Debate fact check: What Harris, Trump got wrong (and right)

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump took the stage tonight in Philadelphia for their first presidential debate of the Nov. 5 election season.
The USA TODAY Fact Check Team investigated claims from the nominees and added context where it was missing on issues including abortion, immigration, guns and inflation.
Read on for our analysis of statements that exaggerated, mislead, misrepresented or otherwise strayed from reality. Our team uses primary documents, trustworthy nonpartisan sources, data and other research tools to assess the accuracy of claims.
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“They said we didn’t have standing. That’s the other thing. They said we didn’t have standing. A technicality.” 
Sign-up for Your Vote: Text with the USA TODAY elections team.
Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden was “rigged.” He continued down this line during Tuesday’s debate, claiming his election lawsuits challenging the results failed on “a technicality” of not having “standing,” a legal term for the right to bring a lawsuit based on one’s connection to the issue at hand. 
But that’s not true. Dozens of cases brought by Trump and his allies appeared before judges in hearings, including 30 that were heard on the merits, USA TODAY reported. Every case but one failed.
More: Donald Trump falsely claims his election lawsuits failed in 2020 only on ‘a technicality’ 
Eight conservative legal experts published a report in 2022 that reviewed evidence in 64 cases in six swing states, finding that Trump and his supporters didn’t provide evidence of widespread election fraud. 
“These cases provided the forums in which Trump and his supporters could and should have proven their claims,” the report concluded. “This report shows that those efforts failed because of a lack of evidence and not because of erroneous rulings or unfair judges.”
Of the 64 cases brought by Trump and his supporters, 20 were dismissed before a hearing on the merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before a hearing on the merits, and 30 cases included a hearing on the merits, according to the report.
-Andre Byik, Erin Mansfield
“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.”
This claim – which echoes one President Joe Biden made in 2023 – is not quite right anymore. Since Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. added about 739,000 seasonally adjusted manufacturing jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Previous estimates did put the job growth well over 800,000, but the Labor Department lowered it during its annual preliminary revision of its data. The department estimated that 115,000 fewer manufacturing jobs were created during the 12-month period that began in March 2024. Its final revision is expected in February 2025. 
– Joedy McCreary
“The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the former president would essentially be immune from any misconduct if he were to enter the White House again.”  
This overstates the content of the ruling.
Harris is referring to a Supreme Court ruling from July that concluded in a 6-3 decision that presidents, including Trump, are at least partially immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. But the court’s decision isn’t as clear cut as Harris’ remarks make it seem. It declares that “official” acts by presidents are protected, but steps taken as a candidate are not.
The ruling also leaves room for presidents to be prosecuted under a narrow set of circumstances, related to responsibilities “within the outer perimeter” of presidential duties, or to unofficial acts, as USA TODAY previously reported. The ruling did not grant Trump blanket immunity.  
Fact check: No, Donald Trump was not criminally prosecuted for taking out, repaying loan
Fact check: No evidence that hush-money trial jurors were ‘Biden voters’
“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the president does is official. The president is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative majority in the ruling.  
 Trump is the first president – former or current – to be criminally charged.  
-Brad Sylvester, Chris Mueller 
“In Springfield, (migrants are) 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.” 
This claim echoes allegations made by Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, who has accused Haitian immigrants of stealing and eating cats in his home state of Ohio. 
But Springfield city officials, including the city manager, say there is no evidence of any cats or other pets being harmed or eaten by Haitian immigrants, USA TODAY reported.  
More: ‘They’re eating the dogs’: Trump echoes false anti-immigrant rumor during debate
There was an incident in Canton, Ohio, about 170 miles northeast of Springfield, involving a 27-year-old woman who was arrested in August on suspicion of killing and eating a cat, but the woman was not a Haitian immigrant, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
-Andre Byik 
“Between (Joe Biden) and his son, they get all this money from Ukraine, they get all of this money from all of these different countries, and then you wonder why is he so loyal to this one, that one, Ukraine, China, why is he – why did he get $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow’s wife? Why did she pay him $3.5 million?” 
Trump has made similar claims before, including during his first debate with Joe Biden in 2020. It’s a reference to a report released that year by the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
In a section called “key findings,” the reports claims, “Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow,” as USA TODAY previously reported. A later section instead attributes this transfer to a company: “Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden, received $3.5 million in a wire transfer” from Baturina. The report’s source for the claim is a confidential document it says is on file with the committees, but it does not elaborate.
Fact check: Federal employees, not agencies, donated to Harris campaign
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, told CNN at the time that his client was not an owner of Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
“Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,” Mesires said.
Trump has tried before to link the claim to Joe Biden, who is Hunter Biden’s father. 
-Chris Mueller 
We fact-checked key speakers throughout the Republican and Democratic conventions. Catch up here on what was false, what was true and what was in between from Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tim Walz and a host of others.
-Eric Litke
“For 18 months, we had nobody killed (in Afghanistan).” 
Trump made this claim during an exchange about his negotiations with the Taliban that preceded the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. 
Trump didn’t specify the 18-month period he was referring to, but there is no such period in his presidency during which no U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department’s Defense Casualty Analysis System.
Fact check: Fox News poll showed Harris’ support in Sun Belt, not with veterans
In 2017, 14 total deaths – including “hostile” and “non-hostile” ones – were recorded, according to the data. In 2018, there were 15. In 2019, there were 23. And in 2020, there were 11.
PolitiFact reported there was an 18-month stretch between February 2020 and August 2021 when no U.S. service member died “in combat,” but the period overlaps with President Joe Biden’s term in office.
This claim has also been debunked by multiple independent fact-checkers. 
-Andre Byik 
“And when she ran, she was the first one to leave because she failed.”  
This is wrong.  
While Harris did run unsuccessfully for president in 2020, she was not the first Democratic candidate to drop out of the race. More than a dozen Democrats vied for the party nomination, which ultimately went to President Joe Biden.  
Harris ended her campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, citing a lack of financial resources. Other Democratic hopefuls who called it quits before her included California Rep. Eric Swalwell, then-Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, then-Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak and then-Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
-Brad Sylvester 
“And (Trump) at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David, a place of storied significance for us as Americans.” 
Harris is right, but it’s worth noting that such a meeting never actually took place. 
In September 2019, Trump revealed he had planned to meet with Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Camp David to continue peace negotiations. But it didn’t happen – Trump suspended peace talks after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed 12 people, including an American.
At the time, Democratic and Republican leaders criticized Trump for planning to bring Taliban members to the U.S., and specifically to Camp David, which has long been used as a presidential retreat. He was also rebuked for the timing of the meeting, which was set to happen days before the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
-Chris Mueller 
“She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun.” 
This is false, and it echoes a claim we previously debunked that Harris would “end the Second Amendment.” 
While Harris has been a proponent of stricter gun control measures, there is no credible evidence of any plan to confiscate firearms from all gun owners.
Her campaign’s policy platform outlines gun control proposals that include bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, universal background checks and red-flag laws. But it makes no mention of confiscating guns from all Americans.
The campaign website credits the Biden-Harris administration for enacting “the first meaningful gun safety reform in decades,” referring to a bipartisan bill President Joe Biden signed into law in June 2022, a month after the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That law enhances background checks on gun buyers who are 18–21 years old, encourages states to develop better “red flag” laws and adds dating partners to the list of domestic abusers who are prohibited from buying firearms. 
– Joedy McCreary 
“She is Biden – (responsible for) the worst inflation we’ve ever had.”  
The highest year-to-year inflation rate since the consumer price index was introduced was in 1917, when it hit 17.8%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
While the inflation rate has been consistently higher under Biden’s administration than it was under Trump, it still remains far below that number.
The highest monthly rate during Biden’s presidency was 9.1% in June 2022, compared to a peak of 2.9% under Trump in June and July 2022, according to consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average annual inflation rate is about 5.7% under Biden, according to an Investopedia analysis that found the average rate under Trump was 1.9%.
-BrieAnna Frank
“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.”
This is misleading. It’s true that Harris, in her capacity as vice president, didn’t preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 24 address to Congress in order to attend a previously scheduled campaign event, USA TODAY reported.  
That event was the Zeta Phi Beta sorority’s national convention in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Star reported. The sorority is among the country’s oldest historically Black Greek-lettered organizations.  
Harris did, however, meet with Netanyahu at the White House the following day, as numerous news outlets reported. The vice president “reiterated her longstanding and unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel and the people of Israel” during the meeting, according to a White House news release.  
-BrieAnna Frank 
“Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if the outcome of this election is not to his liking” 
Harris is misrepresenting what Trump said, as Trump himself pointed out moments later. Harris is referring to a comment Trump made at a rally he held in Vandalia, Ohio, in March.  
While speaking at the event about the auto industry, Trump said it would be a “bloodbath” for the industry if he were to lose the election.
“We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected,” Trump said during the speech. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.” 
The full context of the comment shows he was warning about a metaphorical bloodbath for the auto industry, not promising violence if he doesn’t win the election.
“If you actually watch and listen to the section, he was talking about the auto industry and tariffs,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, told the Washington Post. “Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers.” 
-Brad Sylvester 
“It is well known that he said of Putin, that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine.” 
This is technically accurate but an oversimplification by Harris, who made a similar claim during her speech last month at the Democratic National Convention. 
It’s a reference to a remark Trump made during a Feb. 10 campaign rally in South Carolina, where he suggested he might not aid NATO members attacked by Russia if they weren’t contributing enough money to the alliance, as USA TODAY previously reported.
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you.”
He added, “In fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” 
At the time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Trump’s comments could endanger lives and undermine the security of NATO members, including the U.S.
-Chris Mueller   
“Every one of those cases was started by them against their political opponent.” 
Trump has long sought to paint President Joe Biden and his administration as orchestrating his prosecutions. 
But under the Constitution, the administration did not have authority over the state of New York’s prosecution of Trump, who was convicted on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 election.
Nor does it have that power in the former president’s case in Georgia, where he and others have pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to steal the 2020 election. That case is on hold while an appeals court reviews a ruling that allows Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on it.
“When you’re dealing with state prosecutions, it’s district attorneys elected by the voters of their jurisdiction,” said Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. “That has nothing to do with the federal government.”
Additionally, when the Justice Department had the authority to pursue a case against Trump over the hush money circumstances, it chose not to do so. 
The federal classified documents case against Trump was dismissed in July with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon saying Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith – appointed in November 2022 in part to add a layer of separation between the investigation and the administration – was improperly appointed. Smith in August filed a new indictment in Trump’s federal election interference case to address the Supreme Court’s July decision that Trump had broad immunity from charges related to official acts as president.
Trump is due to be sentenced in New York on Nov. 26 – three weeks after the election. 
– Joedy McCreary 
“Crime here is up and through the roof.” 
Trump’s claim conflicts with the latest available data.  
Earlier this year, the FBI released preliminary data that showed sharp declines in violent crime in the first three months of 2024 compared to a year earlier, continuing a trend ongoing since a pandemic surge. Murder and rape were both down 26%, robbery was down 18% and aggravated assault fell by 13%, the Associated Press reported. But some experts have cautioned that the data is still preliminary and likely overstates the drop.  
Many cities in the U.S. have reported declines in homicides from 2023 to 2024, Axios reported in April. Similarly, the number of murders in the first three months of 2024 fell by nearly 20% in 204 cities analyzed by AH Datalytics, a criminal justice consulting firm. 
The most recent FBI data, which dates to 2022, shows the country’s violent crime rate at 370 per 100,000 people, the third-lowest rate in the last 50 years, behind only 2014 and 2019, according to PolitiFact. The FBI hasn’t released the final 2023 violent crime figures, which come out each October.
-Chris Mueller 
“In his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.”
This significantly overstates the nature of the monitoring called for in Project 2025.
The playbook does support anti-abortion policies, and it laments the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abortion surveillance and reporting systems, calling them “woefully inadequate.”
Fact check: Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump
Fact check: False claim Trump said he’d force government monitoring on pregnant women
It calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to use every available tool “to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.” But that’s not the same as “monitoring your pregnancies.” It appears to be calling for states to regularly report cumulative totals, not specific instances. 
It says reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors and abortion-related maternal deaths “are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.”
Harris also repeats a common overreach by calling Project 2025 Trump’s plan. Trump allies worked on the plan, but Trump has repeatedly said he does not support all elements of the plan and wasn’t directly involved in creating it.
-Andre Byik
“Her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.” 
There is no evidence Walz said this, though he signed a bill that removed limits to abortion based on gestational duration.
Walz said in 2022 that he supported “maintaining the timelines outlined by current law,” which at the time allowed abortions until the time of viability, around 24 weeks, for elective abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That viability standard was then removed from state law in 2023 through a law Walz signed.
Walz has taken other steps to protect abortion rights in the state. He signed a bill enshrining the right to abortion and other reproductive healthcare into Minnesota state statutes in January 2023, seven months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Months later, Walz signed a bill that protected people traveling to Minnesota for abortion care, as well as the professionals providing that care, from legal repercussions from other states.
However, USA TODAY found no record of Walz quotes expressing support for abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy.
There is no current restriction or ban on abortion based on gestational duration in the state, according to the Guttmacher Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation.
Nationally, only 1% of all abortions occur at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. 
-BrieAnna Frank
“We handed them a stock market and economy that was higher than it was before the pandemic.” 
Trump is right about the stock market, but the economy as a whole was worse off when he left office than it was before the pandemic.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (a popular stock market index) was up by about 8% (about 2,300 points) from February 2020 (the month before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared) to January 2021, when Trump left office.
But the overall economy was still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. U.S. GDP was down from where it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment rate had spiked as millions of Americans had lost their jobs. The unemployment rate was at 3.5% in February 2020 compared to 6.4% when Trump left office in January 2021, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
-Brad Sylvester 
“The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America.” 
This is accurate.
The country’s trade deficit reached its highest level since 2008 under Trump, who had promised to reduce it during his 2016 campaign. In 2020, the combined U.S. goods and services trade deficit increased to $679 billion, up from $481 billion in 2016, before Trump took office, Politico reported. A trade deficit happens when a country imports more than it exports.
However, the U.S. trade deficit has been higher before, including in 2006, when it reached $764 billion under former President George W. Bush. In 2007, it dropped to $711 billion, remained about the same in 2008, then fell sharply to $395 billion in 2009 as a result of the recession, according to Factcheck.org, which cited data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
-Chris Mueller 
“Economists have said that that Trump sales tax would actually result, for middle-class families, in about $4,000 more a year.” 
Harris also brought up this number during her speech at the Democratic National Convention in reference to Trump’s proposed tariff of between 10% and 20% on imported goods. Her estimate is at the high end of the economic estimates.
While Trump has described it as a way to raise revenue, economists say it would mostly be passed along to consumers, effectively making it a tax. But they disagree on the additional cost families would face. 
A study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that tariff, and one of 60% on Chinese goods that Trump has also proposed, would lower the average post-tax incomes of American households by about $1,800. Another think tank, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, says the larger tariff would cost households more than $2,600 per year. 
But a projection from the conservative American Action Forum falls closer to the figure Harris cited, saying the 20% tariff and 60% tariff on Chinese goods would amount to a tax increase of $3,900 for a middle-class family. 
– Joedy McCreary 
“(Immigrants in the country illegally are) destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.”
Immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the broader U.S.-born population in recent years, according to a 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research paper.
The paper, co-authored by Stanford University researcher Ran Abramitzky, used U.S. Census data and focused on immigrants present in the Census regardless of their legal status and on men between the ages of 18 and 40, according to a news release about the study.
Fact check: Migrants approached school buses, did not try to ‘hijack’ them
Fact check: No, 51M ‘illegals’ have not entered US under Biden, Harris
Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, in a Feb. 24 report, examined homicide conviction rates between those who entered the country illegally and native-born Americans in Texas. Nowrasteh found that those entering illegally had a lower homicide conviction rate (2.4 per 100,000) than native-born Americans (2.8 per 100,000) in 2015.
-Andre Byik 
“We have inflation like very few people have ever seen, probably the worst in our nation’s history. We were at 21%.”  
This is wrong, according to consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  
The highest year-over-year inflation rate during Biden’s presidency was 9.1% in June 2022. The rate as of July 2024 was 2.9%.
By contrast, the highest rate during Trump’s presidency was 2.9%, which happened in both June and July 2018. The lowest rate was 0.1% in May 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  
-BrieAnna Frank 
Ever wonder how fact-checkers do their work? We’ve got you covered.
Check out our process explainer to see how we pick claims, research them and edit them. This includes a rundown of how we cover live events like tonight’s debate.
And if you’ve ever wondered who fact-checks the fact-checkers, you might want to read this op-ed explaining our emphasis on transparency. Because the answer is you! We use the format and approach precisely so that everyone has the ability to check our work.
-Eric Litke
Former President Donald Trump has long been at the center of online misinformation.
That was especially true in the summer of 2024, when rumors swirled about Trump’s ties to Project 2025, the assassination attempt against him in July and the former president’s unprecedented conviction on 34 counts in his New York criminal hush money trial.
Here are some of USA TODAY’s latest fact-checks on claims related to Trump: 
-BrieAnna Frank  
In addition to live events like tonight’s debate, the USA TODAY Fact Check Team publishes about 100 checks each month on the most viral and significant claims circulating online. Here’s how to find our work.
-Eric Litke
In the weeks since the Democrats selected Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Joe Biden at the top of their ticket, an array of false or misleading claims about her circulated. 
Many centered on her background, her record as vice president or her campaign platform. Some have been around for years, dating to Biden’s pick of Harris as his running mate in 2020. Newer ones center around her role in addressing immigration and where she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, stand on gun control and taxation. 
Among the false or misleading claims related to Harris that USA TODAY has debunked: 
– Joedy McCreary  
USA TODAY’s video fact-check series debuted in March and highlights our team’s most impactful work, from debunking viral pieces of false news to fact-checking high-profile political events. 
A new fact-check video is published most weeks on USA TODAY’s social media accounts and website. 
Here are some of our recent fact-check videos: 
-Andre Byik 
Immigration has been one of the top issues for voters during the presidential campaign season. Under President Joe Biden, illegal border crossings reached record highs, averaging more than 2 million per year from 2021 to 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection. But more recently, illegal crossings – or “encounters” – at the southern border fell to the lowest total in nearly four years only months after Biden announced broad restrictions on asylum. 
Vice President Kamala Harris was never put in charge of the southern border or made “border czar,” contrary to some posts on social media, but that hasn’t stopped former president Donald Trump and other Republicans from attacking her immigration policy. In 2021, Biden announced Harris would lead his administration’s diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to slow migration to the southern border. At the time, Harris said the administration “must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek, as the president described, to come here.” 
Trump, meanwhile, has promised the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if he is elected again. He also said he would reinstate strict immigration policies from his first term, limit asylum access at the U.S. southern border and eliminate automatic citizenship for people born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.  
In February, Republican lawmakers blocked an immigration bill that would have revamped the country’s immigration and border policies. Biden and Harris have blamed the bill’s failure on opposition from Trump. Harris has vowed to bring back the bill and sign it into law if elected. 
-Chris Mueller 
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