Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump met nose to nose for the first time in Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia.
Throughout the debate, they exchanged numerous accusations; right here, we fact-check the candidates’ claims.
Harris ‘wouldn’t even meet’ Netanyahu
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 as a result of she was at a sorority social gathering of hers.”
Half true.
This wants context. Harris did skip Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of the US Congress on July 24. She was busy making a beforehand scheduled keynote speech to the Zeta Phi Beta sorority.
Nonetheless, Harris met Netanyahu face-to-face the next day. After that assembly, she doubled down on help for Israel, committing to its defence, but in addition referred to the rising demise toll of the conflict in Gaza, wherein greater than 41,000 folks have been killed, and mentioned she wouldn’t keep silent.
Trump misleads about army tools in Afghanistan
Trump: The US “left $85bn price of brand name new, stunning army tools behind” in Afghanistan.
False.
The determine is much decrease than Trump said. When the Taliban toppled Afghanistan’s civilian authorities in 2021, it inherited army {hardware} the US gave to the federal government.
Nonetheless, an unbiased inspector basic report advised Congress that solely about $7bn of US-funded tools remained within the Taliban’s fingers. In response to the report, “The US army eliminated or destroyed practically all main tools utilized by US troops in Afghanistan all through the drawdown interval in 2021.”
Haitian immigrants ‘are consuming the cats’
Trump: “In Springfield, they’re consuming the canine, the those who got here in, they’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming, they’re consuming the pets of the those who dwell there.”
False.
A metropolis spokesperson advised PolitiFact that claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing neighbours’ pets to eat are unfounded.
A Springfield spokesperson mentioned the town had no such stories, and police advised an area information outlet the division had 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 US by the Division of Homeland Safety’s humanitarian parole programme that lets folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their rapid relations request to come back to the US legally. They are often paroled into the US for as much as two years.
Further ‘Trump gross sales tax’ of $4,000
Harris: “Economists have mentioned that the Trump gross sales tax would really end result for middle-class households in about $4,000 extra a yr due to his insurance policies and his concepts about what ought to be the backs of middle-class folks paying for tax cuts for billionaires.”
Half true.
Trump has repeatedly proposed wide-ranging tariffs on overseas items, together with an across-the-board tariff of 10 p.c to twenty p.c and a 60 p.c levy on items from China. Though tariffs are imposed individually from the tax system, shoppers would really feel their impact a lot the identical approach as taxes.
Nonetheless, the particular greenback impression on shoppers varies. Two estimates we discovered usually help Harris’s $4,000 determine; two present a smaller, although nonetheless vital, impression.
‘Worst unemployment because the Nice Despair’
Harris: “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment because the Nice Despair.”
False.
The unemployment fee spiked to a post-Nice Despair file of 14.8 p.c in April 2020 because the COVID pandemic escalated.
Trump was in workplace then. However he didn’t “depart” Biden or Harris with a post-Nice Despair file unemployment fee. By December 2020, the unemployment fee had fallen again to six.4 p.c, which was excessive for latest historical past however properly beneath quite a few spikes throughout recessions.
Job creation ‘fraud’
Trump: “It was a fraud, identical to their variety of 818,000 jobs that they mentioned they created turned out to be a fraud.”
False.
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 yr’s employment beneficial properties by 818,000 jobs.
However Trump claimed the Biden-Harris administration was cooking the books, calling it “fraud” through the debate. Nonetheless, economists throughout the ideological spectrum reject Trump’s declare. The method is an annual effort to fine-tune preliminary knowledge that the company acknowledges is imperfect.
Abortion: Democrats help ‘execution after delivery’
Trump: “They even have … he mentioned, ‘The newborn we will probably be born, and we’ll resolve what to do with the newborn.’”
False.
Former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a doctor, by no means mentioned he would sanction the “execution” of newborns. What he mentioned throughout a radio interview is that in uncommon, late-pregnancy instances when fetuses are nonviable, docs ship the newborn, maintain it comfy, resuscitate it if the mom needs, after which have a “dialogue” with the mom.
The problem is that Northam declines to say what that dialogue would entail. Trump places phrases within the governor’s mouth, saying docs would urge moms to allow them to forcibly kill the new child, which is a felony in Virginia punishable by an extended jail sentence or demise.
‘Local weather change is a hoax’
Harris: “Nicely, the previous president had mentioned that local weather change is a hoax. And what we all know is that it is vitally actual.”
True.
Trump has, on a number of events, known as local weather change and world warming a hoax in speeches, social media posts and interviews.
The supply of Harris’s declare that he known as local weather change “a hoax” was a tweet Trump posted on November 6, 2012. It mentioned, “The idea of worldwide warming was created by and for the Chinese language with a view to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
Greater than 97 p.c of the world’s local weather scientists and a majority of home and worldwide scientific organisations agree that human exercise is inflicting the Earth to heat. The associated long-term shifts in temperatures and climate patterns are often called local weather change.
Harris tried to barter a deal between Putin and Ukraine
Trump: “That conflict ought to have by no means began. She was the emissary. They despatched her in to barter with Zelenskyy and Putin. And he or she did and the conflict began three days later.”
False.
Harris, in her function as vp, did meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy within the days earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine. However she didn’t meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, and there have been no negotiations between the three.
Harris met Zelenskyy through the Munich Safety Convention on February 19, 2022. “That is additionally an opportunity for me to reiterate the place of america because it pertains to Ukraine,” Harris mentioned.
“As I’ve mentioned earlier right now to our allies world wide, america takes severely the significance of the integrity and the territorial integrity of Ukraine and your sovereignty. And america stands with Ukraine on this regard. If Russia additional invades your nation, as I discussed earlier right now, we’ll impose swift and extreme financial sanctions.”
