In an interview from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump tested themes he might repeat in next week’s ABC debate against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity hosted the hourlong Sept. 4 event. He questioned Trump during the first hour; audience members questioned Trump for a second hour. That second hour is scheduled to air Sept. 5 on Fox.
Polls show that Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016 and lost it in 2020, is in a neck-and-neck contest against Harris in the key swing state. Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, the most of any of the seven most heavily contested states.
Trump touted supportive words from “strong man” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is popular among Trump-aligned conservatives but whom others have criticized for authoritarian policies. Trump made claims about fracking, immigration, Harris and the economy, some of which were false or misleading.
Trump talks Harris’ flip-flop on fracking
Trump: “There’s no chance that (Harris is) going to allow” fracking.
Harris currently supports hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, but that wasn’t always so. As a Democratic primary candidate in 2019, Harris opposed fracking, a common and controversial technique used to access hard-to-reach oil and gas in rock formations. The issue is important to voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has experienced a fracking boom.
Harris said during a 2019 CNN town hall, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, so, yes. And starting — and starting with what we can do on Day 1 around public lands, right? … And to your point, we have to just acknowledge that the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the impact on the health and safety of communities.”
But after President Joe Biden picked Harris as his running mate in 2020, Harris aligned with Biden’s policies, which did not involve a fracking ban.
Trump: “Now you have to have fracking. You know, you’re the biggest in the country for this,” referring to Pennsylvania.
He’s close: The federal Energy Information Administration’s most recent data, from 2021, shows Pennsylvania producing 7.5 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, which is produced by fracking.
One state has produced more: Texas, with 8.3 trillion cubic feet.
Trump: In Pennsylvania, fracking is “your biggest business, and you get a big majority of your income from fracking.”
This is inaccurate.
In the past five quarters, “mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction” — a larger category than just fracking — collectively accounted for 1% to 2% of Pennsylvania’s gross domestic product.
In 2024’s first quarter in Pennsylvania, the gross domestic product generated by mining, logging and oil and gas extraction amounted to about one-eighth of the gross domestic product generated by manufacturing, one-eighth that of health care, one-fifth that of finance and insurance and one-third that of construction.
Trump also said, “you have 500,000 jobs” in Pennsylvania from fracking, which is also inaccurate. The number is about 22,200, representing less than 1% of the state’s overall employment.
Trump exaggerates illegal immigration, benefits for migrants
Trump: “They’re filling up and loading up Social Security, Medicare, with illegal immigrants that have come into our country.”
Saying that immigration will hurt Social Security’s fiscal viability is questionable, particularly in the short- to medium term.
First, immigrants in the U.S. illegally cannot receive Social Security retirement benefits or Medicare coverage.
Immigrants who are legally allowed to work can receive Social Security retirement benefits, but only after they’ve worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years — a positive, not a negative, for Social Security’s overall fiscal sustainability.
Social Security’s fiscal challenges stem from a shortage of workers compared with beneficiaries. Immigration alone won’t make the program solvent, but would increase the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, potentially for decades, extending the program’s fiscal life.
Even many immigrants who are in the United States illegally pay taxes. Estimates have found that immigrants without legal status pay billions of dollars in Social Security taxes annually without drawing benefits, now or ever.
Trump: Under Biden, “20 million people have poured into our country.”
False.
During Biden’s administration, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border around 10 million times. When accounting for “got aways” — people whom border officials don’t stop — the number rises to about 11.6 million.
But encounters aren’t the same as admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let into the country. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.
During Biden’s administration, about 3.4 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings, Department of Homeland Security data shows. About 422,000 children who crossed the border alone were also let in.
Trump: Countries are “emptying out their prisons and jails. They’re emptying out their mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re emptying out the sickest people and they’re emptying all into the United States.”
This is wrong. There is no evidence that countries are emptying their prisons or mental institutions and sending people to illegally migrate to the U.S.
U.S. immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens who had criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.
Not all of those people were let in. And the term “noncitizens” includes people who may have legal immigration status in the U.S., but are not U.S. citizens.
The data reflects the people the federal government knows about, but it’s not exhaustive. Despite the limitations, immigration experts said that data is not evidence to support Trump’s statement.
Attacks on Harris
Trump: Harris “was the first to leave” the Democratic 2020 presidential primary race.
That’s incorrect.
Harris left the 2020 Democratic presidential primary contest weeks before the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses. But she was far from the first. Ten candidates who held elected office in positions such as governor and major-city mayors left the race before Harris did.
From August 2019 to Harris’ Dec. 3, 2019, departure from the race, other Democrats who quit 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 City Mayor Bill 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 call her comrade Kamala, because that’s what her ideology is … her father is a Marxist.”
Experts told us Harris is neither a Marxist nor a Communist, regardless of her dad’s position. Pants on Fire!
The Trump campaign has pointed to Harris’ plan to ban price gouging by implementing price controls. That proposal is vague, but it falls far short of communist policy, which advocates abolishing private property. Harris has not called for seizing private homes or businesses.
Harris’ campaign describes Harris’ stance as capitalist, and experts say her policies are based on the assumption of a market-driven economy.
Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is a retired Stanford University economics professor. In a July 25 profile of Donald Harris, The Economist magazine wrote that his work “is more unashamedly Marxist than anything in modern American politics.” The magazine said his 1978 book, “Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution,” focused on economic inequality, growth and the downside of profit-seeking capitalist economies.
Other news outlets, including Fox News, said the Stanford Daily newspaper in 1974 called Harris a “Marxist.” The New Yorker magazine wrote that Donald Harris is estranged from his daughter.
Trump: “They went to (Biden) and they said, ‘We want you out. You’re not going to win.’ And it was really a coup, when you think about it.”
This is misleading.
Coup d’etat is a French term that means the overthrow of a government, usually by illegal means and with the threat of violence.
Experts previously told PolitiFact that Democrats persuading Biden to drop out of the race for president doesn’t meet that commonly used definition.
Biden’s presidency continues, and Democrats’ persuading him to drop out of the race and then using party rules to replace him on the ticket is not illegal.
Trump on the economy and energy
Trump: “I had interest rates at 2%. Now they’re 10%.”
He’s wrong about the current rates.
Mortgage rates are higher than at most points since 2000, but the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is currently 6.35%, after peaking at 7.79% in October 2023.
Trump was closer when referring to the mortgage rates during his tenure. They averaged 2.7% when he left office, which was during a global pandemic when the economy had slowed to a crawl and the Federal Reserve lowered rates to promote economic activity.
The highest mortgage rate on Trump’s watch were almost 5% in November 2018.
Trump: “I shut down the biggest pipeline in the world that Russia was building … it was 100% shut down.”
Mostly False.
More than 90% of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was built during Trump’s presidency. He imposed December 2019 sanctions on the subsea pipeline that carries natural gas from Russia to Germany. But experts say the sanctions did not stop the project; they slowed its completion.
Some European contractors stepped away from the project but Russian contractors replaced them. In May 2021, Biden waived the sanctions to repair relations with Germany. The pipeline was completed in September 2021 but Germany has yet to bring it into operation because of the Russia-Ukraine war. In May 2022, Biden reimposed sanctions for similar reasons.
