Fact Check Kamala Harris’ ‘Closing Argument Speech’

Louis Jacobson, Samantha Putterman and Amy Sherman
| PolitiFact.com

WASHINGTON — In a speech from the Ellipse adjacent to the White House, a week after Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris drew a stark contrast to former President Donald Trump, calling him a “petty tyrant” and repeating a line she has used in recent days, that she would not begin her presidency with an enemies list, but with a to-do list.

Harris spoke at the site where Trump held his “Save America” rally ahead of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. During the Oct. 29 speech, Harris said Trump had been “at this very place … and sent an armed mob into the United States: s Capitol to overthrow the will of the people in a free and fair election.”

In the first half of her speech, Harris focused on the risks she believes Trump poses to the country. Later she turned to politics and singled out parts of her agenda on taxes, abortion and immigration with the Trumps.

“Politicians need to stop treating immigration as an issue to drum up votes in an election,” she said, “and instead treat it as the serious challenge it is.”

Harris campaign said attendance was 75,000, which would be the largest crowd of her campaign.

The House Select Committee that investigated the events of January 6, 2021, said the “Save America” rally drew 53,000 people. About two hours before Harris began speaking, lines of supporters wound around fences near the Ellipse site, ran for blocks and reached well into the National Mall. Campaign volunteers worked the lines to register participants for an app that lets them search for other voters.

Here’s a fact-checked recap of six notable moments.

“He says one of his top priorities is to free the violent extremists who insulted these police officers on January 6.”

Harris exactly said 140 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack on January 6, 2021. Trump has repeatedly called those charged in the attack “hostages” or “warriors” and vowed to forgive those who stormed the Capitol. In September 2022, two months before announcing his campaign, Trump told a conservative radio talk show host Wendy Bell that he had met some of the accused on January 6. “I will look very favorably on full pardon,” he said, adding, “I mean full pardon, with an apology to many.” March Truth Social Post, he promised that one of his “first acts” as president would be to “free the January 6 hostages who were wrongfully imprisoned!” And he told Time magazine in April that he would “consider“forgive each and every one of them.

More than 1,500 defendants have been charged in the storming of the Capitol, Justice Department records show. About 571 were charged with assaulting, resisting or obstructing police officers or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disturbance, including approximately 164 defendants charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

“Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People, he calls, quote, ‘the enemy within.'”

Trump has repeatedly spoken about “enemy within” in his October speeches and interviews.

Trump said Fox News Howard Kurtz on Oct. 20 that Reps. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, both D-Calif., are “the enemy from within.” But Trump is often vague when he uses this phrase. Trump says that the “enemy from within” is a “bigger enemy” than foreign enemies, such as China or Russia.

He sometimes uses the expression shortly after talking about President Joe Biden or Harris, as he did Oct. 27 at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York City.

“We’re running against something much bigger than Joe or Kamala and much more powerful than them, which is a massive, evil, crooked, radical left-wing machine that runs today’s Democratic Party. They’re just vessels. In fact, they’re perfect vessels, because they will never do what they want, only this amorphous group defeats them.

“And when I say ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy … ‘How can he say that now they’ve done very bad things to this country?’ They are indeed the enemy from within, but that is who we are fighting.”

The 13th of October Fox NewsMaria Bartiromo asked Trump about the possibility of election day chaos. Trump warned of “very bad people,” “radical left-wing lunatics” who should be dealt with if “necessary” by the National Guard or the military.

Trump would “ban abortion nationwide, limit access to birth control and put IVF treatments at risk and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies. Just Google Project 2025 and read the plans for yourself.”

This is misleading.

Since April, Trump has consistently said abortion legislation should be left to the states. He has said he would not sign a national abortion ban. As president, however, Trump supported a 20-week national abortion ban. Early in his 2024 presidential campaign, he backed a 15- or 16-week federal abortion ban, news outlets reported. Trump said in one May interview that he was “looking into” birth control restrictions, but he quickly sought to clarify his words, writes about Truth Social that “I have never and never will advocate for restrictions on contraception.” Trump has voiced support for in vitro fertilization during the 2024 campaign amid Democratic criticism that Republicans want to limit or eliminate the practice.

In April, he released one video where he said he supports making it “easier” for families to have children, not harder. “That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments, like IVF, in every state in America,” Trump said. He has also recently suggested that the government should cover IVF costs or require insurance companies to do so. He has not said how he would do this.

Nothing in Trump’s Agenda 47 requires states to monitor women’s pregnancies. Instead, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page conservative policy manual for the next Republican administration, proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report more detailed information on how many abortions take place in their states, as well as other miscarriage and stillbirth statistics to the federal government. The project does not require monitoring of all pregnancies.

Trump would pay for his tax plan with “20% national sales tax on everything you buy that is imported… A Trump sales tax that would cost the average family nearly $4,000 more a year.”

Half true.

Trump has discussed raising tariffs across the board by 10% to 20%, so the 20% figure Harris cited is on the high end of what Trump has said. Tariffs are also not technically part of the tax code, but their effect on consumers would be similar by costing them more money.

The $4,000 cited by Harris is at the high end of independent estimates. Two estimates we found broadly supports Harris’ $4,000 figure. Two others show a smaller—but still significant—effect, in the $1,700 to $2,600 range.

“You’ll pay even more if Donald Trump finally gets his way and repeals the Affordable Care Act, which would throw millions of Americans off their health insurance. And take us back to when insurance companies have the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions.”

Half true.

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and as president he supported failed efforts by congressional Republicans to achieve this.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump’s position has wavered. At times he has said that he wants to replace the law with a “alternative.” But in March, he wrote on Truth Social that he is “not running to repeal” the law and instead wants to make it “better” and “cheaper”.

During the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Harris in Philadelphia, Trump said he has “concepts of a plan” to replace the law, but he would “run it as well as it can be run” before launching his own plan without giving further details.

More than 1,500 doctors released a letter On Oct. 17, Trump called for details on how he would change the health care law, saying voters need the explanation to make an informed decision.

Trump “tried to cut Medicare and Social Security every year he was president.”

This needs context.

On Medicare, Trump released four consecutive annual budgets that proposed cuts to Medicare. However, experts are divided on how much these cuts would have hurt beneficiaries had they been enacted. Many were technical changes that had bipartisan support and would have been more likely to harm providers than patients.

On Social Security, Trump submitted budget proposals which included cuts to Social Security. These were never implementeddue to opposition in Congress.

However, Harris glosses over what those cuts meant. The proposed cuts were focused on two parts of the program — Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income — not the more widely used old-age and survivor benefits.

Social Security disability insurance benefits people with physical and mental conditions severe enough to permanently prevent them from working. Supplemental Security Income payments are limited to low-income Americans – older adults or adults or children who are disabled or blind.

Although these cuts would have affected close 10 million Americans, the pool of people receiving old age and survivor benefits is almost seven times as large.

Trump has promised 2024 not to cut any of the programs.

Shopmaisonbouey

Fact Check Kamala Harris’ ‘Closing Argument Speech’

Kaneb

Kaneb

Related Posts