CBS News
Fact checking debate claims from Trump and Harris’ 2024 presidential face-off
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are facing off in their first presidential debate, and challenging each other over their plans for the nation and the economy. The 90-minute debate is being hosted by ABC News at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and began at 9 p.m. ET.
CBS News’ Confirmed team is conducting the fact-checks of the comments Harris and Trump are making about each other and about their own records and plans.
False: Trump claims “millions and millions of people” are “pouring into our country monthly”
Trump: “[W]hen you look at what she’s done to our country, and when you look at these millions (and) millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly, where it’s, I believe 21 million people, not the 15 that people that say. And I think it’s a lot higher than the 21. That’s bigger than New York state. Pouring in. And just look at what they’re doing to our country.”
Details: Encounters of migrants by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached record levels in the past four years, under the Biden administration. But the number isn’t close to the figures cited by Trump, and not everyone who has crossed the border under Mr. Biden has been allowed to stay.
CBP has recorded over 8 million encounters with migrants at the southern border since Mr. Biden took office in 2021, federal figures show. Encounters include migrants who cross into the country illegally between legal entry points and those processed at these official crossings, known as ports of entry. Encounters do not represent unique individuals, since some migrants cross the border illegally multiple times.
CBP has never recorded “millions” of migrant encounters in a month. The highest monthly migrant encounter tally was recorded in December 2023, when CBP processed over 300,000 migrants.
In addition to those processed by CBP, there are migrants who successfully cross the southern border illegally without being caught. Border Patrol estimates that 1.7 million migrants have evaded apprehension since the start of fiscal year 2021.
Just because migrants were processed by CBP does not mean they were allowed to stay. Many have been released into the U.S. with notices to appear in immigration court. But the U.S. has also turned away or deported over 4 million migrants since the start of fiscal year 2021, according to Department of Homeland Security data.
By Camilo Montoya Galvez
Partially true, needs context: Harris claims Trump would enact $4,000 “sales tax”
Harris: “Economists have said that Trump sales tax would actually result — for middle class families — in about $4,000 more a year because of his policies and his ideas about what should be — [on] the backs of middle class people paying for tax cuts for billionaires.”
Details: Harris is citing an estimate of potential costs if Trump were to implement tariffs on imported goods. Trump has advocated for a tariff of at least 10% on most imports and a tariff of at least 60% on Chinese imports.
However, estimates of the potential costs and the likely scale of the tariffs vary. An analysis from the Center for American Progress Action, a progressive policy institute, estimated that a 20% tariff on most imports, combined with a 60% tax on Chinese goods, would amount to a tax increase of around $3,900 annually for middle-income families.
The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that a 10% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods would lower average after-tax incomes by about $1,800 in 2025.
Economists told CBS News that everyday consumers would bear the brunt of higher import tariffs through increased prices on goods, effectively acting as a tax. In an interview with The New York Times, Robert Lighthizer, who served as Trump’s chief trade negotiator and still advises his campaign on trade issues, said the burden on American households could be offset by tax cuts.
By Emma Li
False: Trump claims “they had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country”
Details: Under President Biden, year-over-year inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. That was the highest monthly figure in about 40 years, but not the highest ever. The 1970s and early 1980s saw inflation rates between 12% and 14%, according to Federal Reserve data. Inflation has since cooled considerably. The figures for July 2024 show year-to-year inflation is about 2.9%.
By Laura Doan
False: Trump claims Haitian immigrants are “eating the dogs” and pets in Springfield, Ohio
Trump: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Details: Officials in Springfield, Ohio, say they have not received any credible reports of Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets, despite viral claims on social media that have been amplified this week by Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance and others.
A city spokesperson told CBS News there have been “no credible reports or specific claims” of pets being harmed by immigrants. Clark County Park District officials told CBS News there has been “no evidence or reports” of people eating pets or wildlife.
By Layla Ferris, Rhona Tarrant
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
