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Both presidential candidates appeared on Fox News on Oct. 16 — former President Donald Trump in a town hall with women voters in Georgia and Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with Bret Baier. We fact-checked their remarks, and we found:
- Trump inflated the U.S. troop presence in South Korea and falsely claimed that as president “I made them [South Korea] pay” the cost of those troops and that because of President Joe Biden, “they don’t pay anymore.” Trump’s negotiations over cost-sharing stalled in 2020, and Biden has negotiated two deals that have increased South Korea’s contribution.
- Harris said that “under Donald Trump’s administration,” gender-affirming surgeries “were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system.” A Federal Bureau of Prisons memo indicated it would be legally obligated to pay for such surgeries, but no federal prisoners received gender-affirming surgery during Trump’s presidency.
- There’s no evidence that “the top people” at the Federal Emergency Management Agency “confiscated” Starlink satellite systems during Hurricane Helene recovery “because they didn’t want it to go there,” as Trump claimed. In fact, FEMA itself provided Starlink systems.
- Harris left the misleading impression that Trump would only “give tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations.” His proposals would cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations, but they would also benefit most other taxpayers.
- Trump grossly inflated the number of immigration court judges and falsely claimed: “No other country has judges at the border. If somebody walks in, they walk them out.” Many other countries accept refugees and allow them to stay in the country pending an asylum hearing in court, as is done in the U.S.
- Harris cited several economic analyses, claiming they said her plans would “strengthen” the economy, while Trump’s plans “would ignite inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year.” The analyses were favorable to Harris, but only one of the four projected a recession under Trump.
- Trump falsely claimed that “13,099 murderers were released into our country” under the Biden administration. That’s the number of noncitizens convicted of murder who were not being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the vast majority entered before Biden took office. Many are in prison.
- Harris said that as president, she will “follow the law” when it comes to allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for a driver’s license, to qualify for free tuition at universities or to be enrolled in free health care. But she has supported those positions in the past.
- Trump got several things wrong about the Haitian immigrant population in Springfield, Ohio, inflating the number of immigrants, falsely saying they were in the country illegally and claiming they were “dropped” in the city.
- Trump again referred to a chart that he says shows “the day I left office” had the “fewest number of people” illegally attempting to cross into the U.S. The arrow in the mislabeled chart actually points to April 2020, when apprehensions plummeted during the height of the pandemic.
- The former president left the false impression that he “finished off” the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or IS, in a matter of weeks.
Trump also repeated many claims he has made before. He falsely said “every legal scholar” wanted to end Roe v. Wade, greatly inflated the scope of illegal immigration at the southern border, falsely claimed Harris had been appointed the “border czar,” wrongly said the U.S. had “the greatest economy” ever during his term, misled about U.S. energy production, made false claims about inflation, and exaggerated the amount of border wall built during his administration.
False Claims About U.S. Troops in South Korea
“South Korea, we have 42,000 soldiers there,” Trump said. “They don’t pay. I made them pay. Everyone raised hell. And Biden took the deal and he said they don’t pay anymore.”
According to the latest Department of Defense data, there were 23,732 “soldiers” stationed in South Korea as of June 30 (about 1,700 fewer than in the last month of the Trump administration). An additional 3,073 civilians employed by the military were also working in South Korea. But even including them, Trump’s estimate of the troop presence in South Korea is significantly inflated.
As for the claim that as president, “I made them pay,” but that because of Biden, “they don’t pay anymore,” that’s all hogwash. As we wrote in February 2023, Trump, when he was president, regularly complained about the amount of money South Korea pays the U.S. to maintain American military bases there. The year he took office, 2017, South Korea paid about $830 million in the last year of a five-year agreement. In 2019, the Trump administration secured a one-year deal that increased South Korea’s payment by about 8.3%. The following year, Trump sought billions of dollars more from South Korea in a new deal. But negotiations stalled, and an agreement was never reached.
Soon after being elected, Biden inked a new five-year deal in which South Korea agreed to increase its cost-sharing payment by 13.9% in 2021. In subsequent years of the deal, South Korea agreed to increase its contribution at a rate tied to increases in its defense budget. Earlier this month, the Biden administration reached a new five-year cost-sharing agreement, from 2026 to 2030, that will increase South Korea’s payment in 2026 by 8.3% over the cost in 2025.
Gender-Affirming Surgery for Federal Prisoners
The Trump campaign has recently run an advertisement saying that “Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners.” Fox News played part of the ad before asking Harris, “So, are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?”
Harris responded by claiming that Trump’s policy on this topic, when he was in office, “was no different” than her own.
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “You’re probably familiar with — now it’s a public report — that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system. And I think frankly that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house.”
As we’ve written previously, the government is obligated under the Constitution to provide necessary medical care for prisoners. A series of legal rulings — both at the state and federal level — have found in favor of inmates seeking gender-affirming surgery. Any attempt by either Trump or Harris to bar transgender inmates from receiving medically necessary gender-affirming care would likely be challenged in court.
However, Harris’ response is missing the context that the first surgery for a federal inmate took place in 2022. Also, in 2019, Harris expressed support in a candidate questionnaire for “medically necessary” gender-affirming care, including surgical care, for federal prisoners and detainees. She had not detailed her position in this campaign before saying in the Fox News interview that she “will follow the law.”
In talking about a public report, Harris appears to be referring to a New York Times article published the same day as the Fox News interview. The article points out that federal inmates received gender-affirming hormone therapy during the Trump administration.
The article also says that a 2018 Federal Bureau of Prisons budget memo indicates that the agency considered the government “obligated to pay for a prisoner’s ‘surgery’ if it was deemed medically necessary.” In a section on health care “challenges,” the memo says that medical care for transgender inmates “may include pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., cross-gender hormone therapy), hair removal and surgery (if individualized assessment indicates surgical intervention is applicable).”
The BOP issued this memo during a time when prisoners seeking gender-affirming surgery had already had legal victories. The first gender-affirming surgery for a prisoner took place in early January 2017 in California, followed by some other surgeries for transgender state inmates.
Later that month, in the final days of the Obama administration, the BOP issued a Transgender Offender Manual, meant to “provide guidance to staff in dealing with the unique issues that arise when working with transgender inmates.” The manual did not specifically mention gender-affirming surgery but did state that hormone therapy “or other medical treatment may be provided after an individualized assessment of the requested inmate by institution medical staff.”
The BOP under the Trump administration went on to edit the manual, mainly to roll back certain recommendations on housing of transgender inmates. It largely left alone the short section on medical care, although it added the word “necessary” to the phrase “medical treatment” when referring to the possibility of supplying hormone therapy and other “necessary medical treatment.”
Meanwhile, the BOP continued to resist requests for gender-affirming surgery. In 2019, a transgender federal inmate named Cristina Nichole Iglesias filed suit against the BOP for denying her gender-affirming care. A December 2021 court ruling found that the BOP had to have Iglesias evaluated for gender-affirming surgery, which she received in 2023. Another federal transgender inmate who had sued BOP had received surgery in 2022.
The BOP under the Biden-Harris administration in January 2022 reissued the Transgender Offender Manual, with an added section on surgery for transgender prisoners. “For transgender inmates in Bureau custody, surgery may be the final stage in the transition process and is generally considered only after one year of clear conduct and compliance with mental health, medical, and programming services at the gender affirming facility,” the manual said.
However, since Iglesias’ 2023 surgery, it does not appear that more transgender federal inmates have received gender-affirming surgery. The BOP told us Sept. 25 that to date, only two transgender federal prisoners had received gender-affirming surgeries.
No Evidence Starlink ‘Confiscated’ by FEMA
Echoing debunked claims made on social media, Trump said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had blocked the delivery of Starlink internet satellite systems during Hurricane Helene recovery and “confiscated” them. In fact, FEMA provided Starlink systems to aid in emergency responder communications, and the agency said rumors about FEMA stopping or confiscating donations “are all false.”
Trump said that he called Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company owns and operates Starlink, at the request of someone in North Carolina and asked Musk to send Starlink systems. “He had it to them in minutes, literally before I hung up the phone,” Trump said. “I was called while I was talking to him that they — that he just approved it. … They actually — when Elon had these Starlinks and they desperately needed — they had no communication. They’re almost like an island unto themselves. They come in. And they were confiscated by FEMA by basically the top people, because they didn’t want it to go there. And then all hell broke loose, and they got the Starlink.”
There’s no evidence that FEMA “confiscated” Starlink systems or that the “top people” didn’t want it in North Carolina. FEMA itself had provided Starlink systems to the state. On Sept. 30, in a press release about Hurricane Helene relief efforts, FEMA said that 40 Starlink systems were available in North Carolina “to help with responder communications,” and another 140 satellites were on the way “to assist with communications infrastructure restoration.”
According to an Oct. 1 tweet from Musk, Trump did contact him, alerting him to “additional people who need Starlink Internet in North Carolina. We are sending them terminals right away.”
The next day, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump posted on social media that she had visited North Carolina with a relief group that had “delivered and set up over 300 Starlinks donated by SpaceX.”
The company says it will provide free service until the end of this year for those with a Starlink kit who had been affected by Hurricane Helene or Milton.
On Oct. 4, Musk posted on X twice, saying that a SpaceX engineer claimed “FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally” and that another person claimed the Federal Aviation Administration was “throttling flights.” Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg himself responded on X the same day: “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”
A few hours later, Musk posted: “Thanks for helping simplify the FAA NOTAM. Support flights are now underway. Much appreciated.”
In an interview on MSNBC on Oct. 6, Buttigieg said, “What was actually happening was the FAA was not closing down any airspace, but there was an issue with pilots who were helping get Starlink equipment to where it needed to be, having the right information. We worked that with local authorities, and we were able to take care of it. And you know, I think to me, it’s an example of how often the best thing to do is just to pick up the phone.”
As we’ve written, during natural disasters, the FAA temporarily restricts airspace over affected areas at the request of local authorities to allow rescue and relief operations to occur safely. That’s standard procedure. For example, the FAA issued such Temporary Flight Restrictions during relief efforts for Hurricane Laura in 2020, when Trump was in office.
“The FAA is not restricting access for recovery operations,” the administration said in a statement provided to FactCheck.org. “The FAA is coordinating closely with state and local officials to make sure everyone is operating safely in very crowded and congested airspace.”
On a “rumor response” webpage, FEMA said it doesn’t handle donations — volunteer groups do. “FEMA does not take donations and/or food from survivors or voluntary organizations. Donations of food, water, or other goods are handled by voluntary agencies who specialize in storing, sorting, cleaning, and distributing donated items,” it said.
Harris Misleads on Trump’s Tax Cut Plans
Harris once again left the misleading impression that Trump would only cut taxes for billionaires and big corporations.
“His plan would be again to give tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations in our country and blow up our deficit,” Harris said.
Trump’s proposals would cut taxes for wealthy taxpayers and corporations and significantly increase budget deficits. But they would also benefit most other taxpayers, too.
Trump proposes extending all the income and corporate tax cuts included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed in December 2017. Many of the tax cuts, including the individual income tax cuts, will expire after 2025.
Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, wrote in July that extending all of the TCJA’s expiring tax provisions would cost an estimated $4 trillion over 10 years, and most of the benefits (about 55%) would go to those making about $450,000 or less. (Harris’ tax proposals also call for extending the individual income tax cuts in the TCJA but only for households with annual incomes of $400,000 or less, as part of a more targeted tax cut plan for low- and middle-income families, including increasing the child tax credit to $6,000 and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.)
Trump has also proposed cutting the corporate income tax rate even further — from 21% to 15% — for companies that manufacture their products in the United States. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the proposal would result in a revenue loss of about $200 billion over 10 years.
In addition to extending the TCJA tax cuts, Trump’s other tax plans, such as eliminating taxes on Social Security and tips, would benefit some middle-income families.
According to a Tax Policy Center analysis, eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits would result in an average tax cut of about $630 for about 28% of middle-income families. The Penn Wharton Budget Model projects that eliminating taxes on Social Security would cost $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
Harris has also proposed exempting tips from federal income taxes. TPC estimated that only 2% of U.S. households would benefit from exempting tipped income from federal income taxes, and it would cost $6.5 billion in 2025 (or $3.2 billion if the exemption is limited to those earning $75,000 or less).
PWBM determined that Harris’ tax and spending plans would increase cumulative deficits by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $2 trillion on a dynamic basis. (Dynamic forecasts take into account the policies’ expected effects on economic activity.) PWBM’s analysis of Trump’s tax and spending plans concluded that his would cause much larger deficits.
“We estimate that the Trump Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $4.1 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes economic feedback effects,” the analysis stated.
Trump’s Bogus Border Claim
Speaking about the border, Trump falsely claimed, “You got to see the court systems. We have thousands of judges at the border. No other country has judges at the border. If somebody walks in, they walk them out.”
That’s wrong on two counts. First, there are 725 immigration judges, not “thousands.” Second, lots of other countries have asylum processes in which immigrants remain in country until their cases are completed.
“Other countries have a similar system to us,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us in a phone interview.
According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol, member nations, including the U.S., agreed that “no one shall expel or return … a refugee against his or her will, in any manner whatsoever, to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom.” The convention “lays down basic minimum standards for the treatment of refugees. … Such rights include access to the courts, to primary education, to work, and the provision for documentation, including a refugee travel document in passport form.”
Currently, 149 countries are parties to the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol. Those countries have an obligation to consider an asylum application, and “refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry or stay.” And those refugees are allowed to stay in that country pending a court determination of the validity of their asylum case.
In 2022, the U.K. government proposed a plan in which asylum seekers who entered the U.K. illegally would be sent to Rwanda and have their asylum claims processed there. But in November 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court deemed the proposal unlawful, and the government ultimately scrapped the plan.
Part of the problem with asylum cases in the U.S., Bush-Joseph said, is that the immigration courts have a yearslong backlog of more than 3.7 million cases, more than 1 million of them asylum cases. Meanwhile, she said, the immigration court system budget for fiscal year 2024 was cut by $16 million. The bipartisan Senate immigration bill torpedoed by Trump earlier this year sought, among other things, to add 100 immigration court judges.
Economic Analysis of Harris and Trump Plans
Several economic analyses have found Harris’ policies would be more favorable for the U.S. economy than Trump’s policies. But Harris’ description was off for a few of the reports.
“My plans for the economy will strengthen the economy, as have been reviewed by 16 Nobel laureates, Goldman Sachs, Moody’s, and recently, the Wall Street Journal, which have all studied our plans and have indicated my plans for our economy would strengthen our economy,” Harris said. “His would make them weaker — would ignite inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year. Those are the facts.”
Moody’s Analytics is the only report among those that projected a recession by the middle of 2025 under Trump’s policies.
As we’ve written before, Harris exaggerated in naming Goldman Sachs. Analysts with the global investment and wealth management firm found that the economy would continue to grow under both candidates. But under Trump, the real gross domestic product, which is adjusted for inflation, would grow less than it otherwise would in the second half of 2025 — 0.5 percentage points less. The report said that slower growth “abates in 2026.” Under Harris, there would be at best a “very slight boost to GDP growth” in the first two years, the report said.
In a Sept. 11 CNBC interview, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon suggested the difference in the economic impact between the two candidates isn’t significant, saying, “I think a lot more has been made of this than should be.”
The analysis did say that Trump’s proposal to increase tariffs on imports would lead to higher inflation.
In a Wall Street Journal quarterly survey of economists from early October, most said that inflation, interest rates and deficits would be higher under a Trump presidency than under Harris.
A majority — 68% — said inflation would likely be higher under Trump’s policies, while 12% said inflation would be higher under Harris’ policies. Economists gave Harris the edge on economic growth, but they were more divided on that issue: 44.9% said economic growth would be higher under Harris, while 36.7% said it would higher under Trump. Fifty economists answered the inflation question, and 49 answered the economic growth query.
The survey didn’t ask about a potential recession under one candidate versus the other. Rather, it asked — as the survey typically does — about the probability of the U.S. being in a recession any time within the next 12 months. Economists put that probability at 26%.
As for Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, the firm’s chief economist, has said that if Harris and Trump were able to get all their policies enacted, the economy would thrive more under a Harris administration. An early August report from Moody’s projected that even with a split Congress, Harris’ proposals would result in average annual GDP growth of 2.1% from 2024 to 2028, and that with a Trump presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress, the growth would be 1.3% annually on average.
Moody’s also said that under the Trump scenario, inflation would increase from 3% this year to 3.5% next year, and a recession would start by the middle of 2025. Under Harris, with a split Congress, inflation would decline to 2.4% in 2025.
The 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists Harris cited wrote a letter in June, when Biden was still running for reelection, praising the Biden administration, not analyzing future plans by Harris. But they said they were “deeply concerned about the risks of a second Trump administration for the U.S. economy” and noted other researchers “predict that if Donald Trump successfully enacts his agenda, it will increase inflation.”
Falsehood About Murderers ‘Released’
Trump repeated the false claim that “13,099 murderers were released into our country” under the Biden administration.
“We have to take these murderers that they have allowed to come through open borders without knowing anything about them. We have to take those people, and we have to remove them,” Trump said.
We wrote about this last month, when Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, introduced this talking point. The “vast majority” of these 13,099 noncitizens — not just those who entered the country illegally — came to the United States prior to the Biden administration and had their custody status determined “long before this Administration,” as the Department of Homeland Security said last month.
Trump is referring to the number of noncitizens who were convicted on murder charges, but were not in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency’s non-detained docket, as it is known, shows that there were 13,099 noncitizens convicted of murder in the U.S. but not in ICE custody, as of July 21, according to a letter sent by the ICE acting director to a Republican congressman on Sept. 25.
But DHS has said that the data is being “misinterpreted.”
“The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration,” DHS said in a statement. “It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”
Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the Migration Policy Institute, also told us that people have been on the non-detained docket “for decades.”
“This docket has grown under multiple administrations, including the Trump one,” she said. “Significant numbers of people on the docket have been on it for decades.”
Harris’ Shifting Position on Benefits for Immigrants
Harris said that as president, she will “follow the law” when it comes to allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for a driver’s license, to qualify for free tuition at universities or to be enrolled in free health care. But she has supported those positions in the past.
In her Fox News interview, Baier asked, “When it comes to immigration, you supported allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for driver’s license, to qualify for free tuition at universities, to be enrolled in free health care. Do you still support those things?”
Harris responded, “Listen, that was five years ago, and I’m very clear that I will follow the law. I have make that statement over and over again, and as vice president of the United States, that’s exactly what I’ve done, not to mention before.”
As we have written, immigrants who are not lawfully present in the U.S. are ineligible for the health plans created under the Affordable Care Act. Furthermore, immigrants in the country illegally are still generally not eligible for non-emergency federal health care programs. Earlier this year, the Biden administration did issue a rule to make so-called Dreamers — certain individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children years ago — eligible to obtain health insurance plans established by the Affordable Care Act. For those who choose to buy a health plan on the exchanges, they also may qualify for federal financial assistance that would lower the cost of that private insurance.
As a presidential candidate back in 2019, Harris supported universal health care, then known as Medicare for All, and the idea that it should cover immigrants who are in the country illegally.
In a CNN interview in May of that year, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Harris, “So you support giving universal health care and Medicare for All to people who are on this country illegally?”
“Let me just be very clear about this,” Harris responded. “I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education or public health, period.”
Harris has since abandoned her push for Medicare for All.
As for allowing immigrants in the country illegally to obtain a driver’s license, that’s a state issue. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.” (Back in 2015, when California had just passed a law allowing immigrants in the country illegally to obtain a driver’s license, Harris, then the state’s attorney general, issued a consumer alert to warn immigrants about potential scams related to obtaining a driver’s license.)
One of those 19 states is Minnesota. In 2023, Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, signed a bill that allowed immigrants in the country illegally to obtain a driver’s license in the state. That year, Walz also signed legislation to allow immigrants in the country illegally to access health care for low-income residents, as well as to provide some immigrants the ability to qualify for free tuition at state universities.
Asked about those votes during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” on Oct. 6, Walz said, “Well, that’s not the vice president’s position.”
When Baier asked Harris about Walz’s votes, Harris responded, “We are very clear and I’m very clear, as is Tim Walz, that we must support and enforce federal law and that is exactly what we will do.”
More Falsehoods About Springfield, Ohio
Trump — who baselessly claimed during the Sept. 10 debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the pets” of their neighbors — once again got the facts wrong about the city’s immigrant population.
“They just dropped 30,000 illegal aliens in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s become a different place,” Trump said. After host Harris Faulkner said the Haitians were in the U.S. legally, Trump added: “In order to get the people in legally, they call them probation. Probation’s for prisoners. So they use this in Springfield, Ohio.”
Trump exaggerated the number of Haitians living in Springfield. In an FAQ on its immigrant population, the city said there are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living in Clark County, where Springfield is located.
“We have realistically been saying 12 to 15,000 immigrants is what we’ve, what we have counted through the health department and other agencies that we work with,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said in a Sept. 10 press conference.
Before Faulkner corrected him, Trump also falsely referred to the Haitians as “illegal aliens.” After he was told that the immigrants were here legally, Trump then incorrectly said they were given “probation,” which he said is “for prisoners.” As the city FAQ also explained, “Haitian immigrants are here legally,” under a humanitarian parole program administered by the Department of Homeland Security. Humanitarian parole is not the same thing as criminal parole, which is granted to inmates who have served a portion of their sentence. (Read our Ask FactCheck for more information about the humanitarian parole program.)
Trump also mischaracterized how the Haitians arrived in Springfield. These immigrants were not “dropped” in Springfield, but rather they chose to live in the city.
“No government entity is responsible for the influx of Haitians into Clark County,” the city explained on its FAQ page. “Once a person with Temporary Protected Status enters the country, they are free to locate wherever they choose.”
Misleading Immigration Chart
As he often does, Trump referred to a chart on illegal immigration, which he wrongly said shows that “the day I left office … we had the fewest number of people.” Trump often hails the chart as a life-saver because he had turned to gesture to it at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 when an assassin’s bullet hit his ear.
“The famous graph that I looked at, my all-time favorite piece of paper. … But that shows you, that day, the day I left office, the border was the safest it ever was in the history of our country,” Trump said at the Fox News town hall. “We had the fewest number of people.”
As we wrote in April when Trump began referring to the chart at rallies, the arrow on the chart that purports to point to when “Trump leaves office” actually points to apprehensions in April 2020, when apprehensions plummeted during the height of the pandemic.
After apprehensions reached a pandemic low in April 2020, they rose every month after that. In his last months in office, apprehensions had more than quadrupled and were higher than the month he took office.
In fact, apprehensions during the last three full months of Trump’s presidency were about 24.4% higher than the last three months under Biden, ending in September. The total number of apprehensions was also higher during Trump’s presidency than either of President Barack Obama’s four-year terms.
Apprehensions went up substantially under the Biden administration, but have dropped in recent months after Biden implemented new emergency policies to temporarily restrict asylum eligibility and promptly remove many who cross the border illegally once apprehensions reach a certain level.
Distortions About Combatting ISIS
Trump left the false impression that he “finished off” the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or IS, in a matter of weeks.
“I finished off ISIS,” Trump said. “It was supposed to take five years. I did it in a month, month-and-a-half.”
As we wrote in 2018, a U.S.-led coalition had retaken about 50% of the land controlled by ISIS prior to Trump taking office on Jan. 20, 2017. In Trump’s first year, the coalition had recaptured nearly all of the remaining land.
In a briefing on Dec. 21, 2017, Brett McGurk, then-special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS, said that about 98% of the land comprising the ISIS caliphate had been recovered by coalition forces.
“And significantly, 50 percent of all the territory that ISIS has lost, they have lost in the last 11 months, since January,” McGurk said. “So 50 percent of all the territorial losses against ISIS have come in the last 11 months over the course of 2017.”
But it wasn’t until late March 2019 — more than two years into the Trump presidency — that the 79-member U.S.-led coalition took control of all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.
It appears that Trump was referring to reclaiming the last 1% of land from ISIS when he said he “finished off ISIS,” although he didn’t make that clear and even that took longer than one month.
In early March 2018, before the U.S.-coalition had recaptured the remaining land from ISIS, Trump spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and said he “had to fire” a general who told him it would take two years to reclaim 100% of the territory once held by ISIS. Trump said “then I flew to Iraq,” where other generals told him, “we can have it totally finished in one week.” But a few weeks before Trump’s December 2018 visit to Iraq, McGurk said it would take “a period of months” to retake the remaining 1% of ISIS-held territory — which turned out to be correct. It took about three more months.
In late December 2018, McGurk resigned in protest after Trump removed U.S. troops from Syria before the remaining land had been retaken from ISIS. McGurk became an outspoken critic of Trump’s foreign policy and accused the former president of allowing ISIS to flourish again in Syria.
“As a candidate [in 2016], Trump said he had a secret plan for ISIS,” McGurk tweeted on Oct. 29, 2020. “As president, he carried forward the plan he inherited and then squandered it. Today, ISIS flags are back in areas of Syria that Trump abandoned without thought.”
In a report issued shortly after Trump left office, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said ISIS as of early 2021 “continues to wage a low-level insurgency across Syria and Iraq, with an estimated force of 8,000 to 16,000 fighters.”
In an update of that report issued in May, CRS said ISIS “remained a threat.”
“As of early 2024, U.N. sanctions monitors reported that IS was ‘effectively suppressed’ in Iraq and Syria but remained a threat,” the report said. “U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Kurilla testified in March 2024 that a ‘premature Coalition departure’ before U.S. partners ‘can operate independently’ would enable IS to regain territory ‘within two years.’”
More Trump Repeats
Roe v. Wade. Trump repeated his false claim that “every legal scholar” and “liberals and conservatives” wanted to end Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to abortion and bring the issue “back to the states for a vote of the people.” Experts previously told us the claim is “utter nonsense” and “patently absurd.” Most Americans also opposed the ending of Roe, according to public opinion polls.
Illegal immigration. Trump has repeatedly inflated the number of apprehensions at the southern border under the Biden administration and ignored that millions have been immediately expelled. He claimed: “21 million people came in over the last three years with them.”
That’s double the total number of people caught trying to enter the country illegally (7.1 million, which includes repeat attempts), those who came to legal ports of entry without authorization to enter (1.2 million), and the estimated number who evaded capture (2 million). Comprehensive DHS data on the initial processing of these encounters shows that 2.9 million were removed by CBP and 3.2 million were released with notices to appear in immigration court or report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or given other classifications, such as parole. See our prior reports on these figures for more information.
Not a ‘border czar.’ Trump falsely claimed that Biden “made [Harris] border czar. She never even went there.” As vice president, Harris has been to the U.S. border with Mexico twice. In 2021, she traveled to El Paso, Texas, and in September she went to Douglas, Arizona.
Also, border security was not Harris’ responsibility, as the “border czar” title implies. That’s the job of the Department of Homeland Security, currently led by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
As we’ve written, Biden tasked Harris in March 2021 with leading efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The Central American initiative, known as the “Root Causes Strategy,” seeks to deter migration from those countries by, among other things, providing funds for natural disasters, fighting corruption, and creating partnerships with the private sector and international organizations.
Not the greatest economy. Because of his first term as president, Trump predicted that “we’re going to have record-setting jobs” if he wins the 2024 election. “I mean, the advantage I have is that I have done it. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country,” he said.
The U.S. didn’t have “the greatest economy” ever under Trump. Based on real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product growth, which economists use to measure economic health, the U.S. did better under multiple presidents. Trump’s peak year of 3% growth was exceeded more than a dozen times prior to his presidency. Since the 1930s, Barack Obama and Herbert Hoover are the only presidents who did not see a year with greater than 3% growth in GDP.
There also wasn’t record job creation during Trump’s first term, as his comment may have suggested.
Largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, total nonfarm employment was lower when Trump left office than when he entered. But even before the pandemic began in March 2020, the increase in employment of 6.7 million under Trump was smaller than it was during four-year terms under several presidents, according to BLS data going back to 1939. For example, employment increased by more than 11 million in each of Bill Clinton’s two terms.
Energy production. Trump said, “When I took over, we were number three and number four in energy in terms of production. When I left, we were number one by far.”
That’s not accurate. China leads the world in total energy production, and that has been the case since 2006, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
Trump likely meant to refer to crude oil production. In 2016, before he took office, the U.S ranked third in production of crude oil, including lease condensate. The U.S. had the same ranking in 2017, Trump’s first year in office. In 2018, the U.S. jumped to first place, ahead of Russia, and has since maintained its top spot. But that was expected. In 2012, the International Energy Agency predicted the U.S. would become the top oil producer by 2017.
Inflation. Trump falsely claimed again that “we had the worst inflation in the history of our country” under Biden and Harris.
The largest 12-month increase in the Consumer Price Index occurred from June 1919 to June 1920, when the CPI rose 23.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a 2014 publication marking the 100th anniversary of the agency’s tracking price changes.
Since Biden has been president, the biggest increase occurred during a 12-month period ending in June 2022, when the CPI rose 9.1% (before seasonal adjustment). More recently, the CPI rose 2.4% in the 12 months ending in September. Inflation is not “down now to 4.5%,” as Trump claimed.
Border wall. Trump again exaggerated the amount of border wall built during his administration, claiming “we built 571 miles of wall. And that wall worked.” There were 458 miles of “border wall system” built during Trump’s term. Most, 373 miles, was replacement barriers for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or outdated, according to a January 2021 Customs and Border Protection status report. Just 52 miles of wall was added in locations where no barriers previously existed.
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