Here’s the fact check that ABC didn’t give Kamala Harris
During Tuesday night’s debate, ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis interrupted Donald Trump five times to “fact-check” his answers.
They did the same to Kamala Harris … never.
The vice president was allowed to skate through the debate without substantive follow-up questions or pushback on some of her obviously false claims.
So since ABC didn’t do its job, here are some of the fact checks they should have made:
Kamala claim: “As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.”
Fact check: Our troops in Middle East are absolutely in a combat zone, under attack from Iran, which the Biden-Harris administration has allowed to grow more aggressive in its use of proxies. In January this year, three US soldiers in Jordan were killed by a drone attack from an Iran-aligned group, and dozens of others have been wounded in similar strikes.
Kamala claim: “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again.”
Fact check: The Heritage Foundation, an independent think tank, produced Project 2025, not the Trump campaign. Trump has repeatedly said he wasn’t involved in its writing, does not believe in its policies and won’t implement it.
Kamala claim: “Let’s remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five young black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
Fact check: Trump’s 1989 advertisement did not call for the execution of the Central Park Five. He talked about a woman raped in the park, but did not mention the names of suspects or who they were. Titled “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back the Police,” Trump simply bemoaned how generally unsafe New York City had become, and that criminals needed to be held accountable. His cri de cœur preceded what would become a general backlash against disorder in Gotham that led to the election of Rudy Giuliani as mayor and more proactive policing.
Kamala claim: “I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States, and in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.”
Fact check: Harris passed the bill because it was packed with left-wing giveaways. Those new leases were not the point of the bill, and only begrudgingly included to assuage Sen. Joe Manchin. Later, Manchin would accuse President Biden and Harris of going back on their word, saying new regulations were undermining the lease promises. “This is bulls–t,” he told Politico. “So they’re gonna basically starve us out of energy that we have a tremendous, abundant supply of because of their aspirational thoughts?”
Kamala claim: “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening.”
Fact check: As the Daily Signal points out, Minnesota had a 2015 law that required doctors to report whether abortions resulted in the live birth of a baby. In 2021, it happened at least five times, but no measures were taken to keep them alive. In 2023, Gov. Tim Walz stripped out that reporting requirement as part of an abortion law that has no limitations on how late in a pregnancy it may happen.
Kamala claim: “Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side.”
Fact check: Harris, along with Biden, always leaves out what Trump said next: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.” Snopes has labeled “false” the idea that Trump praised neo-Nazis.
And a bonus fact check of a fact check …
ABC moderator David Muir claim: “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” the ABC anchor interjected when Trump said “crime is through the roof.”
Fact check: Despite Muir’s efforts to show up Trump, the former president’s response — that the FBI figures are not to be trusted — was absolutely correct. The Marshall Project, which focuses on law enforcement reporting, found that 6,000 law enforcement agencies were missing from the FBI’s 2023 analysis. “This means a quarter of the U.S. population wasn’t represented in the federal crime data last year,” it said. Moreover, whatever small reductions have happened in cities such as Chicago is barely a dent in how much crime skyrocketed in past three years.
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