Trump was fact-checked by ABC moderators 5 times during debate — while Harris was left alone
Former President Donald Trump was fact-checked at least five times by moderators during his Tuesday presidential debate showdown against Vice President Kamala Harris — while the Democratic nominee was noticeably left alone.
ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis interjected and debunked the Republican nominee, 78, nearly a half-dozen times during the 90-minute debate in Philadelphia as Trump spoke about abortion, crime and immigration.
Meanwhile, Harris, 59, was allowed to speak uninterrupted — despite rattling off falsehoods about active US military in combat zones, as well as Trump’s stance on abortion, the right-wing Project 2025 blueprint and his “very fine people” remark about the Charlottesville race riot.
Trump has since slammed both ABC and its moderators, arguing the debate was “rigged,” “unfair” and a “three on one” affair.
Here’s a look at false and misleading claims made — from both sides — during the debate:
HARRIS
No active military
At one point, Harris falsely insisted there were no US military members on active duty in combat zones — despite troops still being stationed in various countries across the world.
“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,” the veep said.
While the US hasn’t formally declared war in decades, American troops are still stationed in Iraq and Syria, where they’re helping local forces fight terrorism.
US forces are also stationed in a handful of African nations, including Somalia.
“I about fell out of my chair,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told CNN of his reaction to Harris making the claim with no pushback from Muir or Davis. “I immediately thought of the three soldiers from Georgia who were killed by Iranian-backed missiles and drones in Jordan. I thought of the two Navy SEALs who died trying to intercept smugglers off the coast of Somalia.”
“I thought about the ships that had been used as target practice by the Houthis,” Waltz went on. “Heck, an aircraft carrier just got a combat medal for the first time since World War II for its actions off the Red Sea. We can keep going down the list.”
“We just had six wounded in a raid on an ISIS compound,” he added. “We had another six wounded by a missile attack. I mean, this is a long list.”
“Either she’s a wallflower as vice president and had nothing to do with these actions and decisions,” Waltz concluded. “Or she was at the table and was deliberately misleading the country [Tuesday night].”
National abortion ban
On the topic of abortion and reproductive rights, moderators were quiet when Harris insisted: “If Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign a national abortion ban.”
While Trump has said he has “no regrets” in hand-picking the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, he hasn’t ever said he would sign a federal abortion ban into law.
Instead, the ex-president has vowed to leave the issue up to the states.
‘Very fine people‘
Neither moderator chimed in to correct Harris when she parroted a falsehood that Trump once said there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.
His critics have long claimed that he equated neo-Nazis with counterprotesters when he gave a press conference shortly after the race riot escalated.
At the time, Trump insisted he was referring only to those people who wanted to preserve a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The fact-checking website Snopes has since acknowledged that Trump’s “very fine people” remark was taken out of context.
“While Trump did say that there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white supremacists and said they should be ‘condemned totally.’ Therefore, we have rated this claim ‘False,’” Snopes wrote.
Project 2025
Harris also got away with trying to pin Project 2025, a controversial right-wing handbook for how to run the country, on Trump — despite the former president attempting to distance himself from it.
“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,” Harris declared.
Without any help from the moderators, Trump point-blank denied any connection to the plan.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” he insisted. “That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
The 922-page “Mandate for Leadership” is a manifesto written by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation providing instructions for how the next Republican administration should lead the US — by overhauling the federal government.
TRUMP:
Democrats ‘killing babies’
On the topic of abortion, Trump repeated his claim that Democrats supported killing babies after they were born.
Davis intervened when the Republican made reference to former Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2019 remarks about aborting babies after birth, which was part of an extended commentary about Trump’s belief in state autonomy and legal access to the procedure in cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother.
“You can look at the governor of West Virginia [sic], 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,’” Trump said, misidentifying Northam’s state.
“The Democrats are radical in that.”
Davis interjected: “There is no state in the country where it is legal to kill a baby after it was born.”
Crime is soaring
At one point, Trump argued that crime in the US had skyrocketed during the Biden administration because migrants are being allowed into the country.
“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down,” Muir interrupted, prompting an argument with the ex-president.
Trump shot back, insisting that “they didn’t include the cities with the worst crime,” referencing the omission of data from Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.
Migrants are ‘eating dogs, cats’
The moderators also jumped in when Trump suddenly referenced a debunked report that illegal migrants have been killing and eating pets in Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats … They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said.
He was referencing the wild viral claim — which has been snapped up and memed by Elon Musk, Republican influencers and Trump’s No. 2, JD Vance — that migrants from Haiti have been grabbing pets out of yards and ducks from public parks so they can eat them.
Muir interjected, saying Springfield authorities have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support the claim.
“I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” the moderator said.
Trump fired back that he had seen it on TV.
“The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager,” he said.
A stolen 2020 election
Trump was probed, too, about his long-running claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Muir pointed out that Trump had recently conceded on three separate occasions that he had lost the election to President Biden — despite years of not publicly admitting defeat.
Trump, however, shot back that he was being sarcastic in those recent statements.
“I said that sarcastically. You know that. It was said, ‘Oh, we lost by a whisker.’ That was said sarcastically. Look, there’s so much proof. All you have to do is look at it. And they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval. I got almost 75 million votes. The most votes any sitting president has ever gotten. I was told if I got 63, which was what I got in 2016, you can’t be beaten,” Trump said.
Muir responded: “I did watch all of these pieces of video. I didn’t detect the sarcasm.”
The Ukraine war
At one point, the 45th president was also brought up short when he referenced Biden’s handling of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Trump said Biden “sent [Harris] in to negotiate with [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelensky and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and she did, and the war started three days later, and that’s the kind of talent we have with her.”
His remarks were in reference to the vice president being deployed to Europe, where she did not meet with Putin, in February 2022 to try to prevent Moscow invading Kyiv.
Following Trump’s remark, Muir asked Harris: “Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin?”
Harris quickly shot back that it was one of Trump’s “lies.”
With Post wires
