Trump v Harris debate fact check: Examining some false and misleading claims
Wednesday, 11 September 2024
In their first and perhaps only debate, former US President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris described the state of the country in starkly different terms.
As the two traded jabs, some old false and misleading claims emerged along with some new ones.
Here’s a look at false and misleading claims made by the candidates, as researched by AP:
Trump inflates numbers around new military equipment left in Afghanistan
TRUMP: On the US withdrawal from Afghanistan - “We wouldn’t have left US$85 billion worth of brand new, beautiful military equipment behind.”
THE FACTS: That number is significantly inflated, according to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees American taxpayer money spent on the conflict.
The US$85 billion figure resembles a number from a July 30 quarterly report from SIGAR, which outlined that the US has invested about US$83 billion to build, train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001. That funding included troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure along with equipment and transportation over two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defence policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.
Only about US$18 billion of that sum went toward equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, a June 2019 SIGAR report showed.
No one knows the exact value of the US-supplied Afghan equipment the Taliban have secured, defence officials have confirmed it is significant.
Trump falsely touts his economy
TRUMP: 'I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country. … They’ve destroyed the economy.”
THE FACTS: This is an exaggeration. The economy grew much faster under Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan than it did under Trump. The broadest measure of economic growth, gross domestic product, rose 4% a year for four straight years under Clinton. The fastest growth under Trump was 3% in 2018.
The economy shrank 2.2% in 2020, at the end of Trump’s presidency. And a higher proportion of American adults had jobs under Clinton than under Trump. During the Biden-Harris administration, the economy expanded 5.8% in 2021, though much of that reflected a bounce-back from Covid.
Trump's record on manufacturing jobs examined
HARRIS: “We have created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs. … Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.”
THE FACTS: Those statements are missing context.
There were 12,188,000 manufacturing employees in the US when Biden took office in January 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Preliminary numbers for August 2024 put that number at 12,927,000. That’s a difference of 739,000 — close to the 800,000 number Harris has cited.
Also of note is the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of manufacturing employees dropped steeply in April 2020, by more than 1.3 million. Discounting that decline, there were only 206,000 more manufacturing employees in August than there were in March 2020, prior to the pandemic.
Inflation has trekked down
TRUMP: “They had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country, because I’ve never seen a worse period of time.'
THE FACTS: While praising the strength of the economy under his presidency, Donald Trump misstated the inflation rate under Biden. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 after rising steadily in the first 17 months of Biden’s presidency from a low of 0.1% in May 2020. It’s now seeing a downward trend. The most recent data shows that as of July it had fallen to 2.9%. Other historical periods have seen higher inflation, which hit more than 14% in 1980, according to the Federal Reserve.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025
HARRIS: “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again.”
THE FACTS: Trump has said he doesn’t know about Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for another Republican presidential administration.
The plan was written up by many of his former aides and allies, but Trump has never said he’ll implement the roughly 900-page guide if he’s elected again. On the contrary, he has said it’s not related to his campaign.
Trump on abortions ‘after birth’
TRUMP: “Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay.”
THE FACTS: Walz has said no such thing. Infanticide is criminalised in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.
Abortion rights advocates say terms like “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump's taxing and spending plan examined
HARRIS: “What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump’s plan would actually explode the deficit.”
THE TRUTH: The Penn-Wharton Budget Model did find that Trump’s tax and spending plans would significantly expand the deficit by $5.8 trillion over ten years. But it also found that Harris’ plans would increase the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the same period.
Harris’ record on fracking examined
TRUMP: “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on Day 1.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s statement ignores the fact that without a law approved by Congress, a president can only ban fracking on federal lands.
The federal government owns about 2% of Pennsylvania’s total land, and it is not clear how much of that is suitable for oil or gas drilling.
Republicans have criticized Harris for “flip-flopping” on the issue, noting that Harris said in the 2020 campaign that she opposed fracking, a drilling technique that is widely used in Pennsylvania and other states.
Harris has since said repeatedly that she won’t ban fracking if elected, and she reiterated that in Tuesday’s debate.
Trump misrepresents crime statistics
TRUMP: criticising the Biden administration: “Crime is through the roof.”
THE FACTS: In fact, FBI data has shown a downward trend in violent crime since a coronavirus pandemic spike. Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% between in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records
Violent crime was down 6% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, according to FBI data released in March. Murders were down 13%. New FBI statistics released in June show the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those 2024 figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.
Trump endorses false rumour about immigrants eating pets
TRUMP: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats… They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
THE FACTS: There’s no evidence to support the claim, which Trump and his campaign have used to argue immigrants are committing crimes at a higher rate than others.
Authorities in Ohio have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support Trump’s claim.
Jobs created under the Biden administration
TRUMP: “Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”
THE FACTS: This is a mischaracterisation of the government’s process of counting jobs. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added in a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year. The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically appointed officials.
Trump repeats false claims immigrants that non-citizens are being sought to vote
TRUMP: “A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically and these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”
THE FACTS: In recent months, Trump and other Republicans have been repeating the baseless claim that Democrats want migrants to come into the country illegally so they will vote.
There’s no evidence for this, nor is there any evidence that non-citizens illegally vote in significant numbers in this country.
Voting by people who are not US citizens already is illegal in federal elections. It can be punishable by fines, prison time and even deportation. While non-citizens have cast ballots, studies show it’s incredibly rare, and states regularly audit their voter lists to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.
Trump’s comments suggest that not speaking English is somehow prohibitive for voting in the US — and that’s also not the case. In fact, the Voting Rights Act requires certain states to provide election materials in other languages depending on the voting-age population’s needs.