Kamala Harris’ Closing Arguments

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In the closing weeks of the campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has portrayed former President Donald Trump as a danger to democracy. She also has warned he will enact policies that will hurt blue-collar workers, women, seniors, and the nation’s health care system and economy, while cutting taxes for “billionaires and corporations.”

That was her message at eight campaign events that we reviewed from Oct. 18 through Oct. 22. During that time, Harris appeared at three rallies in Michigan and one in Atlanta, three moderated discussions with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, and a get-out-the-early-vote event with singer Lizzo in Detroit.

We also fact-checked Trump’s remarks over the same time period. (See: “Donald Trump’s Closing Arguments.”)

In contrast to Trump, Harris spoke at her four rallies for an average of only 30 minutes. She spoke about the same amount of time at the moderated events, where she shared the stage with Cheney, and much less at the Detroit event with Lizzo.

We also found another contrast with Trump: There were far fewer falsehoods and fewer claims for us to check.

In Trump’s case, we found he spoke three times longer than Harris at rallies, and we identified about five times as many claims.

Below are the statements by Harris that we found to be false, misleading or lacking context.

Jobs

Manufacturing jobs under Trump: After promising to “retool existing factories, hire locally, and work with unions to create good-paying jobs” during an Oct. 18 speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Harris attacked Trump for being “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history.”

“Donald Trump has a different approach. He makes big promises and he always fails to deliver,” Harris said. “So, remember he said he was the only one — you know how he talks. He [was] the only one who could bring back America’s manufacturing jobs. Then, America lost almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs when he was president. Facts. Including tens of thousands of jobs right here in Michigan. And those losses started before the pandemic, making Donald Trump one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history.”

Harris repeated the claim, nearly verbatim, twice that same day at other Michigan rallies in Lansing and Oakland County. But it’s a misleading talking point that ignores the impact of the pandemic-fueled recession in the spring of 2020.

As we’ve written, the economy added 419,000 manufacturing jobs in Trump’s first three years in office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But all those jobs and then some were wiped out in Trump’s fourth year, when the pandemic struck. When Trump left office, the U.S. had lost 178,000 manufacturing jobs.

Harris is right that the job losses under Trump “started before the pandemic.” The U.S. shed 43,000 manufacturing jobs in Trump’s third year in 2019. But, as of September, that’s the exact number of manufacturing jobs that have been lost this year under the Biden-Harris administration.

Manufacturing jobs under Biden-Harris: Harris also left out some important context when she talked about the jobs created during the Biden-Harris administration.

“Over the last three and a half years, we brought manufacturing back to America, creating 730,000 manufacturing jobs,” Harris said in Lansing, Michigan.

Harris is right that, as of September, the BLS monthly payroll survey indicated a gain of 729,000 manufacturing jobs during the Biden-Harris administration. But that figure comes with two caveats.

The vice president’s remarks ignore the economic impact of the pandemic on U.S. jobs, which included the loss of nearly 1.4 million manufacturing jobs in March and April 2020. A little more than half of those jobs had returned by the time Trump left office. It wasn’t until May 2022 that the number of manufacturing jobs returned to its pre-pandemic level of February 2020.

Also, as we’ve written, the 729,000 manufacturing jobs cited by Harris will eventually be reduced. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in August announced a preliminary estimate of its annual revision of jobs data that showed the number of manufacturing jobs created over the 12 months ending in March was 115,000 lower. The final revisions won’t be announced until February.

If the September figure is reduced by the preliminary revised estimate, that would leave a gain of 614,000 under Biden. That would actually be a gain of just 22,000 jobs over the pre-pandemic level in February 2020.

Union strikes/collective bargaining: In a speech in Lansing, Michigan, Harris appealed to union workers by distorting Trump’s remarks about the United Auto Workers strike in September 2023.

Harris, Oct. 18: And when the UAW went on strike to demand the higher wages you deserve, Donald Trump went to a nonunion shop and attacked the UAW. He said striking and collective bargaining don’t make, and I’m going to quote, “a damn bit of difference.”

The vice president is referring to remarks that Trump made at Drake Industries, a nonunion vehicle parts plant in Clinton Township, Michigan, on Sept. 28, 2023. Trump, who skipped a Republican debate to speak in Michigan that day, gave what the Detroit Free Press described as a “rollicking, bellicose speech to workers against automakers’ and the President Joe Biden administration’s efforts to push a transition to electric vehicles.”

Here’s what Trump said, in context:

Trump, Sept. 28, 2023: To the striking workers, I support you in your goal of fair wages and greater stability, and I truly hope you get a fair deal for yourselves and your families. But if your union leaders will not demand that crooked Joe [Biden] repeal his electric vehicle mandate immediately, then it doesn’t matter what hourly word you get, it just doesn’t make a damn bit of difference because in two to three years, you will not have one job in this state. … In other words, your current negotiations don’t mean as much as you think. I watch you out there with the pickets, but I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing.

We should note, as we’ve done before, that Biden did not issue an electric vehicle mandate, so Trump was wrong about that.

Trump was referring at that time to the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules to significantly restrict the amount of emissions from light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which includes passenger cars, trucks and large pickups and vans. In April 2023, the EPA said the new standards are “projected to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles,” which “could account for 67% of new light-duty vehicle sales and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales” in 2032. The rules were finalized in March.

Policy experts told us that carmakers will have flexibility in how they meet the proposed requirements, including by making more efficient internal combustion engines.

Autoworkers’ pay: At the Oakland Expo Center in Waterford, Michigan, Harris said: “Donald Trump encouraged automakers to move their plants out of Michigan so they could pay their workers less.” That’s true, although it requires some context.

Harris, who made similar versions of this claim in Grand Rapids and Lansing, was referring to comments that Trump made in 2015 to the Detroit News. During his first presidential campaign, Trump had been critical of multibillion-dollar investments that Ford had made and planned to make in Mexico.

“We’ve got to keep [factories] here. It’s not that hard to do,” Trump told the Detroit News. “Without action,” he added, “pretty soon all we’re going to have is nursing home jobs.”

The paper said Trump dismissed the argument that labor is cheaper in Mexico, and then suggested that U.S. automakers could save money by moving to other U.S. cities, rather than going to Mexico.

“You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle — you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less,” Trump told the paper. “We can do the rotation in the United States — it doesn’t have to be in Mexico.”

The Detroit News wrote that Trump went on to say “that after Michigan ‘loses a couple of plants — all of sudden you’ll make good deals in your own area.'” The paper, however, pointed out that “hourly employees for Detroit’s Big Three are paid the same no matter what state they’re in, under the terms of United Auto Workers contracts.”

Electric vehicle investments: In a speech to United Auto Workers Local 652 in Lansing, Harris said, “Trump’s running mate called your jobs ‘table scraps,’ right?” This requires some context.

Harris is referring to Vance’s answer to a Reuters reporter at a campaign rally on Oct. 8 in Detroit. The reporter asked the Ohio senator if a Trump-Vance administration would honor the $500 million grant that the Biden-Harris administration announced in July to help General Motors convert its Lansing Grand River Assembly plant to manufacture electric vehicles. UAW Local 652 represents workers at the plant.

The Detroit News wrote that the grant, coupled with a $900 million investment by GM, is “expected to create 50 jobs and retain more than 650 jobs at an assembly plant that currently produces Cadillac sedans,” citing the company’s grant application.

Vance told the reporter at the rally: “Neither me nor President Trump has ever said we want to take any money that’s going to Michigan autoworkers out of the state of Michigan.” He then went on to say, “What we said is that Kamala Harris is offering table scraps — $500 million – when you have an EV mandate that’s going to cost 117,000 autoworker jobs. I think Michigan autoworkers deserve more than the table scraps that Kamala Harris’ green new scam” would provide.

As we said earlier, there is no electric vehicle mandate; Vance is referring to EPA rules to significantly curb carbon emissions from vehicles. Also, Vance’s 117,000 figure comes from the Trump-friendly America First Policy Institute, which is run by former top Trump administration officials.

The UAW, which has endorsed Harris and supported the EPA rule, has rejected the notion that the stricter emission standards will result in job losses for its members. In March, when the rule was finalized, the union issued a statement that said: “We reject the fearmongering that says tackling the climate crisis must come at the cost of union jobs. Ambitious and achievable regulations can support both.”

In an Oct. 10 Reuters article, UAW President Shawn Fain responded to Vance’s remarks.

“It’s a lot bigger than just the Lansing Grand River investment,” he said. “It’s factories all over the United States, and it’s supply chain factories all over the United States that are being put in place now. So you’re talking hundreds of thousands of jobs that Donald Trump is just writing off.”

Trump Tax Cut Proposals

At two rallies in Michigan and one in Atlanta, Harris gave the misleading impression that Trump would only cut taxes for “billionaires and corporations.”

As we’re written, Trump would cut taxes for most taxpayers.

He proposes extending all the income and corporate tax cuts included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed in December 2017 — including the individual income tax cuts, which will expire after 2025. The Tax Policy Center estimates that slightly more than half of the benefits from the individual income tax cuts would go to those making about $450,000 or less.

He also has proposed eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, tips and overtime pay — all with the intent of benefiting middle-income families. Trump has also proposed cutting the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that manufacture their products in the United States.

Bloomberg estimated that Trump’s “grab bag of tax cut proposals” would cost the federal government $10.5 trillion in revenue over 10 years, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said Trump’s proposals would “dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances.” (More on Social Security’s finances later.)

Project 2025 Proposals

Harris brings up Project 2025 seemingly every chance she gets, and links Trump to some of its more controversial proposals — even when Trump has taken the opposite position.

In five of the eight campaign events we reviewed for this article, Harris brought up Project 2025, which is being led by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It is not a Trump campaign document, although it was written by some former Trump administration officials and offers proposals to significantly cut the size and scope of government for “the next conservative President.” (For more, read “A Guide to Project 2025,” which details who was involved in writing the document and Trump’s comments about it.)

In a moderated discussion in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on Oct. 21, Harris referred to it as “Donald Trump’s Project 2025,” and at four rallies, including in Atlanta on Oct. 19, she told audiences to Google Project 2025 if they wanted to know what Trump would do as president.

Harris, Atlanta, Oct. 19: Now, Donald Trump, well, he has a different plan. Just Google Project 2025. … And when you read it, you know it is a detailed and dangerous blueprint for what Donald Trump will do if he is elected president. Donald Trump — Donald Trump will give billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts. Like he did it last time, he would do it again. He would cut Social Security and Medicare. He would get rid of the thing we all fought so hard for: that $35-a-month cap on insulin for our seniors.

We’ve already addressed the tax cut remark, so we will address the other claims here.

Social Security and Medicare: Harris said Trump will “cut Social Security and Medicare,” but there is no evidence that he will — except for the indirect impact that his proposed tax cuts could have on Social Security finances and potentially retirement benefits.

As we have written before, Trump has consistently said throughout the campaign that he would not make any cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits.

When House Republicans last year debated how to reduce government spending, Trump posted a video to social media in which he said, “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”

When he was president, Trump’s budgets included bipartisan proposals to reduce the growth of Medicare without cutting benefits. He also proposed reductions to the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs, but not reductions to Social Security retirement benefits.

There is the threat, however, that Trump’s many tax cut proposals — including a plan to repeal the tax on Social Security retirement benefits — would exhaust Social Security trust fund reserves by 2031, rather than 2034, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Without congressional action to replace the lost tax revenues or replenish the trust fund reserves, the Social Security Administration would have to reduce benefits.

“Upon insolvency, the law calls for limiting Social Security spending to its revenue stream, which we’ve previously estimated would mean a $16,500 cut in annual benefits for a typical dual-income couple retiring in 2033,” CRFB said in an analysis of the impact Trump’s plans would have on Social Security released this month.

Project 2025 does lay out “four goals and principles” for Medicare “reform,” but there is nothing in the book that calls for cutting Social Security, which the authors of the project call a “myth.”

When talking about Social Security at another campaign event in Lansing, Harris also said that Trump “recommended we raise the retirement age to 70.” He did, but it was 24 years ago in his book “The America We Deserve.” At the time, Trump was flirting with the idea of running for president as a third-party candidate. He decided against joining the 2000 presidential race, which was won by George W. Bush.

The current age for receiving full Social Security retirement benefits is 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Trump has said he will not raise the retirement age. “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare. And I will not raise the retirement age [by] one day,” he said at a rally in July.

Insulin cap: The Inflation Reduction Act signed by Biden in August 2022 capped monthly insulin copays at $35 for seniors in Medicare’s prescription drug program. Trump has been critical of the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate change initiatives, telling the Economic Club of New York in September that he would “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

But he has not said he would “get rid” of the $35 monthly cap, as Harris said, and there are indications that he might keep the cap in place. In fact, Trump has been trying to take credit for the $35 monthly cap. During the June 27 debate with Biden, Trump misleadingly claimed that he was “the one that got the insulin down for the seniors.” A limited project capped costs for some seniors during the Trump administration, but all seniors with Medicare drug coverage benefited during the Biden administration.

So, it isn’t clear that Trump would remove the $35 monthly cap. We asked his campaign, but did not get a response.

In Atlanta and elsewhere, Harris cited Project 2025 as evidence that Trump would get rid of the cap. Project 2025 does call for the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act on page 465. But, again, Project 2025 isn’t a Trump campaign document.

Head Start: In Detroit, Harris talked about her campaign being about a “new generation of leadership” that will work together on projects that invest in the community. “We’re not falling for the other guy trying to get rid of the Department of Education and Head Start because we know what we stand for,” she said.

It is true that Trump has called for eliminating the Department of Education, as he did in Wisconsin last month. But we found no instances of Trump saying he would “get rid” of Head Start, a federally funded initiative within the Department of Health and Human Services that funds local programs that help low-income children prepare for school.

In other speeches, including in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris cited Project 2025 when making her claim about Trump wanting to eliminate Head Start. It is true that Project 2025 on page 482 calls for eliminating Head Start, which it claimed is “fraught with scandal and abuse.” But that doesn’t mean Trump agrees with that proposal.

As president, Trump unsuccessfully proposed cutting Head Start by $29 billion over 10 years in the fiscal year 2019 budget. But Trump has not indicated that he endorses ending Head Start entirely.

Affordable Care Act

Trump, who tried but failed to replace the Affordable Care Act as president, has struggled throughout the campaign to explain what he will do about the law if elected president.

Harris has filled the void with a definitive — but unsupported — claim that Trump will repeal the ACA without replacing it and allow insurers to once again deny coverage or charge more for coverage to those with preexisting medical conditions.

“Donald Trump intends to end the Affordable Care Act with no plan to replace it,” Harris said in Atlanta, calling Trump an “unserious man” whose plans will have “serious consequences.”

“Because, think about it, the man is going to threaten the health insurance of 45 million Americans based on a concept,” she went on to say, “and take us back to when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions.”

As a candidate, Trump has been unclear about his plans for the ACA — which currently insures about 45 million people, as Harris said, through policies sold on the ACA marketplaces and obtained because of the expansion of Medicaid. He posted on social media in November 2023 that Republicans “should never give up” on terminating the law, saying the cost is “out of control” and claiming to be “seriously looking at alternatives” to the ACA. In late March, Trump said he wanted to make the ACA “better” and cheaper.

But then in August, at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump said he might keep the ACA.

“I’m going to keep the Affordable Care Act unless we can do something much better, we’ll keep it,” he said. “It stinks, it’s not good. If we can do something better, we’re going to do something with it. If we can do better, meaning less expensive and better health care for you, less expensive and better health care for you, then we’ll do it.”

At the Sept. 10 debate, a moderator asked Trump if he had a plan to replace the law. He said, “I have concepts of a plan,” adding that he “would only change it if we come up with something that’s better and less expensive.” Although he said at the debate, “you’ll be hearing about it in the not too distant future,” Trump has yet to release any details about his plans for the ACA.

Although Trump may not have a plan, House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to overhaul the nation’s health care system if Trump wins. At a closed political event in Pennsylvania on Oct. 28, Johnson said: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained; we need massive reform to make this work. And we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” (Johnson later disputed reports that “massive reform” means he will seek to repeal the ACA.)

As for preexisting conditions, Trump supported a 2017 GOP bill that would have included some, but not all, of the ACA’s protections for preexisting conditions. He also proposed less expensive health insurance plans as an alternative to the ACA plans, some of which would not have had to comply with the ACA’s rules against denying coverage or pricing coverage based on health status.

If the ACA were repealed with no replacement, protections for preexisting condition would be significantly curtailed. But even before the ACA, those with employer-based plans couldn’t be denied a policy. They could be denied coverage for a health condition only if they had had a lapse in coverage, as we’ve explained.

Trump as a Danger to Democracy

A staple of Harris’ rallies is her extended take on Trump’s danger to democracy — which has support from some of Trump’s former top aides, including former Chief of Staff John Kelly. Earlier this month, Kelly told the New York Times that the former president said “more than once … that Hitler did some good things,” describing his former boss as meeting “the general definition of a fascist.”

“So, so much is on the line in this election,” Harris said in Atlanta. “And this election is not 2016 or 2020. The stakes are even higher for obvious reasons, including because just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court basically told the former president he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House.”

Harris went on to say, “Just imagine now Donald Trump with no guardrails — he who has vowed that he will be a dictator on Day 1.”

There was more, but we will focus on two claims: the court ruling on presidential immunity and Trump’s remarks about being a dictator.

Presidential immunity: Harris went too far when she said that under a Supreme Court ruling Trump “is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House.”

Harris was referring to a July 1 ruling in response to a motion Trump filed to dismiss a federal indictment that charged him with four criminal counts related to his attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election. In his motion, Trump argued that a president has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court said a president should enjoy a “presumption of immunity” when carrying out “official acts.” However, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s ruling that “[t]he President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official.”

In response to the court’s ruling, special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment that removed mention of “official acts,” including Trump’s communication with Justice Department officials about the election. But Smith did not drop any charges, describing some actions that Trump took while in office as “personal” or unrelated to his duties as president.

Dictator: When she said Trump “has vowed that he will be a dictator on Day 1,” Harris was referring to a comment that Trump made at a Fox News town hall in December. At the event, host Sean Hannity gave Trump the chance to respond to critics who warned that Trump would be a dictator if elected to a second term.

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody,” Hannity said. Trump responded, “Except for Day 1.” Trump went on to say, “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

Trump later said he was joking. In a Feb. 4 interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump said: “It was with Sean Hannity, and we were having fun, and I said, ‘I’m going to be a dictator,’ because he asked me, ‘Are you really going to be a dictator?’ I said, ‘Absolutely, I’m going to be a dictator for one day.’ I didn’t say from Day 1.”

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