“Eating the Pets” and Project 2025: Fact check on the presidential debate | US elections 2024

Donald Trump repeatedly made false and misleading claims during his debate with Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on Tuesday, including about immigrants “eating the pets” and his connection to Project 2025.

At the first debate of this presidential election cycle in June – when Joe Biden was still the Democratic Party nominee – the moderators took a completely hands-off approach to fact-checking. The light moderation meant that lies and half-truths, most often from Trump, went unchallenged during the prime-time debate.

Here are the facts about some of the false claims made during Tuesday’s debate.

Trump makes false claims about immigration

Donald Trump has made a number of false claims about immigration, including that immigrants are “taking over the cities… They’re coming in by force.”

The facts: This is wrong. While some American cities are seeing an influx of immigrants, most of them have entered legally, with work permits or residency permits while their cases are being heard in court.

There has been no widespread violence in these cities, and overall, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens, according to several comprehensive studies, including one by the conservative Cato Institute.

Trump claims immigrants are ‘eating pets’ in Ohio town

Trump repeated the unsubstantiated claim that immigrants were eating pets in an Ohio town, whereupon the moderator told him that there was no evidence for this.

“In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people who came here, they eat the cats … they eat the pets of the people who live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country, and it’s a disgrace,” the former president said.

The story of migrants allegedly eating pets has been circulating in right-wing media in recent days and was repeated by Trump’s vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

The factS: These are false and unfounded claims.

“You mention Springfield, Ohio, and ABC News reached out to the city manager there. He told us there were no credible reports of specific allegations that pets belonging to individuals in the immigrant community had been injured or mistreated,” moderator David Muir told Trump.

The Springfield News-Sun reported Monday that police “have not received any reports of pets being stolen or eaten.”

Trump and Harris argue about the “best” or “worst” economy

Trump boasted that the US had experienced its “best” economy under his administration, while Harris noted that he had left the US with “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.”

The factS: They are both wrong – Trump by a large margin and Harris by a fraction.

Although unemployment rose to its highest level since the Great Depression immediately after the pandemic, it fell again when Trump left office.

Trump’s claim of the “best economy” has been the bane of fact-checkers since he was in office. “Best economy” is a very vague term – but by several measures, including GDP, unemployment and the trade deficit, the economy was far from its peak.

Here are some final numbers from his time in office, compiled by FactCheck.org:

• The economy lost 2.7 million jobs. The unemployment rate rose by 1.7 percentage points to 6.4%.

• Wages rose faster than inflation. The average weekly earnings of all employees rose by 8.4 percent, adjusted for inflation.

• Corporate profits after taxes rose and the stock market hit new records. The S&P 500 index rose 67.8 percent.

• The international trade deficit that Trump promised to reduce has increased. The US trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008, increasing by 36.3 percent from 2016.

• The number of people without health insurance has increased by three million.

• Public debt rose from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.

• Real estate prices rose by 27.5 percent and the home ownership rate increased by 2.1 percentage points to 65.8 percent.

Trump denies involvement in Project 2025

Trump denied knowledge of Project 2025, a 900-page plan to aggressively restructure nearly every aspect of the federal government.

Project 2025 proposes eliminating many federal appointees from the workforce and instead filling agencies with more political appointees who are consistent with and more committed to Trump’s policies.

The facts: Although Trump has repeatedly attempted to distance himself from the platform, which aims to curtail reproductive rights, as well as LGBTQ+ and voting rights, his political views are strongly aligned with Project 2025.

Rachel Leingang of the Guardian reported: “Trump knows the Heritage Foundation well and has spoken at its events, and (Kevin) Roberts, the head of Heritage, has previously said he and Trump have spoken several times. Project 2025’s authors and supporters include numerous former Trump administration officials.”