Kamala Harris's Lies During the September 10th Debate

[RocksInMyHead]

I've seen a lot of posters here claim that Harris "lied incessantly," though they've pointed out few specifics. The Federalist, though, has helpfully provided a list of 25 lies. So let's look at them:

25 Lies Kamala Harris Told In Her Debate Against Trump

Here are 25 of the biggest falsehoods Kamala Harris told during her Tuesday night debate with Donald Trump.

thefederalist.com

1. "Middle Class Kid"

I'm not sure how being the child of a college professor and a university research scientist disqualifies someone from the middle class. Neither is a particularly lucrative profession. Her family certainly wasn't poor, but she didn't claim that.

Verdict: Not a lie.

2. Trump's tax cuts

It should be noted that the analysis cited here by The Federalist is just a loop of the same person citing himself, and only considers data from 2018. Furthermore, it only looks at individual income tax data, which doesn't tell the whole story. While that data does show that people making less than $50,000 received the largest percentage tax reduction that year relative to 2017, the real dollar value of those reductions was mostly pretty small. For example, people making $10,000-$15,000 saw their average taxes drop by 72%. Which is great - but the real dollar value of that "massive" drop was $85/taxpayer. In contrast, people making $500,000-$1,000,000 saw their taxes drop by a paltry 9% - which worked out to around $15,000/taxpayer. Now, if you consider those numbers as a percentage of the taxpayer's total income, the picture changes a bit. Ther person making $15,000/year regains 0.6% of their income per year, while the person making $1,000,000 regains 1.5%. Seems to me that the person making a million per year wins out in this exchange.

Verdict: Not a lie.

3. Trump "Sales Tax"

Trump has proposed a 10-20% tariff on all imports, and 60% on imports from China. While not technically a sales tax, we would see most, if not all of that passed on to consumers, leading to higher prices for imported goods.

Verdict: Mostly true

4. Jan. 6

Contrary to the Federalist's claim, the J6 events did put American self-governance in jeopardy. And bringing up examples of military attacks is a complete non-sequitur; Harris was referring to attacks on our democratic institutions, not physical attacks on US territories.

Verdict: Not a lie.

5. Project 2025

Hard to grade this one. While Trump certainly has said that he has nothing to do with Project 2025, the fact remains that many current and former members of his administration/campaign are involved in it, and some of its provisions look a lot like things that Trump did or was trying to do towards the end of his first term. Ultimately, though, this is a statement of opinion, as no one can predict the future, and opinions are not lies.

Verdict: Opinion; not a lie

6. Just Restoring Roe

She absolutely dodged the question, but dodging the question isn't lying.

Verdict: Not a lie

7. Pro-Life Laws Criminalize Miscarriages, Ectopic Pregnancies

While technically correct in their assessment that these things are not explicitly criminalized, the Federalist conveniently ignores the real effects of recent anti-abortion legislation, which have been widely discussed here on this site. In states like Texas, hospitals have been turning women with life-threatening conditions away over fear of prosecution. Even if the laws do not explicitly criminalize these situations, the effect remains the same.

Verdict: Half true

8. Trump's abortion stance

I'll give them this one. Trump does not seem to be in favor of a national abortion ban.

Verdict: Lie

9. Ninth Month Abortions Don't Exist

Last I checked, 21 weeks gets you into the 6th month, not the 9th month. Therefore, the number of abortions performed after 21 weeks is not evidence of abortions being performed during the 9th month of pregnancy.

Verdict: Not a lie.

10. Border Bill

This is just the Federalist's opinion. Others disagree with their assessment, and again, no one can see into the alternate future where that bill passed, so no one knows for certain what the real effects would have been.

Verdict: Not a lie.

11. SCOTUS Immunity Ruling

The Federalist is splitting hairs here. The SCOTUS ruling was rather vague, and arguments couple be made for many things that the president does being "official acts." Regardless, it's pretty clear what she was getting at.

Verdict: Mostly true.

12. Fracking Ban

Again, dodging the question isn't lying. Regardless, 2019 was not 2020, so using an example from 2019 to disprove her statement about her beliefs in 2020 is misleading. By 2020, Harris had already backed away from the commitment to a fracking ban, even casting the tie-breaking vote to expand fracking leases then, so her statement that she "made herself very clear in 2020" is accurate.

Verdict: Not a lie.

13. Minnesota Rioters Bail Fund

Harris did indeed promote the Minnesota Freedom Fund in a June 1, 2020 tweet. However, at that point, they were a very small organization that had only been in operation for 4 years, having helped a total of ~500 people in that time. The aftermath of the George Floyd protests (and, in part, Harris's tweet) caused them to expand massively and seems to have changed their policies, such that they started providing bail for more dangerous/violent criminals. So, it's a bit misleading to suggest that she promoted an organization that was putting violent criminals back on the streets when - at the time that she promoted it - they were not.

Verdict: Not a lie

14. Trump's Role in J6

Trump did make the "peacefully and patriotically" statement, but he also said that his supporters needed to "fight like [heck] or [they wouldn't] have a country anymore" in the same speech. And that's before getting into the repeated lies that he told leading up to that day about the election being stolen or fraudulent. There is a pretty strong argument to be made that Trump at least had some role in inciting the J6 riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

15. J6 Deaths

I believe that the final cause of death for Officer Sicknick was a stroke. While technically "natural causes," it can be reasonably deduced that the stroke was related to the injuries he sustained on January 6th. Additionally, 4 further officers died of suicide in the immediate aftermath. Harris specifically said that these five officers died "as a result of" the January 6th riot - in that their deaths were related to it and they would likely still be alive had it not occurred. The Federalist tries to debunk her words by deliberately misinterpreting them to mean that they were directly killed during the riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

16. "Fine People" Hoax

Yep, Trump walked that one back and clarified, but it took a while, and he did say it.

Verdict: Mostly true.

17. "Bloodbath" Hoax

Again, he said it. Maybe he didn't mean it in the way that Harris puts it, or maybe he did. As we're not mind readers, it becomes a matter of opinion.

Verdict: Mostly true.

18. Trump's NATO Comments

Technically, the Federalist is correct here - the comments that Harris refers to were about NATO members, not Ukraine. However, those comments reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about how NATO works - the defense spending targets are not binding obligations, and there are no penalties for not meeting them. If Trump wants there to be penalties, that's fine, but he needs to push for an amendment to the NATO charter to that effect - he can't just declare it unilaterally. Furthermore, his many other statements on Ukraine and Russia, as well as his evasiveness when asked directly about his preferred outcome of the current war, reveal his attitude on the conflict.

Verdict: Lie, but the Federalist misses the point.

19. Autocrats' Preferences for President

The reasons for Putin's "endorsement" of Harris have been discussed on this site already. Also, Viktor Orban is (arguably) an autocrat, and Trump specifically touted Orban's praise of him during the debate. He's also fond of pointing out his close relationships with Putin and Kim.

Verdict: Not a lie

20. Combat Zones

Harris was splitting hairs here. I'll call it a lie.

Verdict: Lie

21. Blaming Trump for Biden's Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

Both parties bear some blame on this one. Trump negotiated a pretty bad deal (including releasing 5000 Taliban fighters), and Biden then rushed the process.

Verdict: Half true

22. Gun Confiscation

Harris did support a mandatory buyback program for "assault weapons" in 2019, but more recently, she's amended that to say that she supports an assault weapons ban, but without a mandatory buyback program.

Verdict: Half true

23. Trump's Foreign Policy Record

This is just opinion.

Verdict: Not a lie

24. Defunding the Police

“reimagin[ing]” policing and “redirect[ing] resources” from police toward what the outlet described as “other areas of government [such as] schools and small businesses.” does not sound like "defund the police" to me.

Verdict: Not a lie

25. IVF

While Trump himself may not be opposed to IVF, the abortion bans that he enabled (AKA "Donald Trump's abortion bans") have not been so discerning. The issues in Arkansas have bene well-publicized.

Verdict: Not a lie.

So, final counts are 3 lies, 7 partial truths, and 15 things that weren't actually lies. Not a strong showing from The Federalist, I gotta say.

 

[Fantine]

Thanks for your comprehensive and trustworthy analysis. I appreciate the truth.

 

[probinson]

Thanks for handily demonstrating that the bulk of "fact-checking" is really just differing opinions and analyses colored by one's preconceived ideas and biases.

 

[Vambram]

Thanks for handily demonstrating that the bulk of "fact-checking" is really just differing opinions and analyses colored by one's preconceived ideas and biases.

That's really it in a nutshell. The vast majority of "fact checking", including what is posted on these forums, are really analysis and opinions which come from people who have biases and preconceived ideas.

 

[KCfromNC]

Thanks for handily demonstrating that the bulk of "fact-checking" is really just differing opinions and analyses colored by one's preconceived ideas and biases.

At least fact checking by far right sources.
One might repeat the process with a fact check by a less biased news organization and see if the results are similar or different.

 

[eleos1954]

I've seen a lot of posters here claim that Harris "lied incessantly," though they've pointed out few specifics. The Federalist, though, has helpfully provided a list of 25 lies. So let's look at them:

25 Lies Kamala Harris Told In Her Debate Against Trump

Here are 25 of the biggest falsehoods Kamala Harris told during her Tuesday night debate with Donald Trump.

thefederalist.com

1. "Middle Class Kid"

I'm not sure how being the child of a college professor and a university research scientist disqualifies someone from the middle class. Neither is a particularly lucrative profession. Her family certainly wasn't poor, but she didn't claim that.

Verdict: Not a lie.

2. Trump's tax cuts

It should be noted that the analysis cited here by The Federalist is just a loop of the same person citing himself, and only considers data from 2018. Furthermore, it only looks at individual income tax data, which doesn't tell the whole story. While that data does show that people making less than $50,000 received the largest percentage tax reduction that year relative to 2017, the real dollar value of those reductions was mostly pretty small. For example, people making $10,000-$15,000 saw their average taxes drop by 72%. Which is great - but the real dollar value of that "massive" drop was $85/taxpayer. In contrast, people making $500,000-$1,000,000 saw their taxes drop by a paltry 9% - which worked out to around $15,000/taxpayer. Now, if you consider those numbers as a percentage of the taxpayer's total income, the picture changes a bit. Ther person making $15,000/year regains 0.6% of their income per year, while the person making $1,000,000 regains 1.5%. Seems to me that the person making a million per year wins out in this exchange.

Verdict: Not a lie.

3. Trump "Sales Tax"

Trump has proposed a 10-20% tariff on all imports, and 60% on imports from China. While not technically a sales tax, we would see most, if not all of that passed on to consumers, leading to higher prices for imported goods.

Verdict: Mostly true

4. Jan. 6

Contrary to the Federalist's claim, the J6 events did put American self-governance in jeopardy. And bringing up examples of military attacks is a complete non-sequitur; Harris was referring to attacks on our democratic institutions, not physical attacks on US territories.

Verdict: Not a lie.

5. Project 2025

Hard to grade this one. While Trump certainly has said that he has nothing to do with Project 2025, the fact remains that many current and former members of his administration/campaign are involved in it, and some of its provisions look a lot like things that Trump did or was trying to do towards the end of his first term. Ultimately, though, this is a statement of opinion, as no one can predict the future, and opinions are not lies.

Verdict: Opinion; not a lie

6. Just Restoring Roe

She absolutely dodged the question, but dodging the question isn't lying.

Verdict: Not a lie

7. Pro-Life Laws Criminalize Miscarriages, Ectopic Pregnancies

While technically correct in their assessment that these things are not explicitly criminalized, the Federalist conveniently ignores the real effects of recent anti-abortion legislation, which have been widely discussed here on this site. In states like Texas, hospitals have been turning women with life-threatening conditions away over fear of prosecution. Even if the laws do not explicitly criminalize these situations, the effect remains the same.

Verdict: Half true

8. Trump's abortion stance

I'll give them this one. Trump does not seem to be in favor of a national abortion ban.

Verdict: Lie

9. Ninth Month Abortions Don't Exist

Last I checked, 21 weeks gets you into the 6th month, not the 9th month. Therefore, the number of abortions performed after 21 weeks is not evidence of abortions being performed during the 9th month of pregnancy.

Verdict: Not a lie.

10. Border Bill

This is just the Federalist's opinion. Others disagree with their assessment, and again, no one can see into the alternate future where that bill passed, so no one knows for certain what the real effects would have been.

Verdict: Not a lie.

11. SCOTUS Immunity Ruling

The Federalist is splitting hairs here. The SCOTUS ruling was rather vague, and arguments couple be made for many things that the president does being "official acts." Regardless, it's pretty clear what she was getting at.

Verdict: Mostly true.

12. Fracking Ban

Again, dodging the question isn't lying. Regardless, 2019 was not 2020, so using an example from 2019 to disprove her statement about her beliefs in 2020 is misleading. By 2020, Harris had already backed away from the commitment to a fracking ban, even casting the tie-breaking vote to expand fracking leases then, so her statement that she "made herself very clear in 2020" is accurate.

Verdict: Not a lie.

13. Minnesota Rioters Bail Fund

Harris did indeed promote the Minnesota Freedom Fund in a June 1, 2020 tweet. However, at that point, they were a very small organization that had only been in operation for 4 years, having helped a total of ~500 people in that time. The aftermath of the George Floyd protests (and, in part, Harris's tweet) caused them to expand massively and seems to have changed their policies, such that they started providing bail for more dangerous/violent criminals. So, it's a bit misleading to suggest that she promoted an organization that was putting violent criminals back on the streets when - at the time that she promoted it - they were not.

Verdict: Not a lie

14. Trump's Role in J6

Trump did make the "peacefully and patriotically" statement, but he also said that his supporters needed to "fight like [heck] or [they wouldn't] have a country anymore" in the same speech. And that's before getting into the repeated lies that he told leading up to that day about the election being stolen or fraudulent. There is a pretty strong argument to be made that Trump at least had some role in inciting the J6 riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

15. J6 Deaths

I believe that the final cause of death for Officer Sicknick was a stroke. While technically "natural causes," it can be reasonably deduced that the stroke was related to the injuries he sustained on January 6th. Additionally, 4 further officers died of suicide in the immediate aftermath. Harris specifically said that these five officers died "as a result of" the January 6th riot - in that their deaths were related to it and they would likely still be alive had it not occurred. The Federalist tries to debunk her words by deliberately misinterpreting them to mean that they were directly killed during the riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

16. "Fine People" Hoax

Yep, Trump walked that one back and clarified, but it took a while, and he did say it.

Verdict: Mostly true.

17. "Bloodbath" Hoax

Again, he said it. Maybe he didn't mean it in the way that Harris puts it, or maybe he did. As we're not mind readers, it becomes a matter of opinion.

Verdict: Mostly true.

18. Trump's NATO Comments

Technically, the Federalist is correct here - the comments that Harris refers to were about NATO members, not Ukraine. However, those comments reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about how NATO works - the defense spending targets are not binding obligations, and there are no penalties for not meeting them. If Trump wants there to be penalties, that's fine, but he needs to push for an amendment to the NATO charter to that effect - he can't just declare it unilaterally. Furthermore, his many other statements on Ukraine and Russia, as well as his evasiveness when asked directly about his preferred outcome of the current war, reveal his attitude on the conflict.

Verdict: Lie, but the Federalist misses the point.

19. Autocrats' Preferences for President

The reasons for Putin's "endorsement" of Harris have been discussed on this site already. Also, Viktor Orban is (arguably) an autocrat, and Trump specifically touted Orban's praise of him during the debate. He's also fond of pointing out his close relationships with Putin and Kim.

Verdict: Not a lie

20. Combat Zones

Harris was splitting hairs here. I'll call it a lie.

Verdict: Lie

21. Blaming Trump for Biden's Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

Both parties bear some blame on this one. Trump negotiated a pretty bad deal (including releasing 5000 Taliban fighters), and Biden then rushed the process.

Verdict: Half true

22. Gun Confiscation

Harris did support a mandatory buyback program for "assault weapons" in 2019, but more recently, she's amended that to say that she supports an assault weapons ban, but without a mandatory buyback program.

Verdict: Half true

23. Trump's Foreign Policy Record

This is just opinion.

Verdict: Not a lie

24. Defunding the Police

“reimagin[ing]” policing and “redirect[ing] resources” from police toward what the outlet described as “other areas of government [such as] schools and small businesses.” does not sound like "defund the police" to me.

Verdict: Not a lie

25. IVF

While Trump himself may not be opposed to IVF, the abortion bans that he enabled (AKA "Donald Trump's abortion bans") have not been so discerning. The issues in Arkansas have bene well-publicized.

Verdict: Not a lie.

So, final counts are 3 lies, 7 partial truths, and 15 things that weren't actually lies. Not a strong showing from The Federalist, I gotta say.

Debates do not provide the platform for each candidate to fully detail a persons position ... just like "sound bites" ... and really that's all debates are ... a bunch of sound bites. You can't determine truth or lies on sound bites.

We do have a comparison ... were things better under Trump or under Biden? (rhetorical question)

 

[iluvatar5150]

We do have a comparison ... were things better under Trump or under Biden? (rhetorical question)

That's not a valid comparison, because the administrations had different starting conditions.

The better comparison is how much did things improve under each one and how did they handle events that occurred.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Debates do not provide the platform for each candidate to fully detail a persons position ... just like "sound bites" ... and really that's all debates are ... a bunch of sound bites. You can't determine truth or lies on sound bites.

Determining whether or not a statement is true or false does not require a detailed policy position. The problem comes when people try to assign truth to opinions (as I noted in relation to several of the claimed "lies"). A statement like "my plan will benefit people" can't be called a lie because there is no factual content to it - it's simply an opinion about the outcome of the plan.

You'll note that I didn't say that most of the contested statements were true, just that they weren't lies.

We do have a comparison ... were things better under Trump or under Biden? (rhetorical question)

This isn't about comparison. The purpose of this thread is the discussion of Harris's (supposed) lies during the debate.

 

[RileyG]

Politicians lie?

Color me shocked.

Great post, by the way.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Politicians lie?

Color me shocked.

What you may find more shocking is that some of them don't lie quite as much as certain people would have you believe.

If "politicians lie" is truly all you got out of my post, I invite you to read it again.

 

[RileyG]

What you may find more shocking is that some of them don't lie quite as much as certain people would have you believe.

If "politicians lie" is truly all you got out of my post, I invite you to read it again.

That is true.

Sorry if I sounded harsh.

Still appreciate this informative post.

Take care

 

[RocksInMyHead]

That is true.

Sorry if I sounded harsh.

You don't come off as harsh - it just seems like you're deliberately ignoring and/or misinterpreting the point of my post.

 

[probinson]

I'm not quite sure you understand the point of your post.

You posted a "fact-check" from The Federalist. In that fact-check, they are clearly biased against Harris. So you "fact-checked" their "fact-check", in which you were clearly biased for Harris. The result is that you both offered opinions and analysis consistent with your biases. But in no way did either of you provide incontrovertible "facts".

It doesn't take paragraphs of analysis and opinions to provide "facts". Water is made up of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. That's a fact. All the rest of this is just political commentary masquerading as "facts".

 

[Fantine]

I found the Federalist fact check post very helpful. The Federalist has earned its reputation for bias.

During the debate, I saw one candidate whose non-stop lies were so outrageous and egregious I felt as if my head would explode if I tried to process any more.

Because the Federalist favored this candidate, they ploughed through the other candidate's words, hoping to find the slightest nuance they could use on a lie list.

Rocks in My Head's source dud a great job analyzing the nuances.

But it shouldn't be necessary. When one candidate makes you feel like your head will explode if you are subjected to any more lies, you know the difference.

 

[probinson]

I found the Federalist fact check post very helpful.

Of course you did, because you are biased for Harris.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I'm not quite sure you understand the point of your post.

You posted a "fact-check" from The Federalist. In that fact-check, they are clearly biased against Harris. So you "fact-checked" their "fact-check", in which you were clearly biased for Harris. The result is that you both offered opinions and analysis consistent with your biases. But in no way did either of you provide incontrovertible "facts".

Did I claim to provide "incontrovertible facts"? No, I did not. The point of my post was to illustrate that this supposed "fact-check" was mostly an opinion piece. So yes, I provided opinions to counter their opinions.

It doesn't take paragraphs of analysis and opinions to provide "facts". Water is made up of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. That's a fact.

I'm going to be a bit pedantic here, but we only know that's a fact because researchers provided paragraphs (and entire papers) worth of analysis and data to support it. At some point, the facts have to be established as factual, and they're generally not self-evident. If I handed you a drop of water, there is no way you could tell me what it was made of without already knowing.

 

[probinson]

Did I claim to provide "incontrovertible facts"? No, I did not. The point of my post was to illustrate that this supposed "fact-check" was mostly an opinion piece. So yes, I provided opinions to counter their opinions.

Right. And in doing so, you demonstrated that the vast majority of political "fact-checking" is just varying opinions and viewpoints.

 

[Fantine]

There are some lies that are so obvious it's like neon lights and sirens are going off.
Recognizing those lies doesn't mean we're biased. It means we have five working senses.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Right. And in doing so, you demonstrated that the vast majority of political "fact-checking" is just varying opinions and viewpoints.

I'm not sure how one person's analysis of one specific "fact-check" article could possibly demonstrate this (true or not).

Regardless, the point of this post was not that fact-checking is bunk, but rather that claims that Harris "lied incessantly" during the debate were untrue. She definitely told a couple whoppers and stretched the truth a few times, but most of her statements called out as "lies" were simply differences of opinion.

 

[probinson]

At some point, the facts have to be established as factual, and they're generally not self-evident.

Fair enough.

However, when we're talking about political fact-checking what someone said, it's almost never 100% objective. For example, when Harris mentioned that Trump said there would be a "bloodbath" if he lost, I knew she was lying. Trump did say there would be a bloodbath, but he was speaking in the context not of literal bloodshed, but of a figurative bloodbath for US auto makers. So did Harris lie when she said Trump said there would be a bloodbath? Not technically. It is a "fact" that Trump said the word "bloodbath", but it was intentionally misleading.

The problem with "fact-checkers" is that they artificially assign their opinions and analyses a greater importance than other opinions and analyses. It really takes some chutzpah to believe that you are the one with the absolute truth. I can see why "fact-checker" is such a seductive term. It certainly stokes one's ego to believe that everyone has to check in with you to find out whether something is true or false.