When Vice President Kamala Harris walked across the debate stage Tuesday night to shake hands with former President Donald Trump, it was the first time the two had met in person. It was a brief, rare moment of cordiality in a standoff marked by false and sometimes bizarre statements from the former president.
ABC hosted the debate, moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis, who occasionally revisit Trump’s claims. The next morning on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Trump said it was a “three-on-one debate.”
The two presidential candidates address a wide range of issues, from employment figures and inflation to abortion and immigration, in exchanges marked by personal attacks.
As PolitiFact noted, Harris often addressed Trump directly while answering questions from moderators. Trump mostly stared straight ahead. In response to Trump’s claims about the Biden administration’s record on crime, Harris mentioned Trump’s criminal conviction in New York, and other allegations.
Moderators asked Trump whether he would try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare), the health insurance program he promised to repeal and replace during his administration, something he failed to do.
He said that if he were president again, “I would only change it if we found something that was better and less expensive.” He added: “There are concepts and options for doing that, and you will hear about them in the not-too-distant future.”
Trump has been promising to replace Obamacare since his 2015 campaign. During the debate, he claimed he “saved” the ACA by issuing regulations aimed at lowering insurance premiums.
Harris’s past support for “Medicare for All,” a proposal to replace private health insurance with a government-run health care system, drew questions from moderators and attacks from Trump.
Abortion was a clear sticking point. Harris called state restrictions on the procedure, enacted since 2022, “Trump’s abortion bans,” and said it was immoral to take away a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own body. She also promised to sign any bill that would restore protections outlined in Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court overturned in 2022.
Trump said that as president he would never face the question of signing a national abortion ban because the issue is now being resolved in the states. “I’m not going to sign a ban,” he said. “There’s no reason to sign a ban.”
Trump also revived claims, repeatedly deemed false by PolitiFact and other fact-checking organizations, that Democrats support abortions up to the moment of birth and the “execution” of babies after birth.
Moments after the debate ended, pop superstar Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she would vote for Harris “because she fights for rights and causes that I believe need a warrior to stand up for them.” Swift’s post included a photo of herself with her cat and was signed “Childless Cat Lady,” a reference to comments by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
PolitiFact fact-checked the debate in real time via a live blog, as Harris and Trump clashed over the economy, immigration and abortion.
Below are excerpts detailing specific health-related claims:
Trump: “But the governor earlier said, ‘The baby will be born, and we’ll decide what to do with the baby.’”
Fake.
Trump initially mentioned “a governor from West Virginia.” He was referring to Virginia and corrected himself later in the debate.
Former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat and a physician, never said he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he said in a 2019 radio interview is that in rare cases of late-term pregnancy when fetuses are not viable, doctors deliver the baby, keep it comfortable, resuscitate it if the family wants it, and then have a “discussion” with the mother.
The problem is that Northam refused to say what that discussion would entail. Trump put words in the then-governor’s mouth, saying that doctors would urge the mother to allow the baby to be killed, which is a felony in Virginia (and every other state) punishable by a long prison sentence or the death penalty.
Trump: “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, everybody wanted to bring abortion back to the states where people could vote.”
Fake.
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 2022, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the court to uphold the ruling.
Some scholars who support abortion rights have criticized the legal basis of the 1973 decision, saying that other constitutional arguments, based on equal protection, would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who held this view, said those scholars would never have advocated overturning Roe on this basis.
Trump: On Affordable Care Act, “I saved it.”
Fake.
During 2016, Trump campaigned to repeal and replace the ACA. While he was president, he attempted to repeal it and failed.
But his administration pushed through several policies that hampered their reach and effectiveness, including cutting millions of dollars in advertising and outreach funding. It cut subsidies to insurance companies that offered coverage on the exchanges. It also enacted regulations to allow for less expensive and less comprehensive health plans — for example, short-term health plans that did not meet ACA requirements.
During the Trump administration, ACA enrollment declined and the number of uninsured Americans increased by 2.3 million from 2016 to 2019, including 726,000 children, according to the Census Bureau.
Trump: Harris ‘wants everyone on government insurance’ for health care
This is misleading.
Harris once co-sponsored a bill to expand Medicare to Americans of all ages, but she does not currently support that proposal.
In April 2019, Harris became one of the 14 original cosponsors of the Medicare for All Act of 2019 sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The legislation would have established a national health insurance program administered by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The bill would have created an automatic federal health insurance program for all Americans, mirroring socialized medicine systems in countries like the United Kingdom.
Harris backed the bill as she prepared to run in the 2020 presidential primaries and many candidates believed that Democratic base voters wanted the most liberal positions possible.
However, Medicare for All failed to advance to a vote in the Senate. After her 2020 bid ended, Harris focused on strengthening the ACA rather than pushing Medicare for All.
