Here’s the NY Times article, which is a bunch of statements by the candidates and fact checks:
Debate Fact Check: Harris and Trump on the Economy, Immigration and Abortion
The 2024 presidential candidates clashed on their records and their visions for the country’s future in a high-stakes debate.
By The New York Times
Sept. 10, 2024
Luke Broadwater
Luke Broadwater
Congressional Correspondent, Washington
“I had nothing to do” with Jan. 6
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Trump and his allies spread lies for months about vast fraud that they falsely claimed stole the 2020 election from him. His supporters then organized a large rally near the White House designed to pressure Congress to overturn his loss. Trump encouraged the crowd to attend, promising it would be “wild.” He urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, where the rally turned into a violent riot that injured about 150 police officers. He faces federal felony charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election and similar charges in Georgia.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Health Reporter
“Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Trump is referring to Harris’s response to a 2019 American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire, in which she said she supported using taxpayer funds to give access to gender-affirming care to transgender and nonbinary people, including those in immigration detention and prison.
CNN reported on the survey earlier this week, in a segment that drew sharp criticism from supporters of gay, lesbian and transgender people. The survey asked: “As president, will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?”
Harris answered yes, writing, “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as attorney general, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
In an interview on Tuesday morning on Fox News, Michael Tyler, Harris’s campaign communications director, sought to distance Harris from the statement without disavowing it. “That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on,” Tyler said.
Hamed Aleaziz
Hamed Aleaziz
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
A spokeswoman for the city of Springfield, Ohio, said this week that despite viral social media posts that have been promoted by Trump and his supporters, “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” A Clark County, Ohio, official said that they “have absolutely no evidence of this happening.”
Alexandra Berzon
Alexandra Berzon
“A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in —” Democrats are “trying to get them to vote.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This lacks evidence.
In recent months, Trump and other Republicans have frequently made the false claim that there’s a major crisis of noncitizens illegally voting in federal elections. They often claim, with no evidence, that Democrats are trying to get undocumented immigrants to vote in order to cheat their way to electoral victory.
In fact, people who are not U.S. citizens already face fines or imprisonment for voting in federal elections under a 1996 law. And experts point to data indicating that cases of noncitizens voting are rare and nowhere near the threshold to sway an election. Instance of undocumented people doing so are even rarer. Registrants to vote have to swear under penalty of perjury that they are citizens, and some states check for citizenship against federal databases.
Organizations including the left-leaning Brennan Center, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the libertarian Cato Institute that have examined the legal system, registration records or election offices for cases of citizenship fraud have found very few examples.
Jeanna Smialek
Jeanna Smialek
Economics Reporter
“We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history: We were at 21 percent.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Inflation was higher by standard measures during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Consumer Price Index peaked at 9.1 percent in 2022, less than in that earlier episode. Analysts will sometimes argue that if one adjusts for a methodological change to how housing is measured, recent inflation has rivaled that episode, which may be what Trump is referencing. In any case, it is not true that America’s recent inflation episode is the world leader, as one can see by looking at international data
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“All I can say is I read where she was not Black. That she put out. And I’ll say that and then I read that she was Black, and that’s OK. Either one was OK with me.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
It’s unclear what Trump read, but Vice President Kamala Harris has always identified as Black and South Asian during her time in public office. Harris wrote in her 2019 memoir that “my mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters.”
Harris joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority for Black women, at Howard University, a historically Black university. She was also the president of the Black Law Students Association at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. A 1999 Los Angeles Times article mentioning Harris, then an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, referred to her as a “liberal African American” prosecutor, and a 2000 San Francisco Examiner article called Harris a leader in the city’s Black community.
She first ran for public office in 2002 for San Francisco district attorney and, when she won her race, became the state’s first Black district attorney. She appeared on a panel as an emerging leader in the Black community in a 2006 conference. And in a 2009 speech to a Los Angeles-area high school about Black history, Harris spoke of her personal history as intertwined with that of the civil rights movement, alluding to how her parents “organized” in the streets during the 1960s.
Michael Crowley
Michael Crowley
Diplomatic Correspondent, Washington
“As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, for the first time this century.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This needs context.
No U.S. troops are fighting in an all-out war like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. But thousands of American troops have become entangled in hostilities around the Middle East since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
President Biden has deployed numerous warships and fighter jets to Israel’s coast, and U.S. forces have intercepted Iranian missiles and drones fired at Israel. They have also launched dozens of airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi militants. American forces have also suffered casualties: Three U.S. service members based in Jordan were killed in January by an attack drone, and two Navy Seals drowned earlier in February during anti-Houthi operations. Iranian-backed militias have also repeatedly attacked U.S. forces stationed in Iraq and Syria, causing multiple injuries.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
White House Correspondent, Washington Bureau
“Crime here is up and through the roof.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
The claim is factually incorrect. While there was an increase in crime during the pandemic, various studies have shown violent crime has now dropped to the lowest level in decades. Despite public perception of lawlessness, violent crime was higher in 2020 under Mr. Trump than under President Biden so far. The violent crime rate was 380.7 per 100,000 people in 2022, according to police agencies’ data gathered by the F.B.I. That was a lower rate than in all but three years — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — since 1985. Preliminary analysis from the F.B.I. suggested that violent crime decreased 15.2 percent in the first quarter of 2024 from the same period in 2023, with an even greater drop of 18 percent in cities with more than one million people. Still, some studies have found that shoplifting and motor vehicle theft increased in 2023.
Kate Zernike
Kate Zernike
“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, OK, and that’s not OK with me.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Abortion terminates a pregnancy, so “abortion after birth” is a contradiction. Killing a child after birth is infanticide, which is illegal in all 50 states. Vice President Kamala Harris has said she wants to restore the abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade. Roe, the 1973 Supreme Court decision overturned in 2022, allowed states to prohibit abortion in the third trimester — the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy — so long as they made exceptions to save the health and life of the mother. “Late term” is defined as 41 weeks, or just beyond nine months. According to federal data, less than 1 percent of all abortions take place after the 20th week of pregnancy; 93 percent are at or before 13 weeks. Minnesota, where the Democrat vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, is governor, is one of the few states to allow abortion at any stage of pregnancy. But allowing abortions at that stage does not mean that doctors perform them. State data for 2022, the most recent available, shows that of the 12,175 abortions in the state that year, only two happened between 25 and 30 weeks of pregnancy, and none after the 30th week of pregnancy, which is roughly the start of the third trimester.
Ben Protess
Ben Protess
“Every one of those cases was started by them against their political opponent.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Trump’s claims that the Biden administration orchestrated his four criminal cases, including the one in Manhattan that led to his conviction in May on charges of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal, has no basis in fact.
The Manhattan investigation began while Trump, not President Biden, was in office. The case was brought by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a local Democrat who does not answer to Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. The same goes for Trump’s criminal case in Georgia, where a district attorney accused him of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in that state. And Trump’s two federal cases were brought by a special counsel, a semi-independent prosecutor who is accountable to the attorney general. While the attorney general is chosen by the president, the White House has no direct influence over the special counsel.
Alan Feuer
Alan Feuer
All of Trump’s legal challenges to the outcome of the 2020 election were dismissed on “technicalities” or the basis of “standing.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is false.
While some of the challenges to the last election were rejected on the basis of standing — that is, on the issue of whether the plaintiffs had the legal right to question the results and assert they had been harmed — there were some cases that were decided on the merits of whether there were improprieties in the race. And none of those cases were decided in Mr. Trump’s favor. One of the merits cases was decided in Wisconsin by Brett H. Ludwig, a federal judge appointed by Mr. Trump. “This court has allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case,” Judge Ludwig wrote in his ruling, “and he has lost on the merits.”
Julian E. Barnes
Julian E. Barnes
Domestic Correspondent
“Putin endorsed her last week, said, ‘I hope she wins.’”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Most observers believe that Vladimir V. Putin’s comments on Sept. 5 that he supported Vice President Kamala Harris were said in jest. The U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Putin supports the election of Trump. Documents released as part of an indictment against two employees of the Russian state broadcaster show the Kremlin developed a plan to influence swing state voters in favor of Trump. The Kremlin believes Trump will cut back, or end, U.S. military aid to Ukraine. While Trump has claimed that the invasion of Ukraine would not have taken place if he were president, there is little evidence that he would have taken action to deter Russia.
Helene Cooper
Helene Cooper
Pentagon Correspondent
“They sent her in to negotiate with Zelensky and Putin, and she did, and the war started three days later.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
The vice president traveled to the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, in the days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that month. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was there, and Harris met with him. Putin was not present.
Margot Sanger-Katz
Margot Sanger-Katz
Health Policy Reporter
“When Donald Trump was president, 60 times he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act — 60 times.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
False.
As president, Trump did try to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, urging Republicans in Congress in 2017 to pass several bills to repeal and replace major portions of it. Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Republicans in Congress had voted many times since the health law was enacted in 2010 to fully repeal or substantially modify Obamacare. Most of those attempts predated Trump’s presidency. Various analysts have tallied those efforts at 70, or even 100. But those very high counts include even proposed changes to the landmark legislation that were relatively minor — and some that had bipartisan support. Most failed to become law.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Health Reporter
“I had a choice to make” on Obamacare. “Do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Or do I let it rot? And I saved it. I did the right thing.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Trump did not “save” the health insurance law known as Obamacare; the United States Senate did, in defiance of him. During his first year in office, Trump asked Congress to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law that created the program. The Republican-controlled House approved the bill. But in a dramatic moment on Capitol Hill, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican and nemesis of Trump, cast the decisive vote to defeat the proposal, just days after returning to the Senate after receiving a diagnosis of brain cancer. The vote was a surprise to Trump; he had cheered McCain’s return to Washington in a social media post calling the Arizona senator “brave” and a “hero,” apparently believing that he had come back to Congress to help kill — not save — Obamacare.
Andrew Duehren
Andrew Duehren
“Over the last four years, we have invested $1 trillion in a clean energy economy.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This is misleading.
The current administration has facilitated a burst of private investment because of tax credits and other incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. According to the Clean Investment Monitor, which tracks investments, clean energy investment since 2021 has totaled roughly $700 billion. Some experts expect the clean energy incentives to eventually help drive more than $1 trillion in private investment.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a blood bath if this, and the outcome of this election, is not to his liking.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This needs context.
Harris is correct that Trump warned of a “blood bath” if he did not win the 2024 election, but Trump has contended that he was speaking about an economic blood bath and was focused on competition from Chinese electric vehicles.
Here is the full quote of what Trump said at rally in March, so readers can decide for themselves.
“If you’re listening, President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal, those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, we’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected,” he said.
“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars,” he continued.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This lacks evidence.
Immigration experts have said they could not corroborate Mr. Trump’s claims. The Trump campaign has previously cited a September 2022 article in Breitbart, a conservative website. One unnamed source told Breitbart that officials believed an unspecified number of Venezuelan prison inmates were headed for the United States’ southern border with Mexico. (No other news organization or government source has verified this report.)
The campaign also pointed to reports warning that Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang founded in Venezuela, was growing in the United States. But none of this is evidence that “millions” of criminals are infiltrating the southern border.
Customs and Border Protection reported apprehending 47 members of Tren de Aragua along the southern border under Mr. Biden. Prison populations all over the world have been increasing, not decreasing. Penal Reform International, a Netherlands-based nonprofit, estimated that the global prison population was a record 11.5 million in 2023, an increase of 500,000 people since 2020.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“For years we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations, both on trade and on NATO. I got them to pay up.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Trump incorrectly characterizes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Member countries make direct contributions to the organization, based on national income, and also agree to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their own defense.
Trump’s complaints led to NATO reducing the United States’ contribution to the common fund. Previously the United States paid about 22 percent of its central budget, and it dropped to 16 percent. And the number of countries meeting that 2 percent guideline increased to 10 from five in recent years.
Trump can claim some credit for increased spending, but it’s worth noting that countries pledged in 2014 to meet that goal within a decade.
Jim Tankersley
Jim Tankersley
White House Correspondent
“The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit — one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This is misleading.
In 2020, at the end of Donald J. Trump’s tenure in office, the trade deficit — the difference between how much the United States imports and how much it exports — was about $650 billion. That was lower than four years of the George W. Bush administration, and the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Brad Plumer
Brad Plumer
“We had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history, because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over-rely on foreign oil.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This needs context.
U.S. crude oil production has indeed risen to record highs this year, though experts say that has little to do with actions taken by the Biden administration. Most oil production has occurred on private and state lands, where the federal government has little oversight. At times, President Biden has actually tried to restrict drilling on federal lands and waters in the name of tackling climate change, but the courts have frequently limited his ability to do so.
Lisa Friedman
Lisa Friedman
Biden “ended the XL pipeline, the XL pipeline in our country. He ended that.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
On his first day in office, President Biden rescinded the construction permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would have transported carbon-heavy oil from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast. That same day, the sponsor of the project, TC Energy, a Canadian company, said that it was suspending work on the line.
Trump had revived the project after it stalled under the Obama administration, but it continued to face legal challenges that hampered construction. Opponents had fought the project for years over concerns that burning oil sands crude could make climate change worse and harder to reverse.
Ben Protess
Ben Protess
I “have built it into many, many billions of dollars; many, many billions.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is exaggerated.
Trump habitually exaggerates his wealth, so much so that the New York attorney general’s office sued him for fraudulently inflating his net worth, a case that led to a more than $450 million judgment against him.
In reality, he has about $400 million in cash, stocks and bonds, though if the New York case is upheld on appeal, it will essentially wipe out his liquid assets.
Much of his purported net worth is tied up in the real estate he owns. So when Trump says he is worth many billions, he appears to be referring to the value of that property. But property values fluctuate, and there is no reliable assessment of his assets. He also has a roughly $2 billion stake in his social media company, though he can’t yet access those shares and their value has plummeted in recent months.
Michael Crowley
Michael Crowley
Diplomatic Correspondent, Washington
“She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
It is true that when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed Congress on July 19, Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the speech. On that day she delivered a long-planned speech in Indiana to the national conference for Zeta Phi Beta, one of the country’s historically Black sororities. But Harris returned to Washington the next day for a meeting with Netanyahu.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“And when she ran, she was the first one to leave because she failed” in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary in December 2019, which came as a surprise given expectations surrounding her candidacy. But her exit was preceded by more than a dozen others, including prominent members of Congress, former and sitting governors and the mayor of New York City.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“She went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people, that burned down Minneapolis.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
After the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the protests that ensued, Vice President Kamala Harris posted on social media in June 2020 asking supporters “to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota” by donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a bail fund.
The fund used some of those money to bail out people who committed serious crimes. But Ms. Harris did not specifically call to release murderers from behind bars.
Michael D. Shear
Michael D. Shear
White House Correspondent, Washington
“Remember that she was the border czar. She doesn’t want to be called the border czar because she’s embarrassed by the border.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Harris was never appointed “border czar,” nor was she tasked with addressing border security. Rather, she had a role in addressing the root causes of migration in Central American countries. Moreover, she did visit the border in June 2021, where she toured an immigration facility in El Paso.
Alan Feuer
Alan Feuer
“By the way, Joe Biden was found essentially guilty on the documents case.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
A special counsel, Robert K. Hur, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to prosecute President Biden after his aides reported that classified documents from his time as vice president had been found in his possession. Hur spent months investigating Biden and in February issued a report in which he declined to bring charges against Biden for a number of reasons. Among them was that Biden, unlike Trump, cooperated with the federal inquiry into his handling of classified documents.
Elizabeth Dias
Elizabeth Dias
“And as far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of abortion ban.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Trump privately expressed support for a 16-week abortion ban earlier this year, although he later reviewed polling suggesting it was problematic, and did not support it. His allies, including former Trump administration officials, have also planned new sweeping abortion restrictions that do not require a national ban passed by Congress. One plan includes enforcing a long-dormant law from 1873, called the Comstock Act, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including the medication used in the majority of abortions in America.
Lisa Friedman
Lisa Friedman
“Fracking? She’s been against it for 12 years.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
During her first presidential campaign in 2019, Harris endorsed a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process used to extract oil and natural gas from bedrock. She also challenged federal approvals of offshore fracking when she was attorney general of California. When she became President Biden’s running mate in 2020, she distanced herself from that position, and now says she no longer supports a ban on fracking.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Health Reporter
“We made ventilators for the entire world.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Early in the pandemic, the Trump administration was criticized for a shortage of ventilators. In March 2020, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was put in charge of an effort to ramp up production. Trump later announced a plan to make the United States the “king of ventilators” by donating them to other countries. But ProPublica reported that while White House officials had pushed the U.S. Agency for International Development to purchase thousands of ventilators and donate them abroad, the effort was “marked by dysfunction.”
In the end, the ventilators weren’t needed. By May 2020, doctors began using ventilators only as a last resort, after observing unusually high death rates for Covid-19 patients who were put on the devices. The Associated Press quoted Daniel Edelman, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, as saying the Trump administration was buying more than twice the number of ventilators it needed.
Helene Cooper
Helene Cooper
Pentagon Correspondent
“People give me credit for rebuilding the military.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is exaggerated.
Trump’s allies often repeat his talking point that he “rebuilt” the military. He did increase the defense budget during his four years in office, by around $225 billion. But he also promised to build a 350-ship Navy and to expand the Army. He did neither. The Army today is at its smallest size since 1940. The year Mr. Trump left office, the Navy was down to 294 ships. Efforts to expand the number of Air Force squadrons received no presidential push and went nowhere.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals assembled by a Washington think tank for a Republican presidential administration, does not directly come from Trump or his campaign. Still, CNN documented that 140 people who worked for the Trump administration had a role in Project 2025. Some were top advisers to Trump in his first term and are all but certain to step into prominent posts should he win a second term.
Trump has also supported some of the proposals, with some overlap between Project 2025 and his own campaign plans. Among the similarities: undercutting the independence of the Justice Department and pressing to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And he enacted other initiatives mentioned in Project 2025 in his first term, such as levying tariffs on China and making it easier to fire federal workers. Trump has criticized some elements as “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” though he has not specified which proposals he opposes.
When the director of the project departed the think tank, Trump’s campaign released a statement that said, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
Jeanna Smialek
Jeanna Smialek
Economics Reporter
“We handed them over a country where the economy and with — the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This needs context.
The economy grew at a fairly normal pace in the United States in the years leading up to the pandemic, and while the stock market did touch new highs under Trump’s watch, that is typically the case during a presidency: Historically, stock prices tend to climb over time. Stocks have traced new highs under the Biden administration, as measured by the S&P 500 index.
Kate Zernike
Kate Zernike
“Every legal scholar — every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative — they all wanted” abortion policy “to be brought back to the states.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Some conservative legal scholars asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that identified a right to abortion in the Constitution. They said state legislators, not unelected justices, should set abortion policy. But many legal scholars also filed briefs urging the court not to do so, arguing that the original decision had been on solid legal ground and that overturning federal protection for abortion would disastrously reverse five decades of precedent.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
White House Correspondent, Washington Bureau
Immigrants are “coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
This is misleading.
Various economists have found that immigrants are a crucial part of the U.S. labor force and that their presence has been healthy for the nation’s economy. The population of foreign-born workers is also not large enough to offset job creation over the past three years. A few studies have indeed shown negative wage effects, particularly on Black workers and other Americans in occupations in which there are many immigrants. But while this dynamic has been debated for decades, there is no clear conclusion.
Several studies have, however, found a mutually beneficial relationship between high-skilled immigrants and similarly skilled U.S.-born workers, as well as between low-skilled immigrants and more highly skilled U.S.-born workers, contributes to higher wages for natives. Economists also have found immigrants are especially important as more Americans age and leave the labor force.
Michael D. Shear
Michael D. Shear
White House Correspondent, Washington
Immigrants are “taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
The claim is factually incorrect. The former president was referring to towns in Ohio and Colorado that have seen large influxes of immigrants, most of whom came into the United States legally, often with work permits. There have been examples of crime in those cities, but the vast majority of the immigrants have been working and paying taxes. In Springfield, Ohio, for example, thousands of Haitian immigrants have helped fill jobs as the city recovered from steep economic decline, but their presence has divided the town politically. A traffic accident caused by a Haitian immigrant has roiled the city, but there has not been widespread violence, and many in the city support the Haitian migrants as an important part of the economy.
Linda Qiu
Linda Qiu
Fact-check Reporter
“She’s a Marxist. Everybody knows she’s a Marxist.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Marxism refers to the political, social and economics theories of Karl Marx, practiced as socialism or communism. Ms. Harris’s campaign has described her as a capitalist. She has not proposed to seize the means of production. And she has received the backing of more than 80 chief executives, some of whom have called her “pro-business.”
Jim Tankersley
Jim Tankersley
White House Correspondent
“The only jobs they got were bounce-back jobs.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump
False.
Trump claimed that the only jobs created under the Biden-Harris administration were from recovering jobs that were lost under Trump amid the pandemic recession. In fact, under the Biden administration, the American economy has regained all the jobs it lost from before the pandemic and created nearly 6.5 million additional jobs on top of that.
Jim Tankersley
Jim Tankersley
White House Correspondent
“Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
False.
Unemployment spiked to its worst levels since the Great Depression in the pandemic recession of 2020, but it was 6.4 percent the month Trump left office. That’s nowhere near the worst rate since the Depression.
Shawn Hubler
Shawn Hubler
California Correspondent, National
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away — Tim Walz and I are both gun owners.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This is true.
A career prosecutor in California before she ran for the U.S. Senate, Harris has long said that she owns a handgun. “I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” she told reporters outside a campaign event in Iowa during her run for the White House in 2019.
Although she has long called for universal background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons and other controls, she has not called for seizing legally purchased firearms. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, her running mate, is an Army veteran and a hunter who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association until he began supporting tighter firearm restrictions after a teenage gunman opened fire at a Florida high school in 2018.
“I was a better shot than most Republicans in Congress and I have the trophies to prove it,” he said. “But I’m also a dad. I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe that our first responsibility is to keep our kids safe.”
Jim Tankersley
Jim Tankersley
White House Correspondent
“He lost manufacturing jobs.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This needs context.
The United States had lost nearly 200,000 factory jobs at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency compared with when Trump took office. Those losses were largely a product of the pandemic recession.
Jim Tankersley
Jim Tankersley
White House Correspondent
“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.”
— Vice President Kamala Harris
This is misleading.
Since President Biden took office, seasonally adjusted manufacturing employment has increased by 739,000 jobs. Previous estimates put that increase above 800,000, but that number fell after the Labor Department issued an annual revision to its jobs numbers last month.
Composing members:
0
Composing members:
0
