On 11 September, United States Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off against each other in their first presidential debate hosted by ABC News.
Both leaders presented their agendas for the upcoming elections and made allegations and claims. In this report, we look at the misleading and false claims made by Harris and Trump during the debate.
CLAIM 1: Trump Left Worst Unemployment Rate Since the Great Depression?
Vice-President Harris, while targeting the Trump-led government, said in the debate, "Let's talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century. Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War."
According to the data available on the official website of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, we found the unemployment rate was at 3.5 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States.
This rate then rose to a high of 14.8 percent in the month of April 2020, however, it kept gradually decreasing over the year.
It should be noted that the current US President Joe Biden was sworn to office in January 2021. At this time, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. This was lower than early 1980s.
CLAIM 2: Trump Administration Had One of the Highest Trade Deficits in US History
At around the 1:12:30 mark, Harris said that the Trump administration had one of the highest trade deficit in the history of the United States.
While the claim is true, it also needs a bit of context.
The trade deficit takes place when a country imports more than it exports. This deficit reached about 653 US Billion Dollars in 2020 as per the data available on Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It was lower than the period of 2005 to 2008 under the then President George W Bush.
According to a US government website, spending had increased about 50 percent from the financial year 2019 to 2021 largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It should be noted that the deficit had also increased in the Biden-led administration with the figure reaching 944 billion USD and 784 USD in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
CLAIM 3: America Had Highest Inflation Rate Under Biden Government?
At around the 1:12:00 timestamp, former President Trump said, "I had no inflation virtually no inflation, they had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country."
This oft-repeated claim by Trump is false and has debunked multiple times in the past by several fact-checking organisations.
As per the official data, the monthly inflation under the Biden administration reached an high of 9.1 percent in June 2022, however, it has been consistently dropping.
The chart below shows that the inflation rate rose in the first two years of the Biden administration, however, it came down to 4.1 percent in 2023.
Additionally, one can see other periods in the same chart where the inflation was significantly higher than the present government. For example, the year 1980 saw one of the highest inflation of around 13 percent.
CLAIM 4: Tim Walz Said Abortion in Ninth Month Is Fine, ‘Execution After Birth’ Is Okay
While speaking on abortion, Trump claimed that Harris' vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz said "abortion in the ninth month [of pregnancy] is absolutely fine. He said execution after birth is okay. "
Team WebQoof did not find any evidence of such statements made by Walz. It should be noted that Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, had signed a bill in January 2023 which provided the "fundamental right" to access abortion in the state.
The state was the first to codify abortion via legislative action since the overturn of Roe v Wade.
Infanticide or killing of babies is illegal in all the states of United States, which makes the claim of Trump false.
A similar claim was made by Trump during his presidential debate against President Biden, which was debunked by several fact-checking organisation including The Quint's WebQoof.
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Claim 5: Migrants Are Eating Pets of People Living in Ohio’s Springfield
Former President Trump claimed (1:29:00) that migrants are eating the dogs and cats and pets of the people that are living in Springfield.
But this claim was not backed by any evidence.
In a news report published in Springfield News-Sun, the local police claimed that they have received no complaints or reports of pets being stolen and eaten.
Their response came after a social media post that claimed a cat was stolen and later found hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbour's house.
The City Manager of Springfield Bryan Heck, too, debunked the rumours and said there was no evidence of pets being harmed or eaten by the Haitian immigrants.
It should be noted that there are news reports of a woman from Ohio being arrested in August after she allegedly killed a cat and was seen eating the animal.
She was identified as one 'Allexis Telia Ferrell', a 27-year-old who was charged and arrested in Canton.
Claim 6: Crime Is Soaring Under the Biden-Led Government
Speaking further on the immigration issue, Trump said that the crime is down all over the world but it is through the roof in the United States (1:34:00).
Using the help of FBI's Crime Data explorer, we found that the rate of violent crimes has been decreasing since 2020. While it was 398.5 per 100,000 people in 2020, the rate came down to 387 and 380.7 in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
However, as it was pointed out in a report by Pew Research Center, this data from 2022 was incomplete and consisted of data from 83 percent of participating agencies.
The final report for 2023 has not yet been published. So, this raises questions regarding Trump's sources behind his claims of crimes soaring in the country.
The data was available on the FBI website.
(Source: FBI/Screenshot)
CLAIM 7: Kamal Harris Is a Marxist, Her Father Is a Marxist
During the debate, Trump targeted the current vice-president and said that she [Kamala Harris] is a Marxist and her father is a Marxist professor in economics (1:14:15).
Communism advocates for abolishment of private property and Marxism is the school of thought that was inspired by Karl Marx, which analysed the inherent flaws of capitalism.
This claim about Harris being a Marxist has often been repeated. Her father Donald J Harris was a economics professor at the Stanford University and has previously been described as a "Marxist scholar" in a student newspaper.
CLAIM 8: No Judge Looked at ‘Fraud’ Cases Related to 2020 Presidential Elections
When the anchor David Muir asked about the former President and his allies filing around 60 cases in front of many judges, Trump responded by saying "no judge looked at it".
A report published in Reuters said that a federal appeals court had rejected an attempt by Trump's campaign to be announced as the winner of Pennsylvania.
On behalf of a three-judge panel, Stephanos Bibas said that "Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
In fact, we found the list of lawsuits around the 2020 Elections whose results were declared on this website named 'Campaign Legal Center'. It can be clearly seen that some of these cases were heard by the judges and were later dismissed.
Compilation of lawsuit results around the 2020 Presidential Elections.
(Source: Campaign Legal Center/Screenshot)
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