Washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump made at the very least 10 false claims about Vice President Kamala Harris in his first marketing campaign rally since she grew to become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump, talking in North Carolina, attacked Harris at size with a flurry of assertions about her private and political previous, her file as vice chairman and her coverage stances. We’re nonetheless wanting into a few of his claims, however at the very least 10 had been fallacious.
Here’s a truth test.
Harris and the retirement age
Discussing Social Safety, Trump claimed of President Joe Biden and Harris: “They’re speaking about, he was speaking, she’s speaking about – lifting the retirement age.”
Details First: This declare is fake about Harris. She has not spoken in favor of elevating the age for receiving Social Safety retirement advantages. (Biden did, as a US senator within the 2000s and prior, express support for or openness to elevating the retirement age, however he has been a vocal opponent of the concept as president.)
Harris has supported rising, not decreasing, Social Safety advantages. In 2019, about two years earlier than she grew to become vice chairman, she co-sponsored a invoice from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, known as the Social Safety Enlargement Act, that will boost Social Security benefits by elevating payroll taxes on excessive earners.
Harris and abortion
Trump stated, “She needs abortions within the eighth and ninth month of being pregnant, that’s high quality together with her, proper up till beginning, and even after beginning – the execution of a child.”
Details First: Trump’s declare that Harris helps the execution of infants after beginning is fake. She has by no means stated something to endorse post-birth homicide, which is illegitimate in every single place within the nation; Trump has steadily claimed that some Democratic states enable such post-birth executions, however that claim is false, too.
Harris, a vocal supporter of abortion rights, has declined to endorse particular limits on how late in a being pregnant an abortion must be permitted to happen. In accordance with knowledge revealed by the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, simply 0.9% of reported abortions in 2020 occurred at 21 weeks gestation or later. Many of these abortions happen due to critical well being dangers or deadly fetal anomalies.
Harris has called for laws restoring the protections of the Roe v. Wade choice that was overturned by the Supreme Courtroom in 2022; Roe allowed states to limit abortion after the purpose of fetal viability, usually considered to be round 23 to 24 weeks gestation, with exceptions for abortions obligatory to guard the affected person’s life or well being. As a senator and vice president, Harris has supported a invoice that will, like Roe, guarantee abortion was obtainable at the very least till fetal viability – and would additionally prohibit varied state insurance policies that make the method of offering or acquiring an abortion extra onerous.
Requested about Trump’s feedback, the Trump marketing campaign supplied varied examples of Harris taking liberal positions on abortion coverage and declining to endorse particular limits – however nothing to substantiate the declare that she helps “the execution of a child” after beginning.
Harris and pink meat
Trump claimed, “Kamala even needs to cross legal guidelines to outlaw pink meat to cease local weather change.”
Details First: That is false. Harris has by no means expressed assist for passing legal guidelines to outlaw pink meat. At a CNN climate change town hall in 2019, when she was working within the Democratic presidential main, she expressed assist for altering dietary tips to attempt to encourage Individuals to cut back their consumption of pink meat, however she additionally stated “I like cheeseburgers every now and then” and that she favored utilizing “incentives” and schooling to encourage wholesome consuming.
After mentioning sodas and meals with copious sugar, Harris said on this similar city corridor reply that “the steadiness that we have now to strike right here, frankly, is about what authorities can and may do round creating incentives after which banning sure behaviors.” The phrase “banning sure behaviors” opened the door to claims that she needs to ban pink meat. However she instantly proceeded to her feedback about how she enjoys cheeseburgers and favors incentives to prod modifications in conduct – making clear in context that she was expressing assist for incentives fairly than bans.
Requested about Trump’s declare about Harris eager to outlaw pink meat, the Trump marketing campaign supplied two citations that didn’t substantiate it: a YouTube video of Harris’ feedback that was accurately titled “Kamala Harris Needs The Authorities To Create ‘Incentives’ For Individuals to Eat Much less Meat” and an article headlined, “Flashback: Kamala Harris stated she would assist consuming much less meat if elected president.”
Harris and Trump’s authorized instances
Trump has claimed for months that Biden secretly orchestrated his felony and civil authorized instances. This time, he directed the declare at Harris. He stated, “Nevertheless it was all headed up by her. As a result of she’s a prosecutor.”
Details First: That is false. There’s merely no foundation for claiming that Harris “headed up” the authorized instances towards him. Trump has by no means offered any proof for this declare that Biden was the hidden hand behind his instances, not to mention for out of the blue switching the declare to make it in regards to the vice chairman after months of claiming it in regards to the president.
There is no such thing as a signal that Harris had any function in bringing fees towards Trump in Manhattan, New York (the place he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise information) or Fulton County, Georgia (the place an election subversion case towards Trump is on hold); these prosecutions have been led by elected native district attorneys. Trump’s two federal instances, one dismissed by a judge earlier this month, had been introduced by a particular counsel, Jack Smith. Smith was appointed by Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, however that’s not proof that Biden orchestrated the prosecutions – and definitely not proof that Harris did.
Harris’ immigration function
Trump claimed of Harris: “She was the border czar, however she by no means went to the border.”
Details First: Trump made two false claims right here. First, Harris did go to the border as vice chairman, in Texas in mid-2021; many Republicans had criticized Harris prior to the visit for not having gone, and a few later argued that she didn’t go steadily sufficient, however the declare that she “by no means” went has not been true for greater than three years. Second, Harris was by no means made Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White Home has all the time emphasised is inaccurate. In reality, Biden gave Harris a extra restricted immigration-related project in 2021, asking her to guide diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in an try to deal with the situations that prompted their residents to attempt to migrate to the USA.
Some Republicans have scoffed this week at assertions that Harris was by no means the “border czar,” noting on social media that information articles generally described Harris as such. However these articles had been fallacious. Various news outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the primary half of 2021 that the White Home emphasised that Harris had not been put answerable for border safety as a complete, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had as a substitute been handed a diplomatic job associated to Central American international locations.
A White Home “truth sheet” in July 2021 said: “On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Govt Order that known as for the event of a Root Causes Technique. Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been main the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to deal with the foundation causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”
Biden’s personal feedback at a March 2021 occasion asserting the project had been barely more muddled, however he stated he had requested Harris to guide “our diplomatic effort” to deal with components inflicting migration within the three “Northern Triangle” international locations (he additionally talked about Mexico that day). Biden listed components in these international locations he thought had led to migration and stated that “if you happen to take care of the issues in-country, it advantages everybody.” And Harris’ feedback that day had been centered squarely on “root causes.”
Republicans can pretty say that even “root causes” work is a border-related job. However calling her “border czar” goes too far.
Harris and the variety of migrants
Trump claimed that Harris “allowed 20 million unlawful aliens to stampede into our nation from all around the world.”
Details First: Leaving apart Trump’s declare about Harris’ personal duty for migration ranges, the“20 million” determine is fake, a serious exaggeration. The full variety of “encounters” on the northern and southern border from February 2021 by means of June 2024, at each authorized ports of entry and in between these ports, was about 10 million – and an “encounter” doesn’t imply an individual was let into the nation; some individuals encountered are promptly sent away.
Even if you happen to added the estimated variety of Biden-era “gotaways” (individuals who evaded the Border Patrol to enter illegally), which Home Republicans said in May was practically two million, “the totals would nonetheless be vastly smaller than 15, 16 or 18 million,” Michelle Mittelstadt, spokesperson for the Migration Coverage Institute suppose tank, stated in late June after Trump used these figures.
The “encounters” figures can’t be described as figures on individuals efficiently getting into the US. Some encounters contain individuals who are deemed inadmissible at legal ports and are refused permission to enter. Additionally, the identical individual could be “encountered” a number of occasions in the event that they hold returning to the border to strive once more – which is what happened in many cases underneath Biden when the Title 42 rapid-expulsion authority invoked by Trump through the Covid-19 pandemic was in place into May 2023.
Harris and fentanyl deaths
Shortly after claiming there’s a “Kamala Harris invasion” of the border, Trump stated, “We’re shedding 300,000 individuals a yr by means of fentanyl that comes by means of our border.”
Details First: Trump’s “300,000” declare is fake. The variety of US overdose deaths in 2023 involving artificial opioids, together with fentanyl, was roughly 75,000, in accordance with estimated and provisional knowledge revealed by the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. The CDC stated in May that roughly 107,500 people within the US died from a drug overdose involving any type of drug in 2023; even that bigger quantity is nowhere near Trump’s “300,000.”
When Trump made comparable “300,000” claims earlier this yr, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of the Opioid Coverage Analysis Collaborative at Brandeis College, stated “I do not know the place Trump is getting ‘300,000’ from and known as it “a made-up quantity.”
Whereas Kolodny stated it’s seemingly that the variety of US overdose deaths is undercounted, there isn’t a obvious foundation for Trump’s insistence that the true quantity is almost triple the reported quantity. And Kolodny stated the undercount difficulty is centered not on overdoses from illicit fentanyl smuggled throughout the southern border however on seniors’ overdoses from by chance taking an excessive amount of of their authorized prescription drugs.
Additionally it is value noting that fentanyl is largely smuggled by US residents through legal ports of entry fairly than by migrants sneaking into the nation.
CNN’s Jen Christensen contributed to this merchandise.
Harris and the Jewish group
Trump criticized Harris for not attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Wednesday speech to Congress (although Trump’s working mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, also did not attend); Harris, who’s planning to carry a gathering with Netanyahu on Thursday, traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday to provide a beforehand scheduled speech to a traditionally Black sorority.
That’s honest sport for criticism. However Trump stated after criticizing Harris’ absence: “Even if you happen to’re towards Israel otherwise you’re towards the Jewish individuals, present up and hearken to the idea. However she’s completely towards the Jewish individuals.”
Details First: Trump’s declare that Harris is “completely towards the Jewish individuals” is nonsense. Harris has been married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, for practically 10 years – and she or he has repeatedly denounced antisemitism, expressed fondness for the Jewish group and its traditions, complimented Israel at length, and endorsed “America’s ironclad dedication to the safety of Israel.” Although she has generally been pointedly critical of the actions of Israel’s authorities through the warfare in Gaza, drawing criticism from conservative Jews and others, there isn’t a proof she has a basic antipathy towards “the Jewish individuals” as Trump claimed.
The Jewish Telegraphic Company information service reported this week: “Over the course of her life and profession, she has been surrounded by Jews, from her schoolmates to her colleagues to her closest members of the family. That background has given Harris, 59, a simple familiarity with Jewish areas, say those that have interacted together with her. She has additionally inspired Emhoff to embrace his Jewish id because the second gentleman; for the primary time, mezuzahs have been put in on the vice presidential residence, and Emhoff has taken a number one function within the administration’s efforts to battle antisemitism.”
Harris and the bar examination
Trump claimed that Harris, a lawyer who was elected as San Francisco’s district legal professional after which as California’s legal professional basic, “failed her legislation exams.” Then he continued, “You understand that? She couldn’t cross her bar. She couldn’t cross her bar exams…Does anybody know that? … However she’s gonna be a terrific president, proper? No, she couldn’t cross her bar exams. She couldn’t cross something. Couldn’t cross every part. She couldn’t cross something.”
Details First: It’s not true that Harris “couldn’t cross something.” She did fail on her first try and cross the bar examination, in accordance with The New York Times, however then succeeded. She was admitted to the California bar in 1990, the year after she graduated from law school.
Trump may pretty say that Harris couldn’t initially cross the bar examination, however his rally feedback made it sound like she by no means handed in any respect.