Fact Check: ABC Didn't Fact-Check Kamala, So We Did - 10 Harris Lies from the Debate
Vice President Kamala Harris lied many times during the presidential debate on Sept. 10.
However, as many now know, the ABC News moderators overseeing the contest did not fact-check Harris once, despite attempting to “fact-check” former President Donald Trump several times.
As it turns out, Harris lied on numerous occasions during the debate. Though ABC News was willing to let these lies go unchecked, The Western Journal is not.
Below are ten lies told by Vice President Harris during the debate.
1. Harris Claim: Both Harris and ABC News moderator Linsey Davis pushed back on Trump’s claim that some states’s abortion laws allow for the execution of born-alive babies.
Here’s what Harris and Trump said about abortion in the presidential debate: https://t.co/WasLUbiuzd pic.twitter.com/pecH7JhNTQ
— TIME (@TIME) September 11, 2024
Fact Check: In some states, there are documented cases of doctors withholding life-saving care from babies who survive abortions. Democrats in both the House and Senate have blocked attempts to mandate treatment for those babies.
These deaths, which Trump describes as tantamount to “execution,” have been documented. For example, a 2019 Minnesota Department of Health report documented three such cases in 2018 where infants who survived abortions were denied life-saving treatment and left to die, and those were only cases reported from Minnesota.
As Trump mentioned during the debate, there is a video of former Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam describing how born-alive abortions take place.
This is horrific.
Dem Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatrician himself, is defending born-alive abortions:
“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.”pic.twitter.com/3AxXlBhImQ
— Ronna McDaniel (@RonnaMcDaniel) January 30, 2019
2. Harris Claim: “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.”
‘Oh, that was just a silly little comment in a presidential debate’ 🧐 Does it really matter that Harris completely got her facts wrong (lied) about thousands of personnel who are ricking there lives for her country?
Harris – “As of today, there is not one member of the US… pic.twitter.com/uZNef8LL69
— Sarah Jensen (@sunbeamuk) September 16, 2024
Fact Check: In the above video, ABC News itself later fact-checked Harris on this claim. As reported by the New York Post, there are currently as many as 50,000 troops currently deployed in countries around the world who regularly receive “hostile fire” or “imminent danger pay.”
3. Harris Claim: When asked about how she changed her mind regarding a fracking ban, Harris said the following: “So my values have not changed … I made that very clear in 2020. I will not ban fracking.”
Fact Check: Harris’ “values” have changed on fracking. Though she now claims to not support a fracking ban, Harris was in favor of one during her 2020 campaign.
“I’m in favor of banning fracking.” – Kamala Harris on video. pic.twitter.com/698djLevUw
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 8, 2020
4. Harris Claim: “And then this business about taking everyone’s guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
This may be the most egregious lie in the history of presidential debates from Kamala Harris:
“We’re not taking anybody’s guns away!” pic.twitter.com/CGsjsvjNLJ
— NRA (@NRA) September 11, 2024
Fact Check: Despite claiming to not want to take “anybody’s guns away,” on Saturday — only a few days after the debate, Harris published the following post calling for a ban of so-called “assault weapons.”
Congress must renew the assault weapons ban. pic.twitter.com/S2GoeAbVpu
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 14, 2024
5. Harris Claim: After Trump claimed Harris was “big on defund the police,” the vice president responded, saying, “That’s not true.”
Fact Check: Harris did in fact praise the “defund the police” movement in a June 2020 radio interview. Harris agreed with the movement’s goal of directing a certain amount of police spending to other resources — such as education, housing and healthcare, as reported by CNN.
6. Harris Claim: “Let’s remember Charlottesville … and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side … Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath.”
Fact Check: Both the “very fine people” and “bloodbath” hoaxes have been debunked by several outlets on both the left and right. When Trump claimed there were very fine people on both sides of the Charlottesville protests, he was referring to those arguing over whether or not to tear down a statue of Robert E. Lee, as reported by Politifact.
Trump quickly added, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally.”
In regards to the “bloodbath” quote, the term “bloodbath” is used in economics to refer to a major economic crisis. Trump was talking about how automobile manufacturing would fair under President Biden when he used the term.
7. Harris Claim: “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.”
Fact Check: Project 2025 is a list of policy proposals put together by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. Trump has never been associated with the project in any way and has even distanced himself from it, as noted by Politico.
8. Harris Claim: Harris appeared to deny Trump’s claims that she supported a Minnesota bail fund for 2020 rioters, mouthing, “That’s not true.”
The #debate was an absolute joke on “fact checking”#Kamala DID call for “Defund the Police”
She DID crowd fund to bail out BLM rioters in Minnesota@megynkelly has the receipts
Spicer calls it like it is…ABC moderators lied on their “fact checking” & never checked Harris pic.twitter.com/WTAbsxKcVc
— Procession Out of Deception (@outofdeception) September 11, 2024
Fact Check: Harris did publish a tweet during the 2020 BLM riots calling for her supporters to “chip in” to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Those funds were directed towards posting bail for so-called protesters “on the ground in Minnesota,” as Harris herself noted.
Not just gaslighting but race-baiting to ensure more division & violence. Kamala Harris raised money to bail out violent Leftwing protesters in June. She wasn’t even asked about it at VP debate. It’s not hard to unequivocally condemn all political violence. pic.twitter.com/KglybhOtmN
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) January 7, 2021
9. Harris Claim: “Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century.”
Fact Check: Harris’s claim strongly implied that Trump was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and/or that he handled it worse than the Biden-Harris administration.
In truth, the pandemic originated in China. According to the Daily Wire, more Americans died from coronavirus under the Biden administration even though the latter administration began with access to COVID vaccines and a higher level of natural immunity among the American populace.
10. Harris Claim: “Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
Fact Check: The FBI found “scant evidence” that the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion was “an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result,” as reported by Reuters.
In terms of violence, only four deaths occurred during the incursion, as noted in this 2021 report. Two died of heart attacks, one died of a drug overdose, and one individual — Ashli Babbit — was shot by capitol police. All four were Trump supporters.
Although what constitutes an “attack on our democracy” can be subjective, most would likely describe the 9/11 attacks, a terror attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that claimed the lives of 2,977 people, as much worse.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
