US presidential debate: fact checkers give their verdicts

Last night saw the much-anticipated TV debate between US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, as the two went head-to-head before November’s election. 

The 90-minute session, described as “contentious” and “fiery”, covered issues ranging from the economy and immigration, to abortion, energy and foreign policy. 

In recent weeks we’ve seen a flurry of online misinformation relating to both candidates, and to US politics more broadly, and have written about those claims elsewhere. 

As a UK-based fact checking organisation, Full Fact generally focuses on checking claims made by or about UK politicians, but our fellow fact checkers covered several of the claims made in last night’s debate. We bring you a selection of these below.

‘Worst unemployment since the Great Depression’

During the debate, Ms Harris and Mr Trump clashed on issues around the US economy, and their records on tackling unemployment and job growth while in office.

Ms Harris said that: “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression”. This was a claim that was picked up by Full Fact’s AI tools, and other fact checking organisations have ruled that it is false.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate was 6.4% when Mr Trump left presidential office in January 2021.

But it was not higher than the level seen during the Great Depression. In fact, it was significantly below the level reached during the peak in the 1930s. 

At the height of the depression in 1933, 24.9% of the total workforce in the US were unemployed. 

This historic figure excluded farmers, who, while technically not counted among the jobless, often faced foreclosure and losing their lands due to drastic falls in farm commodity prices. 

The highest peak of unemployment in recent years was during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (reaching a rate of 14.8% in April of that year). Previously it had been in October 2009 when it hit 10% following the worldwide financial crash.

Unemployment under the administration of President Joe Biden was 4.2% in August, according to the most recent published monthly data. This figure also does not include farmers.

Will Trump tariff proposals cost the average US family $4,000?

Another economic claim made by Ms Harris was that a proposed policy by Mr Trump to introduce more tariffs on foreign goods would add thousands of dollars a year to a household’s costs.

During the debate she described it as “Trump’s sales tax”, adding it would be a “20% tax on everyday goods that you rely on to get through the month”.

“Economists have said that the Trump sales tax would actually result, for middle class families, in about $4,000 more a year,” she added.

Her comments refer to plans by Mr Trump to impose tariffs on imported goods. He has proposed a 60% tariff on goods imported from China, and has said Chinese cars reaching the US through Mexico should face tariffs of 100%.

The Republican candidate has also vowed to impose 100% tariffs on countries that move away from the US dollar.

During a campaign rally in August, Mr Trump said he would expand his policy stance on tariffs he had held during his former presidency, imposing up to 20% tariffs instead of the 10% he had previously proposed.

Fact checkers have looked at how accurate Ms Harris’s claim is (that tariffs would result in a $4,000 annual cost to middle class families), and found her estimate is at the top end of its projected impact.

Politifact previously found that the $4,000 figure, also cited by Ms Harris in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, was “on the high end” of independent estimates. 

US think tanks analysing the possible effect of proposed tariffs have projected they would have a knock on impact for American households from $1,800, up to $3,900 for middle income families.

‘Crime here is up and through the roof’

During the debate Mr Trump said: “All over the world crime is down. All over the world, except here. Crime here is up and through the roof.”

There are two main sources of crime statistics in the US. The first is FBI data, which is composed of crimes reported to law enforcement. The second is data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which is based on an annual survey of Americans which asks whether they have been the victim of certain types of crime in the last 12 months. 

Violent crime has fallen in the last year, according to the most recent data released by the FBI. Reports of murder decreased by 26.4%, rape decreased by 25.7%, robbery decreased by 17.8%, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5%. Reported property crime also decreased by 15.1%.

When ABC moderator David Muir pointed out that FBI data shows violent crime is coming down, Mr Trump called that a “fraud”.

Data from the BJS also shows that most types of violent and property crime have been in overall decline since the mid-1990s. 

Some forms of violent crime, specifically homicides, did increase in the US during the pandemic but, as other fact checkers and US media sources have pointed out, there has been a downward trend since then, in addition to the overall downward trend over recent decades. 

‘Migrant crime’

Mr Trump added: “We have a new form of crime called migrant crime, and it’s happening at levels that nobody thought possible.”

He went on to repeat a claim that crime in Venezuela has fallen because its criminals have been sent to the US. He also claimed that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are stealing and eating pets: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

US fact checkers say there is no evidence to support either of these claims. While crime in Venezuela appears to be falling, some of its statistics are considered unreliable, and it is not possible to support the claim that the fall is linked to migration to the US. The claims about pet eating have been widely debunked.