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During Tuesday night’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump repeated numerous falsehoods about immigrant crime, inflation and late-term abortions. Fact-checkers also expelled Harris for exaggerating claims about job losses under Trump.
Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump and Vice President Harris speak at the first … (+)
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During the debate, Trump said immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating dogs…eating cats,” repeating a false claim spread by his running mate JD Vance and several right-wing commentators. Local law enforcement has refuted the claim.
Trump also repeated his baseless claims that Democrats are “trying” to get undocumented immigrants to vote, despite researchers pointing out that it is “incredibly rare” for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections and “even rarer” for undocumented immigrants to do so.
The former president said the country’s inflation rate was “probably the highest in the history of our country… we were at 21 percent,” which is not true – inflation actually hit a four-decade high of 9.1 percent in mid-2022, but in the 1980s it was 14 percent, and in 1974 it had risen to 11.1 percent.
In an attempt to paint Democrats as “radicals” on the abortion issue, Trump falsely claimed that Harris’ running mate Tim Walz “says an abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine” and “an execution after birth… is OK.” The former president was promptly challenged live on air for saying that killing a baby after birth is illegal in all states and that CDC data shows that abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy are extremely rare (less than 1% of all abortions).
Harris falsely claimed that Trump had left us with “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 office.
On the issue of fracking, Harris said she was “very clear about it in 2020,” which is not entirely accurate since she first stated in 2020 that “Joe Biden is not going to 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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tangent
Trump claimed that “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, everybody wanted” Roe v. Wade to be overturned and the case sent back to the states “where the people can vote, and that’s exactly what happened.” That’s false, as multiple legal scholars have filed briefs with the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade, and polls show that a large majority of Americans oppose the overturn. Harris later fired back at Trump’s claim: “You’re talking about people wanting that? Pregnant women trying to carry a child to term, having a miscarriage, being denied emergency room care because health care workers are afraid they’re going to go to jail, and she’s bleeding to death in a car in the parking lot — she didn’t want that.”
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Commenting on his performance at the debate on Truth Social, Trump said, “I thought that was my best debate EVER, especially because it was THREE AGAINST ONE!” The former president later said that the Harris camp pushed for a second debate because “she lost so clearly… With prizefighters, when they lose one fight, they immediately want another one.”
More information
Trump Falsely Claims Inflation Is ‘The Worst in Our Country’s History’: Here’s the Truth (Forbes)
Trump baselessly claims Haitian immigrants in Ohio eat pets (Forbes)
Trump says he ‘doesn’t care’ about Harris’ race in debate, months after questioning whether she is black (Forbes)
Harris criticizes Trump for opposing border bill in debate: Here are the facts (Forbes)
