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

Fact Check: Mostly false

The Nord Stream 2 is an undersea pipeline that would have allowed Russia to increase natural gas exports to western Europe while bypassing Ukraine and depriving Kyiv billions of dollars in access fees. It’s true that in 2019, Trump announced sanctions that halted the pipeline’s construction. But by that point, the pipeline was nearly complete with a majority of the project occurring under Trump’s presidency, according to a 2020 analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Biden later waived sanctions against the pipeline’s builder at the request of Germany in 2021, but reimposed penalties the following year as Russia invaded Ukraine.

Trump refuted recent his recent remarks in which he appeared to accept he lost the 2020 election, including a comment that he "lost by a whisker."

"I said that?" Trump said.

"Are you now acknowledging that you lost in 2020?" ABC News moderator David Muir asked.

"No I don’t acknowledge that at all," he said. "That was said sarcastically."

Harris raised that she has the endorsement of more than 200 Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Trump staffers.

"If you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn't make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him," she said, noting that his former national security adviser said he is "dangerous and unfit."

Trump responded that he "fired most of those people."

Fact Check: Needs context

It’s true that Harris once called to ban fracking altogether, but she has since said she changed her policy view. During a CNN town hall on climate change in 2019 when she was still a Senator, Harris said, "There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking." Fracking is short for “hydraulic fracturing,” and it’s a technique used in the extraction of oil and natural gas from underground rock formations.

Harris also said she backed California's efforts to stop the practice in her home state when she was the state's attorney general. However, she eventually changed her view on fracking when she became Biden's running mate in 2020. During an October 2020 segment on ABC's The View, Harris said neither she nor Biden would ban fracking. Harris reiterated that she would not ban fracking during the ABC News Presidential Debate.