The debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris monopolizes the interest of the media all over the world. AFP’s fact-checking team analyzed what was said during his tenure looking for false claims by the two candidates.
According to the result presented by the former president of the USA, he was the one who made more mistakes during the debate, culminating in his incorrect claim in the abortion section. In fact, at this particular point one of the coordinators had to correct him.
Unemployment: Harris’ false claim
- What he said: Kamala Harris claimed that Trump left the US with the “worst unemployment rate since the Great Crash”.
- What applies: the unemployment rate in the United States reached its highest level since the 1930s in April 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. A few months later, at the end of Donald Trump’s term, it had returned to 6.4%.
- Where is it now: Last August the unemployment rate in the US had fallen to 4.2%.
Inflation: Trump’s Unconfirmed Claims
- What he said: The former US president claimed that during Biden’s term inflation reached 21% and in some products 60%.
- What applies: According to official data, inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, well below the record 23.7% recorded in 1920.
Crime and Immigration: The Numbers Belie Trump
- What he said: As he does throughout his election campaign, Donald Trump wanted to highlight immigration as something interconnected with crime. Among other things, he claimed that “millions of people” are flocking to the United States “from prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums” abroad to commit crimes.
- What the numbers show: According to the FBI and its report for 2022 crime was at its lowest levels, and the percentage of immigrants among the incarcerated has decreased compared to 1960.
- Biggest problem under Trump: What’s even more oxymoronic in the former president’s claims is that during his own term, illegal immigration was higher than during Obama’s previous terms.
Abortion: The correction to Trump’s claim
- What he said: One of the issues that Donald Trump tried to highlight was that of abortion. In fact, Kamala Harris’ co-candidate, Tim Walsh, has argued that he supports “the execution of babies after they are born – execution, not abortion because the baby is born.”
- What applies: No state in the US allows you to kill a child after it is born, as apparently infanticide is illegal in the United States. A debate moderator even corrected the Republican candidate when he insisted on supporting it.
- The journalist corrected him: One of the moderators of the debate was quick to correct Trump as well, with Kamala Harris adding: “Nowhere in America is a woman going to reach the end of her pregnancy to ask for an abortion.”
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