Newsweek’s Fact Check team has assessed the biggest talking points from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ first televised debate.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump went head-to-head on Tuesday evening in the first televised debate between the 2024 election candidates, who tackled questions on the economy, immigration, race, Israel and Ukraine.
Harris and Trump squared off in Philadelphia as both candidates aimed to win over undecided voters who will determine the outcome of the November presidential election in key battleground states.
With the dust settled for now, Newsweek’s Fact Check team has checked Trump and Harris’ claims and attacks.The Economy
The debate began with a discussion on economic plans, which stayed on course for the most part.
Kamala Harris: « Economists have said that Trump’s sales tax would actually result for middle-class families in about $4,000 more a year because of his policies and his ideas about what should be the backs of middle-class people paying for tax cuts for billionaires. »
This refers to plans to extend Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While analysis by the Tax Policy Center from 2017 found that higher-income households, would receive « larger average tax cuts as a percentage of after-tax income » and that the largest cuts, as a share of income, went to taxpayers in the 95th to 99th percentile, the bill would reduce taxes « on average for all income groups. »
Therefore, while analysis suggests that the greatest benefits of these cuts were seen in higher-income households, the tax cuts Harris talks about here would not be exclusively for the benefit of billionaires.
Harris’ claim about a $4,000 cost to families caused by a Trump sales tax is based on an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress (CAP), which said that Trump’s plans to increase tariffs on imported goods by 10 to 20 percent—60 percent on all imported goods from China—would amount to a $3,900 tax increase for middle-income families.
Other estimates, such as one from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggest the 20 percent tariff proposal would cost the typical American household just over $2,600 a year.
Trump: « They’ve left the tariffs on. »
Trump said that after he left office, an increase in tariffs on imported goods was kept in place by the Biden administration. This is accurate. The Biden administration kept tariffs imposed on Chinese imports that Trump introduced, as Newsweek has reported.
Trump « I had tariffs and yet I had no inflation. »
While the U.S. rate of inflation fell to nearly 0 percent during Trump’s presidency, this didn’t happen until two years after he announced tariffs against China. Inflation rose from lows of 0.1 percent in May 2020 to 1.4 percent at the start of the Biden presidency.
Trump: « We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history. We were at 21 percent. »
Trump said inflation reached 21 percent during the Biden-Harris administration. This isn’t true. Inflation reached a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022. It has since fallen to 2.9 percent.
Harris: « Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression »
Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show unemployment peaked under Donald Trump at 14.8 percent in April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the highest rate since the BLS began recording monthly rates. At its worst, around one in four Americans were unemployed during the Great Depression.
However, Harris’ claim is that Trump « left » the worst unemployment rates. Unemployment was at 6.4 percent when Trump left office, so this claim is somewhat misleading.
Trump: « We handed them over a country where the economy and where the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in. »
This is true. The Dow Jones, a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the U.S, recovered and exceeded pre-pandemic highs set under Trump by the time he left office. It has continued to grow under the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump: « But the only jobs they got were bounce-back jobs. These were jobs, bounce back. »
The claim here is that the only jobs the Biden administration created were jobs previously lost which isn’t true. Excluding roles refilled since the pandemic, 7.8 million new jobs have been added to the economy, according to BLS data.
Trump: « I was the only president ever China was paying us hundreds of billions [in tariffs] of dollars »
Asked about tariffs, Trump said his actions led to the U.S. Treasury recouping hundreds of billions of dollars, which isn’t right. The cost of tariffs is paid for by the importer, even if the tariff may make it more difficult for Chinese firms to trade.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures show that $242 billion in tariffs have been paid to the Treasury since 2018.
Harris: « Well, let’s be clear that the Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America »
In 2018, the Trump administration oversaw the largest trade deficit of its 243-year history. After two years in office, it rose to a record $891.2 billion, The reported.Abortion
Trump: « They have abortion in the ninth month. the previous governor of West Virginia.he said ‘the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby.’ In other words, we’ll execute the baby. »
Newsweek has debunked these false claims. There is no such thing as abortion after birth. This falsehood has been shared by conservatives for years.
Trump’s reference to the « previous governor of West Virginia » appears to actually be about the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, who made comments in 2019 that were widely misinterpreted to mean he supported abortions after birth. Northam’s comments were about what decisions physicians would make to support a mother if a nonviable fetus went past labor.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign outside of regular office hours.
Trump: « But her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.
