present charge is roughly 25.8%, not 21%.
Not the ‘Largest Tax Reduce’
Sheer repetition has not made Trump’s declare to have delivered the most important tax minimize in American historical past true.
It’s considered one of Trump’s most enduring claims. However the 2017 tax cuts weren’t the most important, as we’ve explained many times before. There have been pricier tax legal guidelines each as a proportion of gross home product and in inflation-adjusted {dollars}.
In Miami, Trump insisted, “We gave you the most important minimize in taxes within the historical past of the nation, greater than the Reagan cuts.” However the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote in 2017 that Reagan nonetheless holds the trendy file for the most important tax minimize as a proportion of GDP.
Protection/Army
ISIS
Trump boasted, “I’m the one which defeated ISIS. … And I did it in a matter of weeks. It’s purported to take 5 years, seven years.” It took quite a bit longer than “weeks.”
As we wrote in 2018, a U.S.-led coalition had retaken about 50% of the land managed by the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, previous to Trump taking workplace on Jan. 20, 2017. In Trump’s first 12 months, the coalition had recaptured practically the entire remaining land.
Nevertheless it wasn’t till late March 2019 — greater than two years into the Trump presidency — that the 79-member U.S.-led coalition took management of all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.
Missile Protection Defend
Trump has repeatedly mentioned he needs to construct a missile protection system just like Israel’s Iron Dome to guard the U.S. from assault, as he did once more in Detroit and Greenville. However consultants advised us such a system wouldn’t be sensible in defending the U.S.
The system utilized by Israel in protection in opposition to its neighboring adversaries “detects, assesses and intercepts a wide range of shorter-range targets resembling rockets, artillery and mortars,” according to Raytheon, the corporate that works with Israel on its protection system. “Iron Dome’s Tamir missile knocks down incoming threats launched from ranges” of two.5 to 43.5 miles.
Stephen Biddle, adjunct senior fellow for protection coverage on the Council on International Relations, told us that “in opposition to the traditional threats to U.S. safety, the Iron Dome will not be a helpful system.” Biddle mentioned, “Iron Dome is designed to cope with short-range threats,” not long-range ballistic missiles fired from adversaries resembling China, Russia or North Korea. “If the North Koreans launched intercontinental ballistic missiles on the U.S., an Iron Dome wouldn’t be capable of intercept” the missiles reentering the environment geared toward a goal within the U.S., Biddle defined.
Army Deaths in Afghanistan
Whereas talking in Greensboro concerning the Biden administration’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, which resulted within the deaths of 13 U.S. soldiers by the hands of suicide bombers, Trump repeated a false declare that the U.S. “didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months” on the finish of Trump’s presidency.
The truth is, there have been 12 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan within the final six months of 2019 and one other 11 killed in 2020, according to the Protection Casualty Evaluation System. Eight of the deaths within the second half of 2019 have been in fight and 4 of the deaths in 2020 have been in fight.
Army Spending
As he has usually through the years, Trump in Detroit claimed, “I rebuilt our navy.” However as we have written, the U.S. below Trump didn’t actually spend far more on the navy than it did below his predecessor, Obama.
The Defense Department budgets handed below Trump totaled $2.9 trillion. That’s bigger, in inflation-adjusted {dollars}, than the $2.7 trillion budgeted within the final 4 years below Obama, however the budgets in Obama’s first 4 years have been practically $3.3 trillion.
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in overseas coverage on the Brookings Establishment, told PolitiFact Trump’s declare quantities to hyperbole, that the web improve in navy spending below Trump was about “$400 billion whole in contrast with earlier expectations.”
“Most weapons are the identical as earlier than,” O’Hanlon advised PolitiFact. “There may be extra continuity than change in protection coverage from Obama to Trump.”
O’Hanlon advised us through electronic mail that the state of the navy throughout Trump’s 4 years in workplace was “a strong step as a result of work of two [secretaries of defense] that he fired! However issues have been fairly good earlier than him and continued to enhance after.”
VA Selection
As he has quite a few instances up to now, Trump falsely claimed that he bought VA Selection permitted after “they [had] been making an attempt for 58 years.” As we have written, the bipartisan Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act was signed in 2014 by Obama, giving veterans going through lengthy wait instances an choice to get care outdoors the VA system.
“We did Selection,” Trump mentioned in Greensboro. “So if … considered one of our nice heroes needed to anticipate a physician, they may exit in the event that they needed to wait greater than in the future. They exit they usually get a physician, we pay the invoice,” eliminating the typically monthslong delays.
As we mentioned, the Veterans Selection Program was created by legislation in 2014. It garnered a 91-3 vote within the Senate and a 420-5 vote within the Home, and got here after a scandal over wait instances at Veterans Affairs amenities.
When Trump took workplace, he continued this system, signing laws to provide funding and to eliminate the expiration date. In June 2018, Trump signed the bipartisan VA MISSION Act, which referred to as for consolidating the Veterans Selection program and different private-care choices into a brand new Veterans Community Care Program.
Bagram Air Base
In Lancaster, Trump repeated the false declare that the U.S. would by no means have deserted Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan if he had remained president.
“And we have been going to maintain the massive air base at Bagram as a result of it’s one hour away, spent billions and billions of {dollars}, simply concerning the greatest, strongest longest runways on the planet,” Trump mentioned. “We gave it to China. They gave it to China. China is now working. We have been one hour away from the place China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it up. Would have by no means occurred, all of this stuff.”
As we’ve written before, in 2020 Trump had reached a cope with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from all bases in Afghanistan. The Doha agreement mentioned the U.S. and coalition forces “will full the withdrawal of their remaining forces from Afghanistan” by Could 1, 2021 — which Biden delayed till Aug. 31, 2021. A State Division statement issued on the day the deal was signed in February 2020 mentioned, “The US, its allies, and the Coalition will withdraw all forces from remaining bases.”
On July 6, 2021, U.S. forces have been pulled out of Bagram, as we’ve written.
Days before the final withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, Trump mentioned, “We should always have saved Bagram as a result of Bagram is between China.” However we might discover no statements by Trump whereas he was in workplace about sustaining an American presence at Bagram. The pact he reached with the Taliban referred to as for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from all of the bases in Afghanistan.
Army Tools Left in Afghanistan
Trump significantly exaggerated the quantity of apparatus left to the Taliban after the navy withdrawal from Afghanistan — a withdrawal that, once more, was initiated by his administration however accomplished by the Biden administration in August 2021.
“We gave them tens of billions of {dollars} price of brand name new navy gear that I purchased, I purchased, they usually gave it away to the Taliban,” Trump mentioned in Detroit.
Trump often cites a determine of $85 billion, however that’s practically the whole quantity spent on the Afghanistan Safety Forces Fund for the reason that warfare started in 2001. That wasn’t all for navy gear, and many of the gear bought in these twenty years had develop into inoperable, relocated, decommissioned or destroyed.
In Detroit, Trump mentioned extra vaguely, “tens of billions of {dollars},” however that’s nonetheless a gross exaggeration. CNN reported in April 2022 {that a} Division of Protection report mentioned $7.12 billion of navy gear the U.S. had given to the Afghan authorities was in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal.
Crime/Weapons
Falsehood on Gun Ban
In practically all of his occasions, Trump made some model of the declare that Harris will take away folks’s weapons.
“She pledged to confiscate your weapons and endorsed a complete ban on handgun possession,” Trump mentioned in Greenville. “She’s going to do it 100%.”
However Harris has by no means proposed a federal ban on handguns, though, as San Francisco’s district lawyer in 2005, she supported an area poll measure that may have banned residents from possessing handguns.
Additionally, she beforehand referred to as for a compulsory buyback program for so-called “assault weapons” solely. Her marketing campaign told us that she mentioned not helps requiring the buyback program she proposed throughout her 2020 presidential marketing campaign.
Throughout a Sept. 17 occasion with the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists, Harris said, “I’m a gun proprietor, and Tim Walz is a gun proprietor, and we’re not making an attempt to take anyone’s weapons away from them. However we do want an assault weapons ban.”
Nonviolent Crimes in California
In Detroit and Greensboro, Trump distorted the details when he claimed that Harris, because the lawyer common of California, “redefined little one intercourse trafficking, assault with a lethal weapon and rape of an unconscious individual as a completely nonviolent crime.”
As we’ve written, Harris did no such factor. The California penal code specifies 23 crimes as a “violent felony,” saying they “benefit particular consideration when imposing a sentence to show society’s condemnation for these extraordinary crimes of violence in opposition to the individual.” The listing contains sexual abuse of a kid, rape and “nice bodily harm,” as violations of particular legal guidelines. Not every little thing that may be thought of violent is on the listing, which makes any felonies not specified technically “nonviolent.”
Nationwide Crime
Trump falsely insisted in Lancaster, regardless of FBI crime information on the contrary, “We had the worst crime that now we have ever had within the final 12 months.” In that very same speech, in addition to in Greensboro, Trump claimed crime is up 45% and that FBI information solely confirmed crime taking place as a result of “they didn’t report sure little areas of the nation just like the worst areas within the nation for crime.”
Crime statistics compiled by the FBI and different sources present a rise in violent crime, notably murders, in 2020 — Trump’s final 12 months in workplace — and a decline since. The FBI not too long ago revised its 2021 and 2022 figures, however that doesn’t change that total development. (We detailed the revisions in our latest story “Crime Stats Still Show a Decline Since 2020.” A part of the rationale for the dimensions of the revision was the change to a brand new reporting system, and low participation charges within the first 12 months of the change. However opposite to Trump’s declare, the participation charges for the latest years is far larger.)
The quantity and charge per 100,000 inhabitants for violent crime total, in addition to for homicide and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, theft and aggravated assault, all went down from 2020 to 2023, in line with the FBI-compiled statistics. The violent crime charge dropped by 22.5 factors and the homicide charge declined by 0.9 factors. The variety of murders decreased by 14.5%. (For these figures, see the Crime in the USA Annual Stories here and obtain the CIUS Estimations file for 2023. See Desk 1.)
As we have reported, different sources of crime stats present the identical development. The Main Cities Chiefs Affiliation studies, with the addition of New York City’s statistics, show a 9.1% lower within the variety of murders in 70 massive U.S. cities from 2020 to 2023, and a further decline for the primary half of 2024. As of early this month, AH Datalytics, an unbiased prison justice information evaluation group, reported a 17.9% lower in murders in additional than 250 U.S. cities thus far this 12 months, in contrast with the identical factors in 2023.
As for Trump’s declare that crime final 12 months was the worst that it has ever been — not solely is it barely decrease than 2020, it’s far, far lower than it was within the Nineties.
Trump has criticized the FBI information as “pretend” — it’s not — and infrequently as an alternative cites information from the Nationwide Crime Victimization Survey, which asks a pattern of individuals if they’ve been the sufferer of assorted crimes. (The FBI statistics are primarily based on crimes reported to state and native legislation enforcement.)
The NCVS indicates that violent crimes dropped a bit between 2022 and 2023. The variety of crimes was about 41% larger between 2020 and 2023 — which is maybe the place Trump derived his determine — however the variety of violent crimes in 2023 was practically similar to the quantity in 2018. The survey additionally has its personal limitations, and it doesn’t measure homicide, as we’ve explained.
‘Defund the Police’
In a number of appearances, Trump falsely claimed that Harris “was an unique creator of the defund the police motion,” including “and anyone who needs to defund the police even for a day or every week will not be worthy of being president of the USA.” In different speeches, Trump described Harris as “one of many leaders” of the defund the police motion.
As we have written, there is no such thing as a agreed upon definition for the term “defund the police.” Some critics of the police, who imagine there may be systemic racism in legislation enforcement, actually do wish to abolish police forces and substitute them with different neighborhood security entities. Others advocate shifting some cash and features away from police departments to social service companies.
In a collection of interviews in mid-June 2020, Harris carefully drew out her place on the defund the police motion that arose within the wake of protests and riots in response to the demise of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed after a white police officer kneeled on his neck throughout an arrest in Minneapolis on Could 25, 2020.
In her interviews, Harris talked about “reimagining public security and the way we obtain it.” The reply, she mentioned, will not be “extra police on the streets” however fairly investing extra in struggling communities — in issues resembling schooling, job creation, inexpensive housing and well being care — as a strategy to make them safer. She by no means agreed that that meant slashing or eliminating police budgets.
“Now we have to cease militarization of police,” Harris mentioned in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on June 9, 2020. “However that doesn’t imply we eliminate police. In fact not. Now we have to be sensible about this.”
In that very same interview, nevertheless, she mentioned she applauded then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to reallocate about $150 million from policing to well being and youth initiatives. And he or she once more careworn the necessity to “spend money on communities” to make them wholesome and safer.
Miscellaneous
FEMA
Whereas speaking about Hurricane Helene in Greensboro, Trump falsely claimed that Harris spent federal funding meant for catastrophe aid “to offer shelter and advantages to unlawful aliens.”
“You already know, they’re going to in all probability must name an emergency assembly, a particular session of Congress, as a result of the unlawful migrants, a lot of them killers, a lot of them drug sellers, a lot of them launched from jail, have taken the cash,” Trump said. “Cash that they have been purported to spend in North Carolina and Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee and Florida and South Carolina. The cash was purported to be spent in these states they usually don’t have the cash now.”
As we’ve written, the Federal Emergency Administration Company said that no funds meant for hurricane restoration have been diverted to packages that reply to unlawful immigration. Cash for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund is appropriated by Congress individually from cash that lawmakers additionally authorize for the Division of Homeland Safety’s Shelter and Services Program, which makes funds to state and native entities that present housing and different providers to migrants processed and launched by DHS. FEMA helps administer the grants for the Shelter and Providers Program, however the funds come from the finances of U.S. Customs and Border Safety, a distinct company.
FEMA said it has “sufficient cash proper now for speedy response and restoration wants,” however might have extra federal funding sooner or later.
Transgender Surgical procedures
In Miami, Trump falsely claimed that Harris “was in favor of intercourse modifications for prisoners at their will, paid for by the federal government.” Harris expressed assist in a 2019 candidate questionnaire for “medically needed” gender-affirming care, together with surgical care, for federal prisoners and detainees — not operations at will. Authorized rulings have discovered the federal government is obligated to offer such medically needed care.
Trump equally mentioned in Greenville that Harris “referred to as free of charge intercourse modifications for unlawful aliens in detention. … They’re in detention, they wish to have the operation,” suggesting migrants in detention might have the operation in the event that they wished it.
As we’ve explained, the Structure obligates the federal government to offer needed medical take care of prisoners. Two federal transgender prisoners have acquired gender-affirming surgical procedure, after suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The surgical procedures occurred throughout the Biden administration. However because the New York Occasions not too long ago reported, a 2018 BOP budget memo — issued throughout Trump’s administration — indicated that the company thought of the federal government “obligated to pay for a prisoner’s ‘surgical procedure’ if it was deemed medically needed.”
The memo mentioned: “Medical care might embrace pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., cross-gender hormone remedy), hair elimination and surgical procedure (if individualized evaluation signifies surgical intervention is relevant).” The Occasions mentioned that federal inmates acquired gender-affirming hormone remedy throughout the Trump administration.
In Miami, Trump additionally claimed that Harris had modified her place. “And now, she says, ‘No, I don’t suppose that may be a good suggestion.’” However that’s not what she mentioned. In an Oct. 16 Fox Information interview, she said she would “comply with the legislation.”
We didn’t find any file of immigrant detainees having acquired these surgical procedures. Time spent in ICE custody is usually shorter than two months. Federal inmates have a one-year ready interval earlier than they will search gender-affirming surgical procedure.
Proper to Strive
In Lancaster, Trump touted the Proper to Strive Act that he signed into law in 2018, saying: “And no one actually wished to do it, however we did it. I pressured it on them. Now we have saved 1000’s and 1000’s of lives.” However there is no such thing as a proof that the program that permits sufferers to request entry to experimental medical merchandise has led to “1000’s and 1000’s of lives” being saved.
Earlier than Trump made the Proper to Strive laws legislation, the Meals and Drug Administration already permitted functions from sufferers in search of entry to investigational medication via the company’s “expanded access” program, which oversees using such medicines for sufferers who usually are not capable of take part in medical trials. The brand new legislation circumvents the FDA and offers terminally unwell sufferers entry to unapproved medication extra rapidly than via the FDA’s expanded entry program.
Whereas the FDA has reported that 16 medical merchandise have been used below Proper to Strive between 2018 and 2023, the company has not mentioned what number of sufferers have been handled with these merchandise.
“Furthermore, the variety of folks handled is much much less necessary than the quantity helped,” wrote Alison Bateman-House, assistant professor of medical ethics at NYU Grossman College of Medication, and Holly Fernandez Lynch, affiliate professor of medical ethics and legislation on the College of Pennsylvania Perelman College of Medication, in an August opinion piece for the well being publication STAT. “Sadly, Proper to Strive doesn’t require corporations to report on affected person profit, leaving substantial room for exaggerated claims,” they mentioned.
McDonald’s
As he has in just about each stump speech in latest weeks, Trump claimed, with out proof, that Harris “lied about working at McDonald’s.” Harris has claimed quite a few instances that she labored at McDonald’s within the Bay Space of California in between her first and second 12 months of school.
Reporters on the Washington Free Beacon in late August raised some questions on Harris’ declare, noting that her employment at McDonald’s was not talked about in her two memoirs, nor in an October 1987 job application — and connected resume — for a legislation clerk place within the Alameda County district lawyer’s workplace whereas she was a legislation scholar on the College of California, Hastings School of the Regulation. (The resume lists her work as a legislation clerk, an operator at Charles Schwab & Co., a scholar assistant on the Federal Commerce Fee and as an intern for a U.S. senator.)
In an internal statement, McDonald’s has since famous, “we and our franchises don’t have data for all our positions courting again to the early ’80s.”
In a Sept. 25 interview on MSNBC, Stephanie Ruhle requested Harris about Trump’s repeated claims about her mendacity about working at McDonald’s. Harris reiterated that she did work at a McDonald’s and “a part of the rationale I even discuss having labored at McDonald’s is as a result of there are individuals who work at McDonald’s in our nation who’re making an attempt to boost a household — I labored there as a scholar, I used to be a child — who work there making an attempt to boost households and pay lease on that. And I believe a part of the distinction between me and my opponent contains our perspective on the wants of the American folks and what our accountability then is to fulfill these wants.”
Harris and her campaign haven’t supplied any proof that she labored at McDonald’s, however importantly, Trump has not supplied any proof that she didn’t.
Harris Is Not a ‘Marxist’ or ‘Communist’
Trump, who often refers to Harris as “Comrade Kamala,” incessantly and falsely branded Harris “a radical left Marxist,” saying in Detroit that Harris is “a Marxist, communist, fascist, something you need.”
In an interview on Oct. 23, Noticias Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro famous that Trump’s labels resonate with some Latino voters who escaped from socialist international locations like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and so he requested Harris how she outlined herself.
“I’m a capitalist,” Harris mentioned. “I’m a realistic capitalist. I imagine that we want a brand new technology of management in America that actively works with the non-public sector to construct up the brand new industries of America, to construct up small enterprise homeowners, to permit us to extend house possession, to permit folks and their households to construct intergenerational wealth. … I’m a capitalist who believes not everybody begins out on the identical base, however that everybody has the drive, the grit, the work ethic to succeed. And now we have to create an economic system that provides folks a possibility.”
We reached out to Mitchell Orenstein, a nonresident senior fellow within the International Coverage Analysis Institute’s Eurasia Program and professor and chair of Russian and Japanese European Research on the College of Pennsylvania.
“Here’s a comparatively easy and commonsense definition of Communism,” Orenstein advised us through electronic mail, “a. Communists assist a violent revolution to overthrow the capitalist political and financial system. b. Communists imagine within the abolition of personal property and its substitute by state or communal possession. c. Communists imagine in a authorities led by a single celebration (usually referred to as ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ or ‘folks’s’ that guidelines dictatorially for the good thing about the working class) d. Communists typically take inspiration from the writings of Karl Marx and search to faithfully implement elements of the Communist Manifesto, although elements might differ.”
“Since none of those apply to her, we are able to say with confidence that Kamala Harris will not be a communist,” Orenstein mentioned. “The truth is, she describes herself as a capitalist and her insurance policies mirror that.”
Crucial Race Concept
In Detroit and Greenville, Trump promised to “get crucial race idea … the hell out of our colleges.” However as we have written, it’s a college-level idea that educators say is already not being taught in Ok-12 public colleges.
In a September 2021 letter to Biden, the Nationwide College Boards Affiliation wrote that the “propaganda” round crucial race idea “continues even supposing crucial race idea will not be taught in public colleges and stays a fancy legislation college and graduate college topic nicely past the scope of a Ok-12 class.”
Crucial race idea started as a complicated authorized idea taught at Harvard College within the Nineteen Eighties by legislation professor Derrick Bell. It accepts that institutional racism exists and must be higher understood to be able to deal with racial inequality
In 2021, the Affiliation of American Educators surveyed greater than 1,000 educators, and 96% of these surveyed mentioned they weren’t required to show it. In a 2022 report on state efforts to ban crucial race idea in public colleges, UCLA schooling researchers wrote that crucial race idea isn’t being taught in Ok-12 colleges. They mentioned the time period “crucial race idea” has been co-opted by conservative activists who search “to limit or ‘ban’ curriculum, classes, skilled growth, and district fairness and variety efforts addressing … race, racism, range, and inclusion.”
2020 Democratic Main
In Greensboro, Trump argued that Harris “doesn’t deserve to have the ability to run” for president, and claimed that “she got here in final within the main” for Democratic candidates in 2020. “She was the primary to lose” out of “22 folks,” Trump mentioned in Greenville.
Harris suspended her 2020 presidential marketing campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, before the Iowa caucuses, the primary nominating contest for Democrats in that election cycle. However she was not the primary individual out of the Democratic main. Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Seth Moulton, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, former New York Mayor Invoice de Blasio and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, are among the Democratic candidates who exited the race earlier than Harris.
Crowd Measurement
Though Trump incessantly exaggerates the dimensions of crowds at his rallies, we not often write about it — an exception was the controversy over the attendance at his inauguration in 2017 — as a result of it appears comparatively inconsequential. However at his rally in Detroit, Trump once more exaggerated crowd dimension when he claimed that “101,000 folks confirmed up” to his Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, his first look there since an assassination attempt on July 13. He repeated the determine twice extra for impact.
Utilizing aerial pictures, Newsweek employed crowd-mapping software program and skilled evaluation and concluded the attendance was far fewer than that, with one skilled placing the quantity at about 30,000.
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