Former President Donald Trump repeated multiple falsehoods about immigrant crimes, inflation and late-term abortions on Tuesday night’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris—who was also flagged by fact-checkers to making exaggerated claims about job losses under Trump.
Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump and Vice President Harris's speak at the first ... [+]
During the debate, Trump said immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were “eating the dogs…eating the cats”, repeating a false claim spread by his running mate JD Vance and several right-wing commentators, which local law enforcement authorities have since debunked.
Trump also reiterated his baseless claims about Democrats “trying to get” undocumented migrants to vote in the election, despite researchers pointing out that instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections are “incredibly rare” and for undocumented migrants it's “even rarer.”
The former president said the inflation levels in the country are “probably the worst in our nation’s history…we were at 21%”, this is untrue—inflation did hit a four-decade high of 9.1% in mid-2022, in the 1980s it had hit 14% and in 1974 it had risen to 11.1%.
In an attempt to paint Democrats as “radicals” on the issue of abortion, Trump falsely claimed Harris’ running mate “says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine” and “execution after birth…is OK,” the former president was immediately fact-checked live on air that killing a baby after birth is illegal in every state and CDC data shows abortions after 21 weeks of gestation are exceedingly rare (less than 1% of all abortions).
Harris falsely claimed Trump “left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression,”—while unemployment rose to its highest level since the depression (14.8%) at the start of the pandemic when Trump was in office, it had fallen to 6.4% by the time Biden took over.
On the issue of fracking, Harris said she made it “very clear in 2020”, which isn’t entirely correct, as she only stated in 2020 that “Joe Biden will not end fracking”—in recent months, however, the Vice President has said her views on fracking have changed and she no longer supports a ban.
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Trump claimed “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, all wanted” Roe v. Wade to be overturned and the matter be brought back to the states “where the people could vote, and that’s what happened.” This is false, as several legal scholars filed briefs with the Supreme Court to preserve Roe v. Wade, and polls show a large majority of Americans disapprove of its overturning. Harris later retorted Trump’s claim: “You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot – she didn’t want that.”