In his first campaign rally since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Former President Donald Trump made multiple false claims against her, CNN says.
The false claims are as follows:
- “Talking about–lifting the retirement age”.
- Harris never spoke about doing so for Social Security. According to CNN, “In 2019…she co-sponsored a bill…that would boost Social Security benefits.”
2. “Wants abortions in the eighth…ninth month…right up until birth…after”.
- While Harris is pro-choice, “she has never said anything to endorse post-birth murder”. Harris wishes to see Roe v. Wade restored and has declined the idea of endorsing limits on abortions.
3. “Wants to…outlaw red meat to stop climate change”.
- While at a CNN climate change town hall in 2019, she supported encouraging Americans to reduce their conception of red meat, not ban it entirely.
4. “It was all headed up by her”.
- Originally, Trump claimed that Biden had sabotaged the prosecution of his legal case, which there was no evidence to support. Once Harris became his main competitor, he turned his attention to her. According to CNN, there is also no evidence that Harris played a role in Trump’s legal cases.
5. “She was the border czar…never went”.
- Harris visited the Texas-Mexico border in mid-2021. While various news outlets called her the “border czar”, she was never given full control of the border, being assigned diplomatic tasks related to Central America.
6. “Allowed 20 million illegal aliens…into our country”.
- According to CNN, there were roughly 10 million “encounters” with migrants between the northern and southern border from February 2021 to June 2024.
- These “encounters” can be considered non-reliable, as some “are deemed inadmissible…refused permission to enter…the same person…multiple times.”
- Even if we included those who avoided Border Patrol, the number would still be far lower than Trump’s claim.
7. “We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl”.
- The CDC reported 107,500 drug overdoses in 2023, though this could be undercounted. It is worth noting that “fentanyl is largely smuggled by US citizens”, negating what Trump hinted at regarding migrants.
8. “She’s…against…Jewish people”.
- For context, Harris did not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, was also absent.
- Harris has been married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, for almost 10 years and has “denounced antisemitism, expressed fondness for the Jewish community…endorsed “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel”. While critical of Israel’s government during the war on Gaza, this wasn’t from an anti-Semitic place.
9. “She couldn’t pass her bar exams”.
- While Harris didn’t pass her first attempt, she did on the second and was admitted to the California bar in 1990, one year after graduating from law school.
Though Trump has also made statements about Harris that aren’t false, the claims listed here, and how easily they were disproven, are not helping his campaign for the presidency.
