In an interview from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump examined themes he may repeat in subsequent week’s ABC debate towards his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Fox Information’ Sean Hannity hosted the hourlong Sept. 4 occasion. He questioned Trump through the first hour; viewers members questioned Trump for a second hour. That second hour is scheduled to air Sept. 5 on Fox.
Polls present that Trump, who received Pennsylvania in 2016 and misplaced it in 2020, is in a neck-and-neck contest towards Harris in the important thing swing state. Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, probably the most of any of the seven most closely contested states.
Trump touted supportive phrases from “sturdy man” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who’s in style amongst Trump-aligned conservatives however whom others have criticized for authoritarian insurance policies. Trump made claims about fracking, immigration, Harris and the economic system, a few of which have been false or deceptive.
Trump talks Harris’ flip-flop on fracking
Trump: “There isn’t any likelihood that (Harris is) going to permit” fracking.
Harris presently helps hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, however that wasn’t all the time so. As a Democratic main candidate in 2019, Harris opposed fracking, a typical and controversial method used to entry hard-to-reach oil and fuel in rock formations. The difficulty is essential to voters within the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has skilled a fracking growth.
Harris stated throughout a 2019 CNN city corridor, “There isn’t any query I am in favor of banning fracking, so, sure. And beginning — and beginning with what we will do on Day 1 round public lands, proper? … And to your level, we now have to only acknowledge that the residual affect of fracking is gigantic when it comes to the affect on the well being and security of communities.”
However after President Joe Biden picked Harris as his operating mate in 2020, Harris aligned with Biden’s insurance policies, which didn’t contain a fracking ban.
Trump: “Now you need to have fracking. , you are the largest within the nation for this,” referring to Pennsylvania.
He is shut: The federal Power Info Administration’s most up-to-date information, from 2021, exhibits Pennsylvania producing 7.5 trillion cubic toes of shale fuel, which is produced by fracking.
One state has produced extra: Texas, with 8.3 trillion cubic toes.
Trump: In Pennsylvania, fracking is “your greatest enterprise, and also you get an enormous majority of your revenue from fracking.”
That is inaccurate.
Prior to now 5 quarters, “mining, quarrying, and oil and fuel extraction” — a bigger class than simply fracking — collectively accounted for 1% to 2% of Pennsylvania’s gross home product.
In 2024’s first quarter in Pennsylvania, the gross home product generated by mining, logging and oil and fuel extraction amounted to about one-eighth of the gross home product generated by manufacturing, one-eighth that of well being care, one-fifth that of finance and insurance coverage and one-third that of building.
Trump additionally stated, “you’ve gotten 500,000 jobs” in Pennsylvania from fracking, which can also be inaccurate. The quantity is about 22,200, representing lower than 1% of the state’s general employment.
Trump exaggerates unlawful immigration, advantages for migrants
Trump: “They’re filling up and loading up Social Safety, Medicare, with unlawful immigrants which have come into our nation.”
Saying that immigration will damage Social Safety’s fiscal viability is questionable, significantly within the short- to medium time period.
First, immigrants within the U.S. illegally can’t obtain Social Safety retirement advantages or Medicare protection.
Immigrants who’re legally allowed to work can obtain Social Safety retirement advantages, however solely after they’ve labored and paid Social Safety taxes for 10 years — a optimistic, not a adverse, for Social Safety’s general fiscal sustainability.
Social Safety’s fiscal challenges stem from a scarcity of employees in contrast with beneficiaries. Immigration alone received’t make this system solvent, however would improve the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, doubtlessly for many years, extending this system’s fiscal life.
Even many immigrants who’re in the USA illegally pay taxes. Estimates have discovered that immigrants with out authorized standing pay billions of {dollars} in Social Safety taxes yearly with out drawing advantages, now or ever.
Trump: Beneath Biden, “20 million individuals have poured into our nation.”
False.
Throughout Biden’s administration, immigration officers have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border round 10 million occasions. When accounting for “received aways” — individuals whom border officers don’t cease — the quantity rises to about 11.6 million.
However encounters aren’t the identical as admissions. Encounters symbolize occasions, so one one who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Additionally, not everybody encountered is let into the nation. The Division of Homeland Safety estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
Throughout Biden’s administration, about 3.4 million individuals have been launched into the U.S. to await immigration court docket hearings, Division of Homeland Safety information exhibits. About 422,000 kids who crossed the border alone have been additionally let in.
Trump: International locations are “emptying out their prisons and jails. They’re emptying out their psychological establishments and insane asylums. They’re emptying out the sickest individuals they usually’re emptying all into the USA.”
That is incorrect. There isn’t any proof that nations are emptying their prisons or psychological establishments and sending individuals to illegally migrate to the U.S.
U.S. immigration officers arrested about 103,700 noncitizens who had legal convictions (whether or not within the U.S. or overseas) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal information exhibits. That accounts for individuals stopped at and between ports of entry.
Not all of these individuals have been let in. And the time period “noncitizens” contains individuals who might have authorized immigration standing within the U.S., however will not be U.S. residents.
The information displays the individuals the federal authorities is aware of about, however it’s not exhaustive. Regardless of the constraints, immigration consultants stated that information is just not proof to assist Trump’s assertion.
Assaults on Harris
Trump: Harris “was the primary to go away” the Democratic 2020 presidential main race.
That’s incorrect.
Harris left the 2020 Democratic presidential main contest weeks earlier than the primary votes have been forged within the Iowa caucuses. However she was removed from the primary. Ten candidates who held elected workplace in positions equivalent to governor and major-city mayors left the race earlier than Harris did.
From August 2019 to Harris’ Dec. 3, 2019, departure from the race, different Democrats who give up the race included: U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell of California; then-Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado; Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington; U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; then-New York Metropolis Mayor Invoice de Blasio; then-U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio; former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas; former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania; and then-Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana.
Trump: “I name her comrade Kamala, as a result of that is what her ideology is … her father is a Marxist.”
Consultants advised us Harris is neither a Marxist nor a Communist, no matter her dad’s place. Pants on Fireplace!
The Trump marketing campaign has pointed to Harris’ plan to ban value gouging by implementing value controls. That proposal is obscure, however it falls far wanting communist coverage, which advocates abolishing personal property. Harris has not known as for seizing personal properties or companies.
Harris’ marketing campaign describes Harris’ stance as capitalist, and consultants say her insurance policies are primarily based on the belief of a market-driven economic system.
Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is a retired Stanford College economics professor. In a July 25 profile of Donald Harris, The Economist journal wrote that his work “is extra unashamedly Marxist than something in trendy American politics.” The journal stated his 1978 guide, “Capital Accumulation and Earnings Distribution,” targeted on financial inequality, development and the draw back of profit-seeking capitalist economies.
Different information shops, together with Fox Information, stated the Stanford Every day newspaper in 1974 known as Harris a “Marxist.” The New Yorker journal wrote that Donald Harris is estranged from his daughter.
Trump: “They went to (Biden) they usually stated, ‘We wish you out. You are not going to win.’ And it was actually a coup, when you concentrate on it.”
That is deceptive.
Coup d’etat is a French time period meaning the overthrow of a authorities, normally by unlawful means and with the specter of violence.
Consultants beforehand advised PolitiFact that Democrats persuading Biden to drop out of the race for president doesn’t meet that generally used definition.
Biden’s presidency continues, and Democrats’ persuading him to drop out of the race after which utilizing occasion guidelines to switch him on the ticket is just not unlawful.
Trump on the economic system and vitality
Trump: “I had rates of interest at 2%. Now they’re 10%.”
He’s incorrect in regards to the present charges.
Mortgage charges are larger than at most factors since 2000, however the common 30-year mounted fee mortgage is presently 6.35%, after peaking at 7.79% in October 2023.
Trump was nearer when referring to the mortgage charges throughout his tenure. They averaged 2.7% when he left workplace, which was throughout a worldwide pandemic when the economic system had slowed to a crawl and the Federal Reserve lowered charges to advertise financial exercise.
The very best mortgage fee on Trump’s watch have been virtually 5% in November 2018.
Trump: “I shut down the largest pipeline on the earth that Russia was constructing … it was 100% shut down.”
Principally False.
Greater than 90% of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was constructed throughout Trump’s presidency. He imposed December 2019 sanctions on the subsea pipeline that carries pure fuel from Russia to Germany. However consultants say the sanctions didn’t cease the undertaking; they slowed its completion.
Some European contractors stepped away from the undertaking however Russian contractors changed them. In Could 2021, Biden waived the sanctions to restore relations with Germany. The pipeline was accomplished in September 2021 however Germany has but to deliver it into operation due to the Russia-Ukraine struggle. In Could 2022, Biden reimposed sanctions for comparable causes.
