Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet face-to-face for the first time in a Tuesday night. The two presidential candidates describe the state of the country in starkly different terms. Trump often paints a dark picture centered around issues such as immigration and high inflation, while Harris focuses on optimism for the future, promising that 鈥渨e鈥檙e not going back.鈥�
The first debate of the 2024 election in June 鈥� at which President Joe Biden鈥檚 disastrous performance ultimately 鈥� featured multiple false and misleading claims from both candidates and it鈥檚 likely that Tuesday鈥檚 match-up will include much of the same.
Here鈥檚 a look at some previous false and misleading claims as Trump and Harris meet to debate.
Abortion remains a top issue
The unprecedented Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade has made abortion a key issue in the 2024 election. As a result of the ruling, abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, in 14 Republican-controlled states. It鈥檚 barred after about the first six weeks, which is before many know they are pregnant, in three other states.
Trump often tries to portray Democrats as radical on abortion. He has falsely claimed on multiple occasions, including the , that some states allow women to get an abortion after their baby is born. This is in not true. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and that allows killing a baby after birth.
During her speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, Harris said Trump would 鈥渆nact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.鈥� Trump said in an Aug. 22 appearance on 鈥滷ox & Friends": 鈥淚 would never. There will not be a federal ban. This is now back in the states where it belongs.鈥� However, as recently as March he suggested he鈥檇 support a national ban on abortion .
Blame for the Afghanistan withdrawal
Trump has repeatedly tried to link Harris to the , which saw the Taliban take over the country again before the last American troops even flew out of the Kabul airport .
Most assessments have concluded that Trump and Biden share blame for the disastrous end to America鈥檚 longest war. The main U.S. government watchdog for the war Trump鈥檚 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. forces and military contractors as 鈥渢he single most important factor鈥� in the collapse of U.S.-allied Afghan security forces and the Taliban takeover.
that he would proceed with the withdrawal set in motion by Trump was the second-biggest factor, the watchdog said. Harris has said she was the when Biden made his decision, but neither watchdog reviews nor a by House Republicans have identified any instance where the vice president had a significant impact on decision-making.
A suicide bombing at Kabul's airport during the withdrawal killed 13 service members and more than 170 Afghans.
Differing views on the economy
Voters rank the economy and inflation as major concerns going into the election, with both Trump and Harris making a case for how they鈥檙e better for the country鈥檚 wallet.
Democrats, including Harris, have claimed that Trump鈥檚 proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports 鈥� and up to 60% on imports from China 鈥� would cost the average family $3,900 a year. Most economists do expect it would raise prices on many goods. The $3,900 figure comes from the Center for American Progress, a progressive advocacy group. However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.
One of Harris鈥� major policy proposals would provide $25,000 in down payment assistance to certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives to builders of starter homes. Experts say these promises could end up working at cross-purposes, as help with down payment assistance would almost certainly increase demand when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from homes.
Trump consistently touts the economy under his administration as the best in the country鈥檚 history, highlighting high levels of inflation under Biden.
But it鈥檚 inaccurate to claim that the economy was at its best under Trump. First, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. If issues caused by the pandemic are removed, economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump鈥檚 first three years. That鈥檚 pretty solid, but nowhere near the 4% average under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
And while inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 after rising steadily in the first 17 months of Biden鈥檚 presidency from a low of 0.1% in May 2020, it鈥檚 now seeing a downward trend. shows that as of July it had fallen to 2.9%, with year-over-year inflation at its lowest level in more than three years.
Energy, inflation and a flip-flop on fracking
Trump has long promised to 鈥渄rill, baby, drill,鈥� in order to ramp up oil production and bring down inflation. But oil production in the U.S. under Biden鈥檚 administration and inflation is already on the way down. Moreover, are . The average cost of regular gas was $3.27 on Monday, down significantly from a high of $5.01 in June 2022, according to the American Automobile Association.
Trump recently claimed that all coal-fired power plants will be forced to close in the next few years due to a rule issued in April by the Environmental Protection Agency. But that鈥檚 false. Coal-fired power plants will be forced to capture 90% of smokestack emissions by 2032 or shut down. Plants already closing are doing so largely because of economic reasons 鈥� they cannot compete with natural gas, solar and wind.
Harris鈥� shifting views on fracking have been put under the microscope in recent weeks. The vice president said at a Democratic presidential town hall in 2019, during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, fracking. But her current campaign clarified that she a ban on the practice.
During her first sit-down interview since she announced her 2024 candidacy, Harris said she made her position to not ban fracking 鈥渃lear on the debate stage in 2020鈥� when she with then-Vice President Mike Pence. A review of the debate found she said, 鈥淛oe Biden will not end fracking."
Violent crime rates under Trump and Biden-Harris
Democrats have pointed to high violent crime rates under Trump as the former president 鈥� who in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election 鈥� calls for law and order, claiming that violent crime has flourished during the Biden administration.
Violent crime decreased throughout most of Trump鈥檚 presidency, that uses information provided by law enforcement agencies. However, it spiked in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has trended downward since 2020 across the U.S., nearing pre-pandemic levels in 2022. shows that violent crime overall was down another 6% that year.
The Department of Justice鈥檚 most recent , on the other hand, found that violent crime both reported and not reported to police rose from 2021 to 2022 by 42.4% for people age 12 or older. Unlike the FBI statistics, which cover victims of all ages, the survey and does not include murders.
Continued attacks on border security
Trump is expected to once again attack Harris on border security. He claimed in a that 20 million people, perhaps more, have come across the U.S.-Mexico border during the current administration. But that number is unsubstantiated at best.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That's arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
Including the number of times migrants were stopped at official land crossings, as well as migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who were admitted to the country under presidential authority, the number of encounters rises to 8.7 million. CBP does not publish its estimates of people who eluded capture.
Allegations that illegal immigration has caused a spike in violent crime are also unfounded. A number of heinous and high-profile crimes involving people in the U.S. illegally have been in the news in recent months, but there is nothing to support the claim that it is widespread. FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, and there is no evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York.
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Melissa Goldin, The Associated Press
