Fact check: Kamala Harris speech at the White House Ellipse | News about the 2024 US elections

Washington, D.C. – In a speech from the Ellipse adjacent to the White House – also known as the President’s Park – a week after Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris drew a sharp contrast with former President Donald Trump, calling him a “little tyrant” and repeated a phrase she has used in recent days — that she would begin her presidential term not with a list of enemies, but with a to-do list.

Harris spoke at the site where Trump held his ‘Save America’ rally ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. During the Oct. 29 speech, Harris said Trump had been “in this exact spot… and brought an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election.”

In the first half of her speech, Harris focused on the risks she believes Trump poses to the country. She later shifted to policy, distinguishing parts of her agenda on taxes, abortion and immigration from Trump’s.

“Politicians must stop treating immigration as an issue to deter voting in elections,” she said, “and instead treat it as the serious challenge that it is.”

Harris’ campaign said 75,000 attended, which would be her campaign’s largest audience. The House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021 said the ‘Save America’ rally attracted 53,000 people. About two hours before Harris began speaking, lines of supporters snaked around the fencing near the Ellipse grounds, running for blocks and reaching far into the National Mall. Campaign volunteers lined up to sign up visitors for an app that would help them recruit other voters.

Here’s a look at six notable moments, fact-checked.

“He says one of his highest priorities is to release the violent extremists who assaulted law enforcement on January 6.”

Harris accurately said that 140 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack on January 6, 2021. Trump has repeatedly referred to the defendants charged in the attack as “hostages” or “warriors” and pledged to pardon those who stormed the Capitol.

In September 2022, two months before announcing his campaign, Trump told conservative radio host Wendy Bell that he had met with some of the January 6 defendants. “I am very supportive of a full pardon,” he said, adding: “I mean a full pardon, with an apology to many.”

In a Truth Social post in March, he promised that one of his “first acts” as president would be “freeing the January 6th hostages who are wrongly imprisoned!” And he told Time Magazine in April that he would “consider” pardoning everyone.

Justice Department data show that more than 1,500 defendants have been charged in the storming of the Capitol. Approximately 571 suspects were charged with assaulting, resisting, or obstructing law enforcement officers or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disorder, including approximately 164 suspects charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

“Trump plans to use the US military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People, he calls, ‘the enemy from within’.”

Trump has repeatedly spoken of the “enemy within” in his speeches and interviews in October.

Trump told Fox News’ Howard Kurtz on October 20 that Representatives Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, both California Democrats, are “the enemy within.” However, Trump is often vague when he uses this phrase. Trump says the “enemy within” is a “bigger enemy” than foreign enemies, such as China or Russia.

He sometimes uses the phrase shortly after talking about President Joe Biden or Harris, as he did on Oct. 27 during his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

“We are dealing with something much bigger than Joe or Kamala and much more powerful than them, namely a huge, brutal, corrupt, radical left machine that runs today’s Democratic Party. They’re just ships. In fact, they are perfect ships because they will never make things difficult for them. They will do what they want. I know many. It’s just this amorphous group of people. But they are smart and mean. And we have to beat them.

“And when I say ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy… ‘How can he say they have done very bad things to this country?’ They are indeed the enemy from within. But this is who we are fighting.”

On October 13, Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo asked Trump about the possibility of election day chaos. Trump warned of “very bad people,” “radical left-wing lunatics” who should be dealt with by the National Guard or the military if necessary.

Trump would “ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to contraception, jeopardize IVF treatments and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies. Just Google Project 2025 and read the plans for yourself.”

This is misleading.

Since April, Trump has consistently said that abortion laws should be left to the states. He has said he would not sign a national abortion ban. However, as president, Trump passed a national 20-week abortion ban. Early in his 2024 presidential campaign, he expressed support for a federal 15- or 16-week abortion ban, news media reported.

Trump said in a May interview with CBS News that he was “looking at” contraceptive restrictions, but he quickly tried to clarify his words, writing on Truth Social: “I have never and will never advocate imposing restrictions on contraception.”

Trump expressed support for in vitro fertilization during the 2024 campaign, amid Democratic criticism that Republicans want to limit or eliminate the practice. In April, he released a video saying he’s making it “easier” for families to have babies, not harder. “That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments, like IVF, in every state in America,” Trump said. He also recently proposed that IVF costs be reimbursed by the government or that insurers be obliged to do so. He has not said how he will do this.

Nothing in Trump’s Agenda 47 requires states to monitor women’s pregnancies. Instead, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page conservative policy manual for the next Republican administration, proposes withholding federal money from states that do not provide more detailed information about the number of abortions taking place in their states, as well as other statistics for miscarriages and stillbirths to the federal government. The project does not require that all pregnancies be monitored.

Trump would pay for his tax plan with “a 20 percent national sales tax on everything you buy and import. … A Trump sales tax that would cost the average family nearly $4,000 more per year.”

Half true.

Trump has talked about raising tariffs across the board by 10 to 20 percent, so the 20 percent figure Harris mentioned is at the high end of what Trump has said. Tariffs are also not technically part of the tax code, but their effect on consumers would be similar and cost them more money.

The $4,000 quoted by Harris is at the high end of independent estimates. Two estimates we found broadly support Harris’ $4,000 figure. Two others show a smaller – but still significant – effect, ranging from $1,700 to $2,600.

“You’ll pay even more if Donald Trump finally gets his way and repeals the Affordable Care Act, which would strip millions of Americans of their health insurance. And take us back to the days when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions.”

Half true.

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and as president he supported the failed efforts of Republicans in Congress to achieve this.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump’s position wavered. Sometimes he says he wants to replace the law with an “alternative”. But in March, he wrote on Truth Social that he has “no intention of ending the law” and instead wants to make it “better” and “cheaper.”

During the September 10 presidential debate with Harris in Philadelphia, Trump said he has “concepts for a plan” to replace the law but that he would “execute the law to the best of his ability” before drafting his own plan without further details to give.

More than 1,500 doctors released a letter on Oct. 17 calling on Trump to reveal details about how he would change the health care law, saying voters need the explanation to make an informed decision.

Trump “tried to cut health care and Social Security every year he was president.”

This needs context.

On Medicare, Trump has released four consecutive annual budgets proposing cuts to Medicare. However, experts are divided on the extent to which these cuts would have harmed beneficiaries if they had been implemented. Many were bipartisan technical changes that would likely have harmed health care providers rather than patients.

In the area of ​​Social Security, Trump has submitted budget proposals that include cuts to Social Security. These were never implemented due to opposition in Congress.

However, Harris glosses over what these cuts entailed. The proposed cuts targeted two parts of the program — Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income — and not the more widely used old-age and survivor benefits.

Social Security benefits benefit people with physical and mental conditions serious enough to keep them permanently out of work. Supplemental Security Income payments are limited to low-income Americans – older adults, or adults or children who are disabled or blind.

Although these cuts would have affected nearly ten million Americans, the group of people receiving retirement and survivor benefits is almost seven times as large.

Trump has pledged not to cut either program in 2024.