Fact check: Trump made at least 10 false claims about Kamala
Harris in a single rally speech
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Published
Former president and 2024 Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a campaign
rally at the Bojangles Coliseum in
Former president and 2024 Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a campaign
rally at the Bojangles Coliseum in
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump made at least 10 false claims
about Vice President Kamala Harris in his first campaign rally since she became
the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump, speaking in
Here is a fact check.
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Harris and the retirement age
Discussing Social Security, Trump claimed of President Joe
Biden and Harris: “They’re talking about, he was talking, she’s
talking about – lifting the retirement age.”
Facts First: This claim is false about Harris. She has not
spoken in favor of raising the age for receiving
Social Security retirement benefits. (Biden did, as a US senator in the 2000s
and prior, express support for or openness to raising the retirement age, but
he has been a vocal opponent of the idea as president.)
Harris has supported increasing, not reducing, Social
Security benefits. In 2019, about two years before she became vice president,
she co-sponsored a bill from Sen. Bernie Sanders of
Harris and abortion
Trump said, “She wants abortions in the eighth and ninth
month of pregnancy, that’s fine with her, right up until birth, and even after
birth – the execution of a baby.”
Facts First: Trump’s claim that Harris supports the
execution of babies after birth is false. She has never said anything to
endorse post-birth murder, which is illegal everywhere in the country; Trump
has frequently claimed that some Democratic states allow such post-birth
executions, but that claim is false, too.
Harris, a vocal supporter of abortion rights, has declined
to endorse specific limits on how late in a pregnancy an abortion should be
permitted to occur. According to data published by the
Harris has called for legislation restoring the protections
of the Roe v. Wade decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022;
Roe allowed states to restrict abortion after the point of fetal viability,
often considered to be around 23 to 24 weeks gestation, with exceptions for
abortions necessary to protect the patient’s life or health. As a senator and
vice president, Harris has supported a bill that would, like Roe, ensure
abortion was available at least until fetal viability – and would also prohibit
various state policies that make the process of providing or obtaining an
abortion more onerous.
Asked about Trump’s comments, the Trump campaign provided
various examples of Harris taking liberal positions on abortion policy and
declining to endorse specific limits - but nothing to substantiate the claim
that she supports “the execution of a baby” after birth.
Harris and red meat
Trump claimed, “Kamala even wants to pass laws to outlaw red
meat to stop climate change.”
Facts First: This is false. Harris has never expressed
support for passing laws to outlaw red meat. At a CNN climate change town hall
in 2019, when she was running in the Democratic presidential primary, she
expressed support for changing dietary guidelines to try to encourage Americans
to reduce their consumption of red meat, but she also said “I love
cheeseburgers from time to time” and that she favored using “incentives” and
education to encourage healthy eating.
After mentioning sodas and foods with copious sugar, Harris
said in this same town hall answer that “the balance that we have to strike
here, frankly, is about what government can and should do around creating
incentives and then banning certain behaviors.” The phrase “banning certain
behaviors” opened the door to claims that she wants to ban red meat. But she
immediately proceeded to her comments about how she enjoys cheeseburgers and favors
incentives to prod changes in behavior – making clear in context that she was
expressing support for incentives rather than bans.
Asked about Trump’s claim about Harris wanting to outlaw red
meat, the Trump campaign provided two citations that did not substantiate it: a
YouTube video of Harris’ comments that was correctly titled “Kamala Harris
Wants The Government To Create ‘Incentives’ For Americans to Eat Less Meat” and
an article headlined, “Flashback: Kamala Harris said she would support eating
less meat if elected president.”
Harris and Trump’s legal cases
Trump has claimed for months that Biden secretly
orchestrated his criminal and civil legal cases. This time, he directed the
claim at Harris. He said, “But it was all headed up by her. Because
she’s a prosecutor.”
Facts First: This is false. There is simply no basis for
claiming that Harris “headed up” the legal cases against him. Trump has never
presented any evidence for this claim that Biden was the hidden hand behind his
cases, let alone for suddenly switching the claim to make it about the vice
president after months of saying it about the president.
There is no sign that Harris had any role in bringing
charges against Trump in Manhattan, New York (where he was convicted of 34
felony counts of falsifying business records) or Fulton County, Georgia (where
an election subversion case against Trump is on hold); those prosecutions have
been led by elected local district attorneys. Trump’s two federal cases, one
dismissed by a judge earlier this month, were brought by a special counsel,
Jack Smith. Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden
appointee, but that is not proof that Biden orchestrated the prosecutions – and
certainly not proof that Harris did.
Harris’ immigration role
Trump claimed of Harris: “She was the border czar, but she
never went to the border.”
Facts First: Trump made two false claims here. First, Harris
did go to the border as vice president, in Texas in mid-2021; many Republicans
had criticized Harris prior to the visit for not having gone, and some later
argued that she didn’t go frequently enough, but the claim that she “never”
went has not been true for more than three years. Second, Harris was never made
Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is
inaccurate. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related
assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with
Some Republicans have scoffed this week at assertions that
Harris was never the “border czar,” noting on social media that news articles
sometimes described Harris as such. But those articles were wrong. Various news
outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the first half of 2021 that the
White House emphasized that Harris had not been put in charge of border
security as a whole, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had instead been
handed a diplomatic task related to Central American countries.
A White House “fact sheet” in July 2021 said: “On
Biden’s own comments at a March 2021 event announcing the
assignment were slightly more muddled, but he said he had asked Harris to lead
“our diplomatic effort” to address factors causing migration in the three
“Northern Triangle” countries (he also mentioned Mexico that day). Biden listed
factors in these countries he thought had led to migration and said that “if
you deal with the problems in-country, it benefits everyone.” And Harris’
comments that day were focused squarely on “root causes.”
Republicans can fairly say that even “root causes” work is a
border-related task. But calling her “border czar” goes too far.
Harris and the number of migrants
Trump claimed that Harris “allowed 20 million illegal aliens
to stampede into our country from all over the world.”
Facts First: Leaving aside Trump’s claim about Harris’ own
responsibility for migration levels, the“20 million” figure is false, a major
exaggeration. The total number of “encounters” at the northern and southern border
from February 2021 through June 2024, at both legal ports of entry and in
between those ports, was about 10 million – and an “encounter” does not mean a
person was let into the country; some people encountered are promptly sent
away.
Even if you added the estimated number of Biden-era
“gotaways” (people who evaded the Border Patrol to enter illegally), which
House Republicans said in May was nearly two million, “the totals would still
be vastly smaller than 15, 16 or 18 million,” Michelle Mittelstadt,
spokesperson for the Migration Policy Institute think tank, said in late June
after Trump used those figures.
The “encounters” figures can’t be described as figures on
people successfully entering the
Harris and fentanyl deaths
Shortly after claiming there is a “Kamala Harris invasion”
of the border, Trump said, “We’re losing 300,000 people a year through fentanyl
that comes through our border.”
Facts First: Trump’s “300,000” claim is false. The number of
When Trump made similar “300,000” claims earlier this year,
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative
at
While Kolodny said it’s likely that the number of
It is also worth noting that fentanyl is largely smuggled by
US citizens through legal ports of entry rather than by migrants sneaking into
the country.
CNN’s Jen Christensen contributed to this item.
Harris and the Jewish community
Trump criticized Harris for not attending Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Wednesday speech to Congress (though Trump’s
running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, also did not attend); Harris, who is
planning to hold a meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, traveled to Indianapolis
on Wednesday to give a previously scheduled speech to a historically Black
sorority.
That’s fair game for criticism. But Trump said after
criticizing Harris’ absence: “Even if you’re against
Facts First: Trump’s claim that Harris is “totally against
the Jewish people” is nonsense. Harris has been married to a Jewish man, Doug
Emhoff, for nearly 10 years – and she has repeatedly denounced antisemitism,
expressed fondness for the Jewish community and its traditions, complimented
Israel at length, and endorsed “America’s ironclad commitment to the security
of Israel.” Though she has sometimes been pointedly critical of the actions of
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service reported this
week: “Over the course of her life and career, she has been surrounded by Jews,
from her schoolmates to her colleagues to her closest family members. That
background has given Harris, 59, an easy familiarity with Jewish spaces, say
those who have interacted with her. She has also encouraged Emhoff to embrace
his Jewish identity as the second gentleman; for the first time, mezuzahs have
been installed at the vice presidential residence, and Emhoff has taken a
leading role in the administration’s efforts to fight antisemitism.”
Harris and the bar exam
Trump claimed that Harris, a lawyer who was elected as
Facts First: It’s not true that Harris “couldn’t pass
anything.” She did fail on her first attempt to pass the bar exam, according to
The New York Times, but then succeeded. She was admitted to the
Trump could fairly say that Harris couldn’t initially pass the bar exam, but his rally comments made it sound like she never passed at all.