Vice President Kamala Harris shook the hand of former President Donald Trump at the start of their first presidential debate Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, however the pleasant vibes quickly pale as Trump and Harris sparred over subjects together with abortion and immigration.
The fiery debate was hosted by ABC Information moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who typically interjected with fact-checks in response to the candidates’ solutions.
Harris usually straight addressed Trump whereas answering moderators’ questions, whereas Trump stared straight forward. Harris attacked Trump’s prison convictions in New York and different indictments after he spoke about crime in the course of the Biden administration. Trump stated that Biden secretly hated Harris.
Moments after the controversy ended, singer Taylor Swift said on Instagram that she could be voting for Harris “as a result of she fights for the rights and causes I imagine want a warrior to champion them.”
PolitiFact has fact-checked Harris 55 instances since 2012 and Trump 1,050 instances since 2011.
We drew on that deep archive to verify the accuracy of the candidates’ statements.
PolitiFact fact-checks statements of individuals in energy, no matter political occasion. This is how we choose claims to check.
Right here’s how the candidates’ solutions stood as much as the details.
Trump: “In Springfield (Ohio), they’re consuming the canines, the those that got here in, they’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming, they’re consuming the pets of the those that reside there.”
False.
A city spokesperson told PolitiFact that claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing neighbors’ pets to eat are unfounded.
A Springfield spokesperson stated the town has acquired no such stories, and Springfield police informed an area information outlet the division has acquired no stories of pets being stolen and eaten.
As many as 20,000 Haitian immigrants have come to Springfield. Since 2023, some Haitians have come to the U.S. by means of the Department of Homeland Security’s humanitarian parole program that lets individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their quick relations request to return to the US legally. They are often paroled into the U.S. for as much as two years.
Trump: “You have a look at Aurora in Colorado. (Immigrants) are taking up the cities. They’re taking up buildings, they’re stepping into violently, these are the those that she and Biden led into our nation, they usually’re destroying our nation.”
Aurora, Colorado, officers dispute this narrative.
They report that Venezuelan gangs will not be taking up condominium complexes and forcing residents to pay them hire.
Residents of The Edge at Lowry residences stated the corporate that owns the constructing, CBZ Administration, prompted the poor residing circumstances within the residences, not Venezuelan gang members.
4 members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, had been arrested in Aurora in reference to a capturing that occurred at a special condominium constructing owned by CBZ Administration.
Harris: “Economists have stated that the Trump gross sales tax would truly outcome for center class households in about $4,000 extra a 12 months due to his insurance policies and his concepts about what ought to be the backs of center class individuals paying for tax cuts for billionaires.”
Trump has repeatedly proposed wide-ranging tariffs on overseas items, together with an across-the-board tariff of 10% to twenty% and a 60% levy on items from China. Though tariffs are imposed individually from the tax system, shoppers would really feel their influence a lot the identical method as taxes.
Nonetheless, the precise greenback influence on shoppers varies. Two estimates we discovered typically help Harris’ $4,000 determine; two present a smaller, although nonetheless vital, influence.
Trump: “However the governor earlier than, he stated, ‘The child might be born, and we’ll determine what to do with the child.’”
Trump stated West Virginia. He meant Virginia.
Former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat and a doctor, by no means stated he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he did say throughout a 2019 radio interview is that in uncommon, late-pregnancy circumstances when fetuses are nonviable, docs ship the child, preserve it snug, resuscitate it if the household needs, after which have a “dialogue” with the mom.
The problem is that Northam declined to say what that dialogue would entail. Trump places phrases within the then-governor’s mouth, saying docs would urge the mom to allow them to forcibly kill the new child, which is a felony in Virginia (and all different U.S. states) punishable by a protracted jail sentence or loss of life.
Trump: “Each authorized scholar, each Democrat, each Republican, liberal, conservative, all of them wished (abortion) to be introduced again to the states the place the individuals might vote.”
The 1973 Roe v. Wade choice impressed legions of supporters and opponents. Earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned it in 2022, quite a few authorized students wrote briefs urging the courtroom to uphold the ruling.
Some authorized students who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s authorized underpinnings, saying that totally different constitutional arguments, primarily based on equal safety, would have supplied a stronger case. However authorized consultants, together with some who held this view, stated these students wouldn’t have advocated for overturning Roe on this foundation.
Trump: “It was a fraud, similar to their variety of 818,000 jobs that they stated they created turned out to be a fraud.”
The federal company that calculates how many individuals are working handed Democrats an unwelcome current throughout their August nationwide conference in Chicago: a downward adjustment of the previous 12 months’s employment features by 818,000 jobs.
However Trump claimed the Biden-Harris administration was cooking the books, calling it “fraud” in the course of the debate. Nonetheless, economists throughout the ideological spectrum reject Trump’s declare. The method is an annual effort to fine-tune preliminary information that the company acknowledges is imperfect.
Trump: “Tens of millions and thousands and thousands of individuals … are pouring into our nation month-to-month. The place it’s, I imagine 21 million individuals.”
False.
Throughout Biden’s administration, immigration officers have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border round 10 million instances. When accounting for “acquired aways” — individuals who aren’t stopped by border officers — the quantity rises to about 11.6 million.
However encounters aren’t the identical as admissions. Encounters symbolize occasions, so one one who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Additionally, not everybody encountered is let into the nation. The Division of Homeland Safety estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
Throughout Biden’s administration, about 3.8 million people have been launched into the U.S. to await immigration courtroom hearings, Division of Homeland Safety information exhibits.
Trump: The U.S. “left $85 billion price of name new, stunning army gear behind” in Afghanistan
The determine is much decrease than Trump acknowledged.
When the Taliban toppled Afghanistan’s civilian authorities in 2021, it inherited army {hardware} the U.S. gave to the federal government.
An unbiased inspector normal report told Congress that about $7 billion of U.S.-funded gear remained in Afghanistan and within the Taliban’s palms. In line with the report, “the U.S. army eliminated or destroyed almost all main gear utilized by U.S. troops in Afghanistan all through the drawdown interval in 2021.”
Harris: “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment because the Nice Despair.”
False.
The unemployment rate spiked to a post-Nice Despair document of 14.8% in April 2020, because the pandemic escalated. Trump was in workplace then. However he didn’t “depart” Biden or Harris with a post-Despair document unemployment fee. By December 2020, the unemployment fee had fallen again to six.4%, which was excessive for latest historical past however nicely under quite a few spikes throughout recessions.
Trump: “Have you learnt that crime in Venezuela and crime in international locations all around the world is method down. You recognize why? As a result of they’ve taken their criminals off the road, they usually’ve given them to (Harris) to place into our nation.”
Pants on Fireplace!
There may be no evidence that international locations are emptying their prisons — or psychological establishments, as he additionally claimed on the debate — and sending individuals to illegally migrate to the U.S.
Immigration officers arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with prison convictions (whether or not within the U.S. or overseas) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal information exhibits. That accounts for individuals stopped at and between ports of entry. Not everybody was let in.
The time period “noncitizens” contains individuals who could have had authorized immigration standing within the U.S. however weren’t U.S. residents. The info displays the those that the federal authorities is aware of about, nevertheless it’s inexhaustive.
Though Venezuelan authorities information is unreliable, some information from unbiased organizations exhibits that violent deaths have not too long ago decreased. From 2022 to 2023, violent deaths dropped by 25%, based on the unbiased Venezuelan Observatory of Violence. Criminologists attribute this decline to Venezuela’s poor economic system and the federal government’s extrajudicial killings, not the federal government emptying its prisons and sending criminals to the US.
Trump: Below Biden and Harris, the U.S. had “the worst inflation we’ve ever had.”
False.
The very best year-over-year inflation fee on Biden’s watch was around 9% in summer time 2022. That was the very best in about 40 years.
The very best sustained, year-over-year U.S. inflation charges had been recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the value improve ranged from 12% to fifteen%. For one 12 months — 1946, after the U.S. received World Struggle II — the general year-over-year inflation fee exceeded 18%.
Additionally, the year-over-year inflation fee has fallen since its 2022 peak below Biden. It was at 2.9% in July 2024, the most recent month obtainable.
Trump: Referring to the lawsuits he and allies filed alleging irregularities within the 2020 presidential election that he misplaced, “No decide checked out it. … They stated we didn’t have standing. A technicality.”
False.
The lawsuits failed for various causes. Some had been dismissed for missing standing, which suggests the decide dominated that the plaintiff didn’t have a stake. Others had errors within the filings. However in lots of circumstances, judges decided that the allegations lacked proof.
A Marketing campaign Authorized Middle analysis discovered at the very least 10 circumstances that had been selected the deserves.
Trump: Harris “wouldn’t even meet with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a vital speech. She refused to be there ’trigger she was at a sorority occasion of hers.”
Half True.
Harris did miss the July 24 speech Netanyahu made to a joint session of Congress. As an alternative, she made a beforehand scheduled keynote speech to the Zeta Phi Beta sorority. (Harris is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.)
Harris met with Netanyahu the next day.
PolitiFact govt director Aaron Sharockman, chief correspondent Louis Jacobson, senior correspondent Amy Sherman, employees writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Maria Briceño, Jeff Cercone, Madison Czopek, Marta Campabadal Graus, Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero, Maria Ramirez Uribe, researcher Caryn Baird, KFF Well being Information senior editor Stephanie Stapleton and KFF Well being Information senior correspondent Stephanie Armour contributed to this story.
Our debate reality checks depend on each new and beforehand reported work. We hyperlink to previous work each time potential. In some circumstances, a fact-check ranking could also be totally different tonight than in previous variations. In these circumstances, both particulars of what the candidate stated, or how the candidate stated it, differed sufficient that we evaluated it anew.
