In about 48 hours, Vice President Kamala Harris went from No. 2 on the Democratic presidential ticket to the presumptive presidential nominee, after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her. Here, we fact-check some of Harris’ recent speeches — before and after Biden dropped out:
- Harris repeated the claim that former President Donald Trump “intends to cut Social Security and Medicare,” even though he did not attempt to cut either retirement program when he was president, and he has said that he will not cut them in a second term.
- She referred to Project 2025 — a conservative plan for deeply cutting and overhauling the federal government — as Trump’s “extreme Project 2025 agenda.” Trump has disavowed the project, which he described as “seriously extreme.”
- The vice president repeated one of her favorite talking points when she claimed “Donald Trump openly vowed, if reelected, that he will be a dictator on Day 1.” He said he was joking when he said he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for Day 1.”
- Harris left the misleading impression that Trump was to blame for the loss of “tens of thousands” of manufacturing jobs. The U.S. added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs under Trump — until the economic effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic reversed all those job gains.
A former U.S. senator from California who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Harris seemingly overnight became the Democratic Party’s last chance to stop Trump from regaining the White House.
Biden, who never recovered from a disastrous debate performance in late June, announced on July 21 that he would not seek reelection, saying it was in the “best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President.” Shortly after, Biden gave Harris his “full support and endorsement” for president.
The party quickly coalesced around Harris, who announced at a campaign event in Milwaukee on July 23: “I’m told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.”
Harris needs 1,968 delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, and the Associated Press reported that she has the support of more than 3,000 delegates.
Project 2025, Social Security and Medicare
Since Biden dropped out and endorsed her, Harris has delivered two speeches and both times she referred to Project 2025 — a conservative plan for remaking the federal government — as Trump’s plan, even though the former president has disavowed it.
And in both speeches, she cited Project 2025 as evidence that Trump wants to cut Social Security and Medicare, even though the former president has offered no plans to do so.
Harris, Wilmington, Delaware, July 22: He and his extreme Project 2025 will weaken the middle class and bring us backward — please do note that — back to the failed trickle-down policies that gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and made working families pay the cost; back to policies that put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block; back to policies that treat health care as only a privilege for the wealthy, instead of what we all know it should be, which is a right for every American.
Harris, Milwaukee, July 23: But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously. And can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It’s 900 pages. But here’s the thing. When you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.
As we have said before, Trump says he has no plans to cut Social Security or Medicare.
In his four years as president, Trump did not propose cutting Social Security’s retirement benefits, and his budgets included bipartisan proposals to reduce the growth of Medicare without cutting benefits. (For more, see our February 2020 article “Competing Claims on Trump’s Budget and Seniors,” which details how Trump as president proposed cuts to the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs, but not to retirement benefits.)
After leaving office, Trump has pledged not to cut Social Security, most recently on July 20 in his first joint campaign appearance with his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. “We will not cut one penny from Social Security and Medicare,” Trump said in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In January 2023, when House Republicans were discussing ways to cut government spending, Trump said in a video: “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security to help pay for Joe Biden’s reckless spending spree.”
As for Project 2025, Trump described it at his Michigan rally as “seriously extreme.” He added, “I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Project 2025 lays out “four goals and principles” for Medicare “reform,” but there is nothing in the 900-plus page document that calls for cutting Social Security, which the authors of the project call a “myth.”
Harris and the Democrats link the project and its agenda to Trump because, as CNN has reported, there are more than 100 people involved in the project who have worked in the Trump administration. Prominent figures such as Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff, and Stephen Miller, a top aide who was involved in setting major immigration policy, are associated with conservative groups that advised the project.
Project 2025, which mentions Trump hundreds of times, includes concepts that Trump supports, including — as Harris alluded to — cutting business taxes and rewriting the nation’s health care laws. But it also proposes things that Trump did not do when he was president, such as setting just two individual tax brackets of 15% and 30% (down from seven) and eliminating or transforming entire government agencies.
There is no telling what parts of Project 2025 Trump would implement, if elected. But Project 2025 is not his “agenda” or “plan,” as Harris said.
Trump’s Dictator Remarks
In recent speeches this month, including in Philadelphia on July 13, Harris repeated a popular talking point that “Donald Trump openly vowed, if reelected, 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, 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 claimed he was joking with Hannity. 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.”
Trump repeated his intention to close the border and drill for oil. “That’s all. And then after that, I’m not going to be a dictator,” Trump told Bartiromo, claiming his “dictator” comment was “said in jest.”
Manufacturing Jobs
In a July 18 speech in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris left the misleading impression that Trump was to blame for the loss of “tens of thousands” of manufacturing jobs.
“So, Donald Trump tries to claim he brought back American manufacturing,” Harris said. “The fact is, under Donald Trump, America lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs.”
The fact is, those jobs were lost during the global COVID-19 pandemic. As of February 2020, the U.S. had added 414,000 manufacturing jobs under Trump, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But then the economic effects of the pandemic took hold. In April 2020 alone, the U.S. lost 1.3 million manufacturing jobs.
Most of those jobs came back. But at the end of Trump’s four years, the U.S. had lost 178,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2017, when he took office.
Under Biden, the rest of the manufacturing jobs returned and then some. Since January 2021, the U.S. has added 762,000 manufacturing jobs.
Clarification, July 25: We have updated this story to clarify that while Trump did not propose cuts to Social Security’s retirement benefits as president, he did propose cutting the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs.
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