Fact check: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's presidential debate

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ADDS demands on Ukraine

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed on Tuesday in their first and so far only scheduled debate in the 2024 election campaign.

Harris, the US vice president and candidate of the Democratic Party, and Trump, the Republican candidate, exchanged statements about each other's histories in office and also discussed their plans in the event that they emerge victorious in the November 5 election.

AFP verified the accuracy of the statements made by both candidates on key issues:

When asked if Americans are better off than they were four years ago, Harris did not give a direct answer. She accused Trump of leaving Democrats with “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.” This is misleading. Unemployment rose to 14.8 percent in April 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the United States. When Trump left office, unemployment was 6.4 percent.

Harris said she would offer families a tax credit of up to $6,000 for each qualifying child, as well as a $50,000 tax deduction for small businesses if elected president. She claimed Trump would favor billionaires and corporations over everyone else, and said the former president planned a sales tax that would hurt ordinary Americans.

Trump responded that the administration under President Joe Biden had conjured up the highest inflation in US history. He cited figures of 21 percent and even 60 percent for some goods. That is wrong. Inflation is currently at 2.9 percent. Under Biden, inflation peaked in 2022 at 9.1 percent. However, this was well below the historic high of 23.7 percent in 1920.

While Trump denied he would impose a VAT, he acknowledged that other countries would face trade tariffs of at least 10 percent. Experts say tariffs are a tax on consumers, who end up paying more because the costs are passed on to them.

Trump falsely claimed that “millions and millions” of people from countries like Venezuela are entering the U.S. “from mental institutions and asylums” and committing crimes. He also repeated the unsubstantiated, viral claim that migrants were eating pets in places like Springfield, Ohio.

“In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people who came here, they eat the cats. They eat the pets of the people who live there. And that's what's happening in our country.”

Police and local authorities say there are no credible reports of such animal killings.

According to FBI data from 2022 – the latest year for which figures are available – violent and property crimes in the United States are near their lowest levels in decades.

A June 2023 study found a decline in incarceration rates among immigrants from all regions since 1960. Other research has found that immigrants commit fewer violent crimes than U.S. citizens.

FBI statistics for the first three months of 2024 also show a 15 percent decrease in violent and property crime compared to the previous year.

During Trump's time in office, illegal immigration was higher than during former President Barack Obama's two terms. Earlier this year, during the Biden administration, illegal immigration reached a historic high. It has declined since an executive order signed in June.

Harris said Trump put politics above policy when he ordered Republican lawmakers in February to kill a bipartisan bill that would have tightened immigration policies at the southern US border, effectively denying Democrats a victory on the immigration issue in an election year.

Trump, who appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court that overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent guaranteeing access to abortion, called Democrats “radical” on the issue and claimed that vice presidential candidate Tim Walz supports “post-birth executions – they're executions, not abortion anymore – because it's OK for the baby to be born, and that's not OK with me.”

That is wrong.

Debate moderator Linsey Davis corrected Trump, saying, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after birth.” Harris added, “Nowhere in America are there women who carry a pregnancy to term and ask for an abortion. That doesn't happen.”

Harris claimed: “If Donald Trump is re-elected, he will sign a national ban on abortion.” But the former president immediately responded: “I will not sign a ban.” The problem lies with the states.

During a heated exchange on Ukraine, Trump referred to Harris as “the envoy” and said she had tried to avert war by negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“They sent her to negotiate peace before this war started. They sent her to negotiate with Zelensky and Putin. And she did that, and three days later the war started.”

This claim is false.

Harris did not meet Putin and called Trump's claim a lie. As vice president, she met Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference in the days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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