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” remarks about the Charlottesville race riot.
Trump has since slammed both ABC and their 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 currently 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 declare war in decades, American troops are currently still stationed in Iraq and Syria where they’re helping local forces fight terrorism.
US forces are also presently stationed in a handful of African nations, including Somalia.
National abortion ban
On the topic of abortion and reproductive rights, moderators were quiet when Harris insisted: “If Donald Trump were to be reelected, 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 back 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 General 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-blankly 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, 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 were 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 influencers and Trumps No. 2, JD Vance — that migrants from Haiti 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 on three separate occasions conceded 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 that 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
