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.
In the course of the debate, they exchanged varied 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 get together 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 additionally referred to the rising loss of life toll of the warfare in Gaza, through which greater than 41,000 folks have been killed, and stated she wouldn’t keep silent.
Trump misleads about navy gear in Afghanistan
Trump: The US “left $85bn value of brand name new, stunning navy gear behind” in Afghanistan.
False.
The determine is way decrease than Trump acknowledged. When the Taliban toppled Afghanistan’s civilian authorities in 2021, it inherited navy {hardware} the US gave to the federal government.
Nonetheless, an impartial inspector basic report instructed Congress that solely about $7bn of US-funded gear remained within the Taliban’s arms. In keeping with the report, “The US navy eliminated or destroyed practically all main gear 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 canines, the folks that got here in, they’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming, they’re consuming the pets of the folks that reside there.”
False.
A metropolis spokesperson instructed PolitiFact that claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing neighbours’ pets to eat are unfounded.
A Springfield spokesperson stated town had no such stories, and police instructed a neighborhood information outlet the division had obtained 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 way of the Division of Homeland Safety’s humanitarian parole programme that lets folks from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their rapid relations request to return to the US legally. They are often paroled into the US for as much as two years.
Extra ‘Trump gross sales tax’ of $4,000
Harris: “Economists have stated that the Trump gross sales tax would truly outcome for middle-class households in about $4,000 extra a yr due to his insurance policies and his concepts about what must 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 % to twenty % and a 60 % levy on items from China. Though tariffs are imposed individually from the tax system, customers would really feel their impact a lot the identical means as taxes.
Nonetheless, the precise greenback impression on customers varies. Two estimates we discovered usually help Harris’s $4,000 determine; two present a smaller, although nonetheless vital, impression.
‘Worst unemployment for the reason that Nice Despair’
Harris: “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment for the reason that Nice Despair.”
False.
The unemployment price spiked to a post-Nice Despair file of 14.8 % in April 2020 because the COVID pandemic escalated.
Trump was in workplace then. However he didn’t “go away” Biden or Harris with a post-Nice Despair file unemployment price. By December 2020, the unemployment price had fallen again to six.4 %, which was excessive for current historical past however nicely beneath quite a few spikes throughout recessions.
Job creation ‘fraud’
Trump: “It was a fraud, similar to their variety of 818,000 jobs that they stated 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 positive factors 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 knowledge that the company acknowledges is imperfect.
Abortion: Democrats help ‘execution after start’
Trump: “They even have … he stated, ‘The newborn we shall be born, and we are going to resolve what to do with the child.’”
False.
Former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a doctor, by no means stated he would sanction the “execution” of newborns. What he stated throughout a radio interview is that in uncommon, late-pregnancy circumstances when fetuses are nonviable, medical doctors ship the child, 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 medical doctors 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 loss of life.
‘Local weather change is a hoax’
Harris: “Effectively, the previous president had stated that local weather change is a hoax. And what we all know is that it is extremely 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 stated, “The idea of world warming was created by and for the Chinese language with the intention to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
Greater than 97 % 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 known as local weather change.
Harris tried to barter a deal between Putin and Ukraine
Trump: “That warfare 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 warfare 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 in the course of the Munich Safety Convention on February 19, 2022. “That is additionally an opportunity for me to reiterate the place of the USA because it pertains to Ukraine,” Harris stated.
“As I’ve stated earlier immediately to our allies all over the world, the USA takes severely the significance of the integrity and the territorial integrity of Ukraine and your sovereignty. And the USA stands with Ukraine on this regard. If Russia additional invades your nation, as I discussed earlier immediately, we are going to impose swift and extreme financial sanctions.”
