Trump-Harris debate live updates: Candidates go on attack in zinger-filled showdown

Fact Check: True

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a $20 billion plan to substantially bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border. It would have added hundreds of border patrol and ICE agents and asylum officers; funded construction of new border wall; expanded detention facilities; ended “catch and release;” effectively closed the border entirely when illegal crossings surge; and raised the bar for asylum claims. (Source: text of bill

The influential Border Patrol union, which has previously endorsed Trump, publicly backed the bill. But hours after the draft legislation was unveiled on Feb. 5, Trump urged his party to oppose the bill, even as many Republicans have spent years lobbying for some of the security measures included in the deal.

“I’ll fight it all the way,” Trump told supporters at a Las Vegas rally Feb. 8. “A lot of the senators are trying to say, respectfully, they’re blaming it on me. I say, that’s okay. Please blame it on me.”
Trump openly invoked election-year politics as a motivation for his position: “This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party. It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans,” Trump wrote on social media. The bill failed a key Senate procedural vote in May, with all but one Republican voting against it, including all those involved in crafting the deal.

Trump refused to say if he would veto a national abortion bill if brought to his desk.

The former president claimed he wouldn't have to.

10:07

Trump won't commit to vetoing national abortion ban bill

"There's no reason to sign a ban because we have gotten what everyone wanted," he said.

"There's no reason to sign a ban because we have gotten what everyone wanted," he said.

"I'm going to do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies, because it's a really interesting thing to watch," Harris said to viewers.

"You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about when windmills can cause cancer. And what you will also notice that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion," she said.

The comment appeared to get under Trump's skin, as he took time to respond despite being asked by the moderator about the immigration bill he discouraged Republicans from supporting.

"We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics," Trump responded.

Fact Check: Needs context

The unemployment rate peaked at 14.8% in April 2020 when Trump was in office – that was indeed the highest level since the Great Depression, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But unemployment rapidly declined to 6.4% in January 2021 by the time Trump left office, as the economy started to rebalance. And that 6.4% unemployment rate is still better than the 10% peak during the Great Recession in October 2009.

If you eliminate pandemic statistics, the lowest unemployment rate under Trump was just slightly higher than the lowest point under Biden. Both were good: 3.5% under Trump and 3.4% under Biden at their lowest respectively, according to data provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Bureau of Labor Statistics.