Kamala Harris' top 5 falsehoods in Tuesday's debate

At the first presidential debate Tuesday between President Donald Trump and the Democrats' replacement candidate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the moderators appeared keen to cast doubt on a handful of the Republican's assertions.

ABC News' David Muir and Linsey Davis refrained, however, from similarly weighing in when Kamala Harris advanced several false claims — even when she recycled hoaxes previously debunked by liberal fact-checking outfits.

Below are five of the most egregious falsehoods advanced by Harris in the debate along with the real stories.

'Fine people' hoax

Harris' claim: "Let's remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-Semitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? 'They were fine people on each side.'"

Reality: Just as Harris reportedly copied and pasted her policy agenda on Sunday from Biden, she has similarly adopted her boss' go-to yarn, which Snopes has categorically ruled out as "false."

In August 2017, there was a so-called "Unite the Right" rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia. Among the protesters and counter-protesters who turned up were leftists, individuals critical of the removal of a Confederate statue, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists.

Days later, President Trump held a press conference, where a reporter asked him about the neo-Nazis at the demonstration. Trump said, "As I said on, remember this, Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America."

After Trump noted that violent instigators were on both sides of the demonstration and that some people present at the rally had simply been protesting iconoclasm, a reporter said, "The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville."

Trump responded:

Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

Snopes acknowledged in its updated fact-check that Trump was referencing protesters and counter-protesters and that Trump made abundantly clear that "he wasn't talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be 'condemned totally.'"

Project 2025

Harris' claim: "What you're going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again."

Reality: The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 is a "candidate-agnostic" policy document that was developed by a coalition of over 110 conservative groups long before Trump was the Republican candidate for president and published prior to the primary in April 2023.

Trump has disavowed it, stating, "Some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."

Harris, her campaign, various Democratic operatives, and their allies in the liberal media have pushed this false talking point for weeks.

When the Associated Press parroted the Democratic suggestion that it is a "Republican blueprint for a second Trump term," Project 2025 demanded a correction and an apology, stressing, "Project 2025 does not represent any candidate or campaign."

Nationwide abortion ban

Harris' claim: "Understand: If Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Understand: In his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion — a monitor — that would monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages."

Reality: While Harris has gotten good use out of this threat in recent weeks, it has no basis in reality. Trump has repeatedly said that individual states should set their own abortion laws.

Just weeks after he said reports that he privately supports a 16-week abortion ban were "fake news," Trump suggested to WABC-FM's "Sid & Friends in the Morning" in March, "Everybody agrees — you've heard this for years — all the legal scholars on both sides agree: It's a state issue. It shouldn't be a federal issue; it's a state issue."

In April, he said on Truth Social, "My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state."

CNN reported that Trump was asked in Atlanta that month whether he would ratify a national abortion ban if it passed in Congress, and he flatly answered, "No."

Although Trump did not say so explicitly Tuesday, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) told NBC News' "Meet the Press" last month that Trump would veto a national abortion ban.

Neither the 2024 Republican platform nor Trump's Agenda 47 make any mention of a national abortion ban.

'Bloodbath' hoax

Harris' claim: "Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if this and the outcome of this election is not to his liking."

Reality: On March 16, Trump used the word "bloodbath" in reference to the economic fallout of continued offshoring of jobs and automobile manufacturing plants under the Biden-Harris administration.

Addressing Chinese dictator Xi Jinping during his speech at the Dayton International Airport in Ohio, Trump suggested America would not buy cars made in Chinese manufacturing plants in Mexico, built without American labor.

Trump added:

We're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those guys — if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that's gonna be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars.

Mythologizing Jan. 6

Claims: "[On Jan. 6], 140 law enforcement officers were injured and some died."

"Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War."

Reality: The suggestion that law enforcement officers died on Jan. 6 as the result of the Capitol riot has been recycled by Democratic lawmakers and media talking heads for years. It is, however, false.

No police officers died in the line of duty during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who Democrats have long claimed was killed in or as the result of the fracas, returned to headquarters in "good condition" after the incident but suffered two strokes the following day, reportedly dying of natural causes.

On April 19, 2021, the USCP accepted the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's finding that Sicknick "died of natural causes."

Four responding officers later killed themselves.

In terms of slayings that day, unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt — a protester at the Capitol — was gunned down by USCP officer Michael Byrd.

As for Harris' insinuation that the riot was the worst attack on the U.S. since the Civil War, she apparently forgot the historic significance of the day after the debate, September 11.

Critics online have noted other incidents that have taken place since the Civil War that might also qualify, including the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that claimed the lives of over 2,400 Americans; the assassination of President Robert F. Kennedy; and the BLM riots, which claimed the lives of between 6 and 20 people, resulted in the death of a police officer and the injury over 2,000, and inflicted billions of dollars in damage.

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