WASHINGTON — In a speech from the Ellipse adjoining the White Home, one week from Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris drew a pointy distinction with former President Donald Trump, calling him a “petty tyrant” and repeating a line she has utilized in latest days, that she would start her presidential time period not with an enemies record, however with a to-do record.
Harris spoke on the website the place Trump delivered his “Save America” rally forward of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In the course of the Oct. 29 speech, Harris stated Trump had been “at this very spot … and despatched an armed mob to the USA Capitol to overturn the need of the folks in a free and truthful election.”
In her speech’s first half, Harris targeted on the dangers she believes Trump poses for the nation. Later, she shifted towards coverage, distinguishing elements of her agenda on taxes, abortion and immigration with Trump’s.
“Politicians have gotten to cease treating immigration as a problem to scare up votes in an election,” she stated, “and as a substitute deal with it as the intense problem that it’s.”
Harris’ marketing campaign stated the attendance was 75,000, which might be the biggest crowd of her marketing campaign. The Home choose committee that investigated the occasions of Jan. 6, 2021, stated the “Save America” rally drew 53,000 folks. About two hours earlier than Harris started talking, strains of supporters snaked round fencing close to the Ellipse website, working for blocks and reaching effectively into the Nationwide Mall. Marketing campaign volunteers labored the strains to enroll attendees for an app that lets them canvass different voters.
Attendees collect close to the Washington Monument as they await Kamala Harris’ speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29, 2024. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)
Right here’s a rundown of six notable moments, fact-checked.
“He says that one in all his highest priorities is to let out the violent extremists who insulted these legislation enforcement officers on Jan. 6.”
Harris precisely stated 140 legislation enforcement officers have been injured within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault. Trump has repeatedly referred to as the defendants charged within the assault “hostages” or “warriors” and promised to pardon those that stormed the Capitol.
In September 2022, two months earlier than he introduced his marketing campaign, Trump informed conservative radio present host Wendy Bell that he had met with a few of the Jan. 6 defendants. “I’ll look very very favorably about full pardons,” he stated, including, “I imply full pardons, with an apology to many.”
In a March Reality Social submit, he vowed that one in all his “first acts” as president could be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” And he informed Time journal in April he would “take into account” pardoning each one in all them.
Greater than 1,500 defendants have been charged within the storming of the Capitol, Justice Division knowledge reveals. About 571 have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding legislation enforcement brokers or officers or obstructing these officers throughout a civil dysfunction, together with roughly 164 defendants charged with utilizing a lethal or harmful weapon or inflicting severe bodily damage to an officer.
“Trump intends to make use of the USA navy towards Americans who merely disagree with him. Individuals, he calls, quote, ‘the enemy from inside.’”
Trump has repeatedly talked concerning the “enemy from inside” in his October speeches and interviews.
Trump informed Fox Information’ Howard Kurtz on Oct. 20 that Reps. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, each D-Calif., are “the enemy from inside.” However Trump is commonly obscure when he makes use of this phrase. Trump says that the “enemy from inside” is a “larger enemy” than international enemies, similar to China or Russia.
He typically makes use of the phrase shortly after talking about President Joe Biden or Harris, as he did Oct. 27 in his Madison Sq. Backyard rally in New York Metropolis.
“We’re working towards one thing far larger than Joe or Kamala and way more highly effective than them, which is an enormous, vicious, crooked, radical left machine that runs right now’s Democrat Occasion. They’re simply vessels. The truth is, they’re good vessels as a result of they’ll by no means give them a tough time. They’ll do no matter they need. I do know lots of them. It’s simply this amorphous group of individuals. However they’re good and so they’re vicious. And we now have to defeat them.
“And once I say ‘the enemy from inside,’ the opposite facet goes loopy … ‘How can he say now they’ve executed very dangerous issues to this nation?’ They’re certainly the enemy from inside. However that is who we’re combating.”
On Oct. 13, Fox Information’ Maria Bartiromo requested Trump about the potential for Election Day chaos. Trump warned of “very dangerous folks,” “radical left lunatics” who must be dealt with if “mandatory” by the Nationwide Guard or the navy.
Trump would “ban abortion nationwide, limit entry to contraception and put IVF therapies in danger and drive states to watch ladies’s pregnancies. Simply Google challenge 2025 and skim the plans for your self.”
That is deceptive.
Since April, Trump has persistently stated abortion laws must be left to the states. He has stated that he wouldn’t signal a nationwide abortion ban. As president, nevertheless, Trump endorsed a 20-week nationwide abortion ban. Early in his 2024 presidential marketing campaign, he floated help for 15- or 16-week federal abortion bans, information retailers reported.
Trump stated in a Might interview that he was “taking a look at” contraception restrictions, however he shortly tried to make clear his phrases, writing on Reality Social that “I’ve by no means and can by no means advocate for imposing restrictions on contraception.”
Trump has expressed help for in vitro fertilization throughout the 2024 marketing campaign amid Democratic criticism that Republicans wish to limit or eradicate the follow. In April, he launched a video by which he stated he helps making it “simpler” for households to have infants, not tougher. “That features supporting the provision of fertility therapies, like IVF, in each state in America,” Trump stated. He has additionally not too long ago proposed having the federal government cowl IVF prices or requiring insurers to take action. He hasn’t stated how he would do that.
Nothing in Trump’s Agenda 47 requires states to watch ladies’s pregnancies. As a substitute, Mission 2025, the Heritage Basis’s 900-page conservative coverage handbook for the subsequent Republican administration, proposes withholding federal cash from states that don’t report extra detailed details about what number of abortions happen of their states, in addition to different statistics for miscarriages and stillbirths to the federal authorities. The challenge doesn’t name for the monitoring of all pregnancies.
Trump would pay for his tax plan with “a 20% nationwide gross sales tax on all the pieces you purchase that’s imported. … A Trump gross sales tax that might price the typical household practically $4,000 extra a yr.”
Half True.
Trump has mentioned elevating tariffs throughout the board by 10% to twenty%, so the 20% determine Harris cited is on the higher finish of what Trump has stated. Tariffs are additionally not technically a part of the tax code, however their impact on customers could be related in costing them more cash.
The $4,000 Harris cited is on the higher finish of impartial estimates. Two estimates we discovered broadly help Harris’ $4,000 quantity. Two others present a smaller — although nonetheless vital — impact, within the $1,700 to $2,600 vary.
“You’ll pay much more if Donald Trump lastly will get his manner and repeals the Reasonably priced Care Act, which might throw thousands and thousands of Individuals off their medical health insurance. And take us again to when insurance coverage corporations have the facility to disclaim folks with preexisting circumstances.”
Half True.
In his 2016 presidential marketing campaign, Trump promised to repeal and exchange the Reasonably priced Care Act, and as president, he supported congressional Republicans’ failed efforts to realize this.
Throughout his 2024 marketing campaign, Trump’s place has vacillated. At instances, he’s stated that he needs to switch the legislation with an “different.” However in March, he wrote on Reality Social that he’s “not working to terminate” the legislation and as a substitute needs to make it “higher” and “inexpensive.”
In the course of the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Harris in Philadelphia, Trump stated he has “ideas of a plan” to switch the legislation, however he would “run it nearly as good as it may be run” earlier than instituting his personal plan with out offering additional particulars.
Greater than 1,500 docs launched a letter Oct. 17 calling on Trump to disclose particulars about how he would alter the well being care legislation, saying voters want the reason to make an knowledgeable choice.
Trump “tried to chop Medicare and Social Safety yearly he was president.”
This wants context.
On Medicare, Trump launched 4 successive annual budgets that proposed chopping Medicare. Nonetheless, consultants are divided on how a lot these cuts would have damage beneficiaries had they been enacted. Many have been technical modifications that had bipartisan help and would have been extra more likely to damage suppliers than sufferers.
On Social Safety, Trump submitted funds proposals that included cuts to Social Safety. These have been by no means carried out, due to opposition in Congress.
Nonetheless, Harris glosses over what these cuts concerned. The proposed cuts have been targeted on two elements of this system — Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage and Supplemental Safety Revenue — not the extra extensively used old-age and survivor advantages.
Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage advantages folks with bodily and psychological circumstances which can be extreme sufficient to completely maintain them from working. Supplemental Safety Revenue funds are restricted to low-income Individuals — older adults, or adults or kids who’re disabled or blind.
Though these cuts would have affected near 10 million Individuals, the pool of people that obtain old-age and survivor advantages is nearly seven instances as massive.
Trump has promised in 2024 to not minimize both program.
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