Opinion: Ranking Trump’s False Claims From The Debate

Lying in politics might not be new but no one predicted this

(Screenshot credit: ABC News)

September’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump hosted by ABC demonstrated the lies and deception inherent in politics to an impressive degree. While it can be hard to make an argument using facts without being at least slightly deceptive, deception and straight-up lying were overwhelmingly common during the 2024 Presidential Debate, and unsurprisingly, a large majority of it came from one candidate. According to a CNN report, while Harris gave at least one entirely false claim and a few other misleading statements, it paled in comparison to Trump’s whopping thirty false claims during the debate. With all of these false claims, on topics ranging from (mostly) immigration to the economy and abortion, it was only natural to rank ten of the worst false claims he gave during the debate.

P.S: The average grade level of each individual speech these claims are from are listed below them. Do with that info what you will.

10. “She’s a Marxist. Everybody knows she’s a Marxist. Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics, and he taught her well.”

    
    

Average Grade Level Score: 6.49 (according to PoliSciData)

Trump’s claim of Harris being a Marxist is yet another example of Trump name-calling. Her economic proposals are generally center-left, and turning the U.S. into a classless, moneyless society is not one of them. No matter how far off that label may be, Trump will continue to sling that label and plenty of others at her like a gorilla flinging a handful of fresh feces at a family. Just two days after stating this during the debate, at his campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona, Trump called her “comrade Kamala Harris,” immediately following that up with a barrage of zingers: “She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist.”

This isn’t new for him at all; Trump’s even given his strategy of “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist” straight to reporters.

In terms of Harris’ father, there is a tiny shred of truth to what he’s saying. Donald J. Harris, a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University, was described by the Stanford Daily in 1976 as a “Marxist Scholar” whose “excellence as a teacher attracted students to study his area of instruction.” Still true or not, the accuracy of the 48-year-old statement from the newspaper doesn’t matter here. Harris’s parents divorced when she was a child, and it’s clear he likely hasn’t influenced her much. He wasn’t there to see her speak at the Democratic National Convention, and she has seldom mentioned him, with her noting her mother’s influence much more often than his.

9. “If she won the election, the day after that election, they’ll go back to destroying our country, and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead. We’ll go back to windmills, and we’ll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 7.6

Very sadly, he’s not correct here.The insinuation that the U.S would be wasting valuable desert land by using renewable energy is a little perplexing; the U.S has four major deserts and California is 38% desert. A world where fossil fuels and oil have been entirely replaced by windmills and solar is dissapointingly not even remotely as achievable as he pretends.According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, under the Biden-Harris administration, U.S. oil production has pretty much only increased, with it hitting a record high last year. The U.S. has produced more crude oil than any other nation at any time for the past six years in a row.

Needless to say, while hopefully things improve, Trump’s imagination does not reflect reality when he says things like “oil will be dead.”

8. “People don’t go to her rallies, there’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 5.42

This is Trump completely falling for the bait Harris sets for him in the debate by talking about his rallies and people leaving them “early out of exhaustion and boredom,” as he immediately rambles about rally sizes as soon as she brings the topic up. As Barack Obama said at the Democratic National Convention, he’s got “this weird obsession with crowd sizes,” which quickly checks out after seeing the claim he made a month before the debate that Harris “AI’d” her obviously real crowd and filled it with non-existent people.

Arguably, Trump arguing about rallies was a pivotal moment of the debate, as he slowly devolved into more and more ranting after that point.

As soon as Harris brings it up, Trump starts to wax poetic about how “People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” For half of his time, he completely ignores the question about immigration and border security, a topic he constantly went to the rest of the debate, to instead rant, making his insecurity about his rally size clear.

The idea he brings up of Harris “busing” people in and “paying them to be there” actually likely stems from a Facebook post that was circulated on X and Trump’s Truth Social that shows a supposed craigslist ad offering payment for actors to hold up “Anti-Trump” signs at Harris rallies. This is actually edited from an already fake post that showed a supposed Craigslist ad paying actors to hold “pro-Trump” signs. His point comes out of a strange little misinformation circle of life, which he immediately resorts to when feeling attacked.

7. “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue [abortion] to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 6.8

This is simply a ridiculous claim, and you don’t have to look hard at all to debunk it.

The docket for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case where women’s right to abortion was overturned, has many briefs from legal scholars arguing against overturning the decades of legal precedent set by Roe v. Wade. 

What Trump claims here doesn’t just fall apart when it comes to legal scholars though; according to Pew Research, in 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court decision, 57% of adults disapproved of the court’s decision, with 82% of Democrats disapproving. According to a CNN poll conducted in April 2024, now even more people disapprove of the decision, with 65% of adults opposing the decision and 87% of Democrats opposing it. 

All in all, this is simply a very poor attempt by Trump to make it look like he and the Supreme Court Justices he appointed were simply giving the people what they want. The majority of people didn’t want the issue to be brought back to the states, and even fewer legal scholars did.

6. “We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 6.85

Here, Trump’s just stating something completely unfounded in order to play into his strong issue of immigration and his base’s very negative opinions on immigrants. There’s not any statistic that helps assert what he’s saying here in any substantial way, with most evidence pointing away from it. He’s implying that a massive portion of immigrants come straight from jail, but the world prison population has only continued to increase over time.

Right after saying this, he mentions Aurora, Colorado, saying “They’re taking over the towns, they’re taking over the buildings, they’re going in violently.” In this claim, he used the isolated reports of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s activity in Aurora to demonize immigrants. The gang hasn’t “taken over the city,” nor are they emblematic of a larger trend of immigrants coming from the “dungeons of the third world,” yet Trump has parroted that lie to the point Aurora’s mayor has stated that concerns are “grossly exaggerated” and that the city is “not by any means overtaken by Venezuelan gangs.”

While an incredibly stupid claim, it’s also a very good example of Trump giving his base exactly what they want to hear. In saying this, he’s not speaking to anyone that actually cares about things being even remotely correct, but someone who sees the presence of immigrants in the U.S. as the greatest sin. He’s appealing to the people who see crowds filled with people holding “mass deportation now” signs as a good thing. That idea is a good microcosm of what’s happening with what he’s saying here; beyond just being an unbelievably brain-dead idea, it’s also a symptom of the mass apathy and hate behind their immigration rhetoric.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

People holding “Mass Deportation Now!” signs at a Trump campaign event.

5. “I have nothing to do — as you know and as she knows better than anyone — I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there, I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposefully. I’m not going to read it.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 5.88

Technically, he’s not fully wrong, as he has never explicitly endorsed Project 2025 and has made attempts to distance himself from it. It’s also doubtful he’d lie about not having read it, as it’s nine hundred and twenty-two pages long and includes big words like “bureaucracy.” At the same time, his claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025 is very clearly untrue.

Project 2025 itself is a political initiative that was published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. It’s essentially a massive wish list for the next Republican presidency, it being a “presidential transition project” that is split into multiple parts, the most relevant being their “Mandate For Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” the over nine hundred page policy proposition document being mentioned.

“Mandate For Leadership” is actually a series that’s been put out by The Heritage Foundation every election cycle since 1981, with “2025” being the ninth iteration. In the middle of Trump’s presidency, The Heritage Foundation touted the fact that Trump had used 64% of their policy reccomendations. No matter how much Trump wants to make it sound like that won’t be the case again, it’s very clear that that pattern would continue with another Trump presidency. A review by CBS News found that at least 270 policy proposals in Project 2025 match with Trump’s past policies and current campaign promises, with 170 of those proposals matching ideas Trump’s campaign has published on their website or ideas Trump’s given himself in rally speeches and interviews.

Trump isn’t wrong about having “nothing to do” with Project 2025 just because their policy propositions closely match though; he might claim he has “no idea who is behind it,” but that’s blatantly untrue. Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, served in the Trump Administration as the chief of staff at the U.S Office of Personnel Management, being a top official in Trump’s White House. He’s not even close to the only person with strong Trump ties contributing to the project, with three of Trump’s cabinet members, Russ Vought, Ben Carson, and Christopher Miller writing chapters for “Mandate for Leadership.” Still, that’s only a tiny amount of the Project 2025 contributors with ties to Trump and his administration. CNN found that at least 140 people who worked in Trump’s administration contributed to Project 2025, with more than half of them being credited on “Mandate for Leadership.”

Even as he tries to distance himself from Project 2025, its fundamentals and the people who wrote them are undeniably deeply entrenched in Trump’s past presidency and his tries for a future one. His attempts to pretend he isn’t aware of it or its creators are just very flimsy strategic decisions as he tries to weasel his way back into office.

4. “I said, ‘I’d like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers.’ They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 4.77

This claim has been repeatedly debunked; it’s an attempt at taking an offhanded comment he made before Jan. 6 in order to make it look like he was trying to do something about the capital riots.

A Vanity Fair journalist was embedded with acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller in the period leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and they gave Miller’s testimony for a meeting with Trump on the evening of Jan. 5: The president, Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. “We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’” Miller responded. “And [Trump] goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bulls—. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’”

While Trump did technically throw out that number, he was giving a guess offhandedly as a result of his inflated ego when it comes to his ability to draw a crowd, instead of a direct order as he likes to pretend. 

While a sizable number of people were at the capitol, only a couple thousand entered, making the suggestion of 10,000 soldiers a very exaggerated response. Christopher Miller thought that as well, with the mentioned Vanity Fair journalist quoting: “The president’s sometimes hyperbolic, as you’ve noticed. There were gonna be a million people in the street, I think it was his expectation.”

Trump is trying to rewrite history to make it look like he’s not at fault for the violence he instigated, and he’s using a random exaggerated comment he made that was never taken seriously to do that. This is just one lie in a series of many repeated ones about Jan. 6 as Trump tries to downplay the events of his “day of love.”

3. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats… They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Average Grade Level Score: 5.42

Immediately after Harris insults his rallies, Trump incoherently spouts his immigration rhetoric through an internet conspiracy on Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian immigrants.

The social media hoax started with baseless claims on a local Facebook group accusing Haitians of eating cats and geese (one of these claims was attributed to the friend of a neighbor’s daughter, naturally), with the claims quickly spreading to other social media sites, eventually becoming a mainstay in recent right-wing lore.

Plenty of others have taken to amplifying the claims as well, like Elon Musk or the official House Judiciary GOP X account, with the latter doing so by sharing an AI-generated image of Trump hugging a kitten and a duck.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has also taken part in perpetuating the conspiracy, with him doubling down on it during an interview with CNN. During CNN’s “State of the Union,” Vance stated “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” 

In saying that, Vance is saying the quiet part out loud with “creating stories,” as this article should hopefully make clear.

While to Vance, these “cat memes” might be funny (and admittedly Trump babbling about something obviously untrue is definitely funny), the relentless onslaught of hate and lies about eating animals hurts real people.

Ohio’s leadership have had to repeatedly debunk these claims, with Gov. Mike DeWine writing “I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”

Sadly, hammering in racist lies about legal immigrants and creating a problem that never existed helps Trump’s case when it comes to his immigration rhetoric. For him, Vance, and the plenty of others that talk like the claims are fact, lying about something sensational to make your case has more appeal than regard for the American people.

2. “And you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, is doing an excellent job. But the governor before he said, the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, will execute the baby. And that’s why I did that, because that predominates, because they’re radical.”

3. “Her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says, ‘execution after birth’ — execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born — is okay.”

   
   

Average Grade Level Score: 9.23 and 7.23

No, executing a baby is not legal in any state nor is it a radical left-wing policy proposition. 

The first lie he gives as to baby execution stems from misconceptions around statements from former Virginia (not West Virginia) Gov. Ralph Northam that were given on a radio station. He was asked about the bill HB 2491, which advocates for eliminating certain abortion requirements, and responded by stating that late abortions would only ever occur in rare cases. The misconceptions come from what he added about what would be done in the case a woman with a nonviable fetus went into labor, where he stated “the infant would be kept comfortable” and “then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” Northam is talking about cases where the baby is born but not expected to live very long due to a fetal diagnosis. The bill never became law, and Trump using “the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby” to say that Northam is an advocate for killing a baby is very obviously a gargantuan stretch of the truth. 

As for the other lie Trump gives on the topic, it’s a lot closer to a complete fabrication. VP pick Tim Walz has never stated abortion in the ninth month is “absolutely fine,” and he similarly has never advocated for infanticide as Trump claims he has. 

Trump is trying to exaggerate the prevalence of late abortions here, pushing the “baby-killer” rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement all the way to fabricating stories about executing newborns. Late abortions themselves are already extremely rare; according to the CDC, in 2021, 94% of abortions occurred before 13 weeks of pregnancy, and 0.9% occurred after 21 weeks.

The debate isn’t the first time Trump has pushed this same idea of ‘post-birth abortion,’ with him previously having stated fictions like “in six states, you’re allowed to kill the baby after the baby is born.” The falsehoods Trump and the anti-abortion movement parrot are incredible examples of attempts to paint Democrats as radical when it comes to abortion. It should be beyond incredibly obvious that, no, it is not legal to euthanize a newborn because you were late to the party on getting an abortion. Yet, making democrats appear as literal baby killers helps their case no matter how fantastical it is, as it manufactures a tragedy that turns attention away from the real-world effects of  Roe v. Wade being overturned.

That same pattern of Trump and his allies misleading and distracting people from the realities of these situations is becoming clearer with every new word out of his mouth. The more Trump and his base circulate these ideas, the more destructive and apparent the real-world consequences are. His performance at the Presidential Debate demonstrated that to him, it’s more about making things up for his gain than real policy, change, or discussion.