Fact Check
"It did not happen."
"I did author the EPA chapter of Project 2025, but in the course of that I did not work with President Trump, with any of the people who work directly for him or his campaign."
Mandy Gunasekara- EPA Chief of Staff confirms Donald Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025, despite inaccurate claims echoed by Kamala Harris.
Fact Checking the 9/10 Presidential Debate
Harris Claim: 'As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is an active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.
Fact: There are currently 2,500 U.S. military troops in Iraq and more than 900 U.S. military personnel in Syria who are on a mission to support local forces to prevent a resurgence by ISIS. But the real threat to these troops over the past year were the repeated attacks against U.S. bases in both countries by Iranian-backed militia groups that launched more than 170 rocket and drone attacks.
During an attack on a U.S. base in neighboring Jordan this past January, three U.S. Soldiers were killed and 34 others were wounded when a drone launched by militia groups made it past air defense systems.
U.S. troops are also in Somalia and other parts of Africa, where they support local troops fighting terrorist groups, and they’ve been shooting down Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea.
Trump Claim: “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison,"
Fact: CNN recently reported that in her response to an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire in 2019, Harris said transgender people who rely on the state for care, including federal prisoners and detainees, should have access to gender transition treatment.
Harris claim: “Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy.”
Fact: Under Trump’s administration the U.S. southern border was secure, and America facilitated multiple peace agreements between Israel and Arab states. Under the Biden-Harris administration, Russia invaded Ukraine, Iran-backed Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel, and China has ramped up its threats toward Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan.
Harris claim: She doesn’t support mandatory gun confiscation.
Fact: She has openly expressed support for such a policy.
Trump claim: “She went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people, that burned down Minneapolis — she went out and raised money to get them out of jail,”
Fact: Accused rapists, repeat offenders, and rioters alike benefitted in June 2020 when Harris encouraged her social media followers to donate to a bail fund dedicated to those arrested for their months-long, $2 billion siege of cities like Minneapolis.
Harris claim: 2017 tax cuts approved by the Trump administration disproportionately benefited America’s billionaires and corporations.
Fact: Data produced by the IRS has shown that “on average all income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans’ tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent,”
Harris claim: Trump will implement Project 2025 if elected.
Fact: Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Project 2025.
Harris claim: Trump will sign a national abortion ban
Fact: Trump has sworn multiple times that he would not sign federal legislation curbing abortion.
Harris claim: that several states have “Trump abortion bans” that “make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care,” threaten women with prison time, and “make no exception, even for rape or incest.”
Fact: Every single pro-life policy on the books includes exceptions for abortion when it is deemed necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. Most pro-life state laws provide exceptions for rape and incest.
Harris claim: “under Donald Trump’s abortion bans … couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments.”
Fact: Trump has openly supported IVF and even promised that he would have government fund it or require insurance companies to cover it.
Harris claim: that Trump “incited” the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Fact: Trump specifically told protestors to “peacefully and patriotically make [their] voices heard” and sought to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the Capitol ahead of Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results.
Harris Claim: “Over the last four years, we have invested $1 trillion in a clean energy economy”
Fact: While passing the Inflation Reduction Act put in place tax incentives and credits designed to spur the transition of the U.S. economy to renewable sources of energy, clean energy investments have only added up to $700 billion, according to Clean Investment Monitor.
Fact-checking Kamala Harris’ First Campaign Interview
What is Harris’s position on fracking?
CLAIM: In Thursday’s interview, Ms. Harris said she would not ban fracking and maintained that she has “not changed that position”.
VERDICT: This needs context and could be misleading as Ms Harris has changed her public position on fracking. In 2019, she said she was “in favour of banning fracking.”
The following year, in the 2020 vice presidential debate when she was on the Biden ticket, Ms Harris said “Joe Biden will not end fracking” and: “I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”
During the CNN interview on Thursday she was pressed on her 2019 statement, and Ms Harris responded: “I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking. As vice-president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.”
In the debate, Ms Harris was referring to President Joe Biden’s policy plans. She did not state whether her own views at the time differed from this position.
Has child poverty fallen by over 50%?
CLAIM: “When we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit, so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%.”
VERDICT: This is somewhat of an exaggeration and needs context. Child poverty rates did fall, but not by “over 50%” and they rose again the year after, so the impact was only temporary.
The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) is one measure of poverty in the US and it does show that the child poverty rate fell 46% between 2020 and 2021.
However, after the Covid-era boost to child tax credit ended, the record low child poverty rate of 5.2% in 2021 rose to 12.4% the following year, according to 2022 Census Bureau data.
Americans earning less than $200,000 annually (or $400,000 for joint claimants) can, under the current child tax credit scheme, get $2,000 per year for each of their children under the age of 17.
This amount was increased by President Biden during the Covid pandemic up to a maximum of $3,600 but it reverted back to $2,000 at the end of 2021.
Kamala Harris has said that as president she would restore the child tax credit enhancement and provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life.
How many clean-energy jobs have been created?
CLAIM: “What we’ve already done creating over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs.”
VERDICT: It is true that a large number of clean energy jobs have been created under the Biden administration, but the exact number is uncertain.
Kamala Harris is referring to the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act - a law signed by Joe Biden in August 2022 that introduced major investments in clean energy and climate-related projects.
The claim of “over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs” comes from a recent report by Climate Power, a climate communications organization.
It reported that since August 2022 companies have “announced and advanced 646 new clean energy projects totaling 334,565 new jobs”.
However, not all of these new job roles have necessarily begun, and it is also hard to attribute the whole increase in climate-related employment to the Inflation Reduction Act at a time when clean energy is growing across the world.
Other groups give different numbers. E2, an economics and environment group, estimates around 109,000 clean-energy jobs have been created or announced since the Inflation Reduction Act.
According to the US Department of Energy, in 2023 clean-energy employment grew at a rate twice as large as the US economy overall and the rest of the energy sector.
Fact Checking Kamala Harris' Acceptance speech
Claim: Trump intends to create a national anti-abortion coordinator to force states to report on woman’s miscarriages, and abortions.
Reality: Harris is referring to a recommendation found in “project 2025.” Project 2025 is a manual of proposal from the Heritage foundation (a conservative think tank.) There are many contributors listed as writers of project 2025, but Donald Trump is not listed as one of them. Trump has repeatedly denied having anything to do with the writing of project 2025, and has never endorsed any of the policies contained in the 900 page document.
Claim: As part of Trumps agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortions, and enact a nationwide abortion ban, “with or without congress”
Reality: Vice President Harris once again makes extreme exaggerations to Trumps abortion policy, and dishonestly tries to tie him to project 2025. Trumps policy on abortion rights was simply to have the states decide because what might be right to the people of NY and Ca, might not be right for the people of Alabama. There is not a single state that has banned abortion. Trump has also proposed IVF treatments be covered by insurance companies, or by the government. We need a higher population growth to sustain our country.
Claim: Donald Trump’s Tariffs will be like a national sales tax which will cost American taxpayers an extra $4,000 per year
Reality: The average inflationary cost per household increased on aversge by $11,400 per year since Joe Biden took office. Trump putting tariffs on China was an attempt to level the playing field caused by China’s unfair trade practices.
The tariffs that Trump levied against China resulted in more than 300 billion dollars paid by China to the United States government. With all the tariffs on China, Trumps inflation rate during his four years in office was a minuscule 1.9%.
The Trump tariffs were so successful that the Biden administration never removed them.
Claim: Trump threatened to leave NATO
Reality: This claim is true. When Trump took office, only 5 of the 30 NATO nations were paying the pledged 2% of GDP that all NATO nations are required to pay. Trump announced that the United States was not going to continue to pay for their protection if they weren’t going to “pay their fair share.” Trump said that the United States would pull out of NATO if the European countries didn’t pull their own weight. Under Trump the number of NATO countries paying the required 2% of GDP more than quadrupled, and continued to rise, and now 23 nations fulfill their obligation of paying 2% of their GDP
Claim: Trump sent an armed mob to the capital.
Reality: As Trump supporters started their march to the capital Trump told them to “march peacefully and patriotically to have their voices heard.”
On January 6th, 2020 there were only two people who were arrested on weapons charges, and neither person entered the capital building.
Claim: Kamala Harris worked for McDonald’s
Reality: There is no evidence that V.P Harris ever worked at any McDonalds anywhere in California where she lived