PolitiFact is fact-checking the first 2024 presidential debate Sept. 10 in Philadelphia between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
PolitiFact has fact-checked Harris 55 times since 2012 and Trump 1,050 times since 2011.
Tonight, we’ll draw on that deep archive to check the accuracy of the candidates’ statements.
PolitiFact fact-checks statements of people in power, regardless of political party. This is how we choose claims to check.
False claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio
Trump: "In Springfield (Ohio), 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."
False.
A city spokesperson told PolitiFact that claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing neighbors’ pets to eat are unfounded.
A Springfield spokesperson said the city has received no such reports, and Springfield police told a local news outlet the department has received no reports 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 U.S. through the Department of Homeland Security’s humanitarian parole program that lets people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their immediate family members request to come to the United States legally. They can be paroled into the U.S. for up to two years.
Immigrants "taking over" buildings in Aurora, Colorado
Trump: "You look at Aurora in Colorado. (Immigrants) are taking over. The town said, (they’re) taking over buildings, they’re going in violently, these are the people that she and Biden led into our country, and they’re destroying our country."
Aurora, Colorado, officials dispute this narrative.
They report that Venezuelan gangs are not taking over apartment complexes and forcing residents to pay them rent.
Residents of The Edge at Lowry apartments said the company that owns the building, CBZ Management, caused the poor living conditions in the apartments, not Venezuelan gang members.
Four members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, were arrested in Aurora in connection with a shooting that occurred at a different apartment building owned by CBZ Management.
Harris says Trump will impose a sales tax
Harris: "Economists have said that the Trump sales tax would actually result for middle class families in about $4,000 more a year because of his policies and his ideas about what should be the backs of middle class people paying for tax cuts for billionaires."
Trump has repeatedly proposed wide-ranging tariffs on foreign goods, including an across-the-board tariff of 10% to 20% and a 60% levy on goods from China. Although tariffs are imposed separately from the tax system, consumers would feel their impact much the same way as taxes.
However, the specific dollar impact on consumers varies. Two estimates we found generally support Harris’ $4,000 figure; two show a smaller, though still significant, impact.
Trump’s wrong on abortion claims
Trump: "They even have … he said, ‘The baby we will be born, and we will decide what to do with the baby.’"
False.
Trump said West Virginia. He meant Virginia.
Former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a physician, never said he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he did say during a radio interview is that in rare, late-pregnancy cases when fetuses are nonviable, doctors deliver the baby, keep it comfortable, resuscitate it if the mother wishes, and then have a "discussion" with the mother.
The issue is that Northam declines to say what that discussion would entail. Trump puts words in the governor’s mouth, saying doctors would urge the mother to let them forcibly kill the newborn, which is a felony in Virginia punishable by a long prison sentence or death.
Trump: "Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted (abortion) to be brought back to the states where the people could vote."
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 2022, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the court to uphold the ruling.
Some legal scholars who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s legal underpinnings, saying that different constitutional arguments, based on equal protection, would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who held this view, said those scholars would not have advocated for overturning Roe on this basis.
Jobs under Biden-Harris are not ‘a fraud’
Trump: "It was a fraud, just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud."
The federal agency that calculates how many people are working handed Democrats an unwelcome present during their August national convention in Chicago: a downward adjustment of the past year’s employment gains by 818,000 jobs.
But Trump claimed the Biden-Harris administration was cooking the books, calling it "fraud" during the debate. However, economists across the ideological spectrum reject Trump’s claim. The process is an annual effort to fine-tune initial data that the agency acknowledges is imperfect.
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PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman, Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Maria Briceño, Jeff Cercone, Madison Czopek, Marta Campabadal Graus, Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Researcher Caryn Baird, KFF Health News Senior Editor Stephanie Stapleton and KFF Health News Senior Correspondent Stephanie Armour contributed to this story.
Our debate fact-checks rely on both new and previously reported work. We link to past work whenever possible. In some cases, a fact-check rating may be different tonight than in past versions. In those cases, either details of what the candidate said, or how the candidate said it, differed enough that we evaluated it anew.
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