Donald Trump was featured in a town hall event with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, as the former president touted his 2024 campaign in front of a supportive crowd in Pennsylvania.
Trump, who is set to debate Vice President Kamala Harris next week, previously said that the Fox News event was scheduled as an early debate with his Democratic opponent, despite the vice president never having agreed to participate.
During the portion of the town hall that aired on Wednesday, Trump told voters that they “have to” vote for him, while also lashing out at Harris, President Joe Biden, Democrats and a supposed “coup” that made Harris the Democratic Party nominee.
Additional unaired footage from the town hall, including questions from the pro-Trump audience, is expected to air on Fox News’ Hannity on Thursday night.
Newsweek fact-checked several of the claims made by Trump during Wednesday’s event, in detail.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP
Trump on Immigration
The former president repeated immigration rhetoric during the town hall that he frequently uses during campaign stops, including a claim that Harris “wants open borders” and “was the border czar whether you like it or not.”
“Even if you don’t want to use that term, she was in charge of the border,” Trump said. “It’s the worst border in the history of the world.”
While Harris has never publicly expressed support for “open borders,” the media did refer to her as the “border czar” during the early days of the Biden administration.
However, Harris was specifically tasked by Biden with investigating the root causes of illegal immigration from Central American countries. She was not responsible for solving illegal immigration or setting policy, nor did she have any statutory power to do so as vice president.
Trump also claimed that “21 million” illegal migrants, including many criminals, had flooded across the U.S.-Mexico border while Biden and Harris have been in office.
“There’s never been a country that allowed 21 million people to come in over a three-year period,” Trump said. “And 21 million people, many of whom are from prisons, many of whom are murderers and drug dealers. And child traffickers, and by the way, women traffickers.”
“They’re coming in now and they’re putting them in our Social Security accounts, and they’re putting them in our Medicare,” he added.
Trump’s claims are largely false. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Social Security or Medicare benefits, although some legal immigrants are if they meet specific eligibility criteria.
Immigration officials have counted around 10 million “encounters” with migrants at the border during Biden’s tenure, including some that may not have resulted in migrants successfully crossing into the U.S., according to PolitiFact.
Trump may have arrived at the 21 million figure due to a further 11.6 million people who were not stopped by officials at the border, although this figure is based on a subjective and unverified count and the true number of crossings is unclear.
There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim of a massive wave of criminals flooding across the border, nor is there any evidence for another claim that he made regarding other countries “emptying out their mental institutions and insane asylums” and sending the patients to the U.S.
Trump on Fracking
Trump blasted Harris repeatedly during the town hall for her past opposition to fracking, which is a hot-button issue in swing state Pennsylvania.
“There’s no chance that she’s going to allow it,” said Trump. “The election will take place, if she [wins] you’re not gonna have any fracking in Pennsylvania … Think of that, it’s your biggest business.”
“You can’t take the chance,” he added. “You have no choice. You’ve gotta vote for me, even if you don’t like me … You have to have fracking … She will not allow fracking.”
Although Harris did oppose fracking during her 2020 campaign, she backed off her stance after becoming Biden’s running mate and has since made it clear that her position on the issue has changed and she no longer favors a ban.
“We can increase a clean-energy economy without banning fracking,” Harris said during her sit-down interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash last week.
Trump on Harris Becoming the Democratic Nominee
The former president argued that it was “unfair” for Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her on July 21, claiming that her candidacy amounts to a “coup.”
“It’s very unfair,” Trump said. “She ran against [Biden] in the primary, she got no votes and she was the first to leave … He got 14 million votes and they threw him out.”
“It was really a coup when you think about it,” he added. “And the woman who came in last, the person who came in last [becomes the nominee].”
Harris did run against Biden during the 2020 election Democratic primaries but dropped out of the race before any ballots were cast. She was not, however, the first candidate to exit, having been preceded by at least 10 other Democrats.
In this year’s primary, Harris did not run against Biden, as she was instead on the ticket alongside the president as his running mate.
Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket was not the result of a coup—political parties are allowed to select their own presidential candidates and the selection of Harris was done fully within Democratic Party rules.
Trump on the Economy
During the town hall, Trump boasted about enacting “the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country.” The Trump tax cuts, which Harris has claimed are a gift to billionaires and large corporations, were instead the fourth-biggest tax cuts since 1940 and the seventh biggest in terms of percentage of gross domestic product, according to PolitiFact.
“If you let the Trump tax cuts expire, which she wants to do, she wants to terminate them, you will suffer the biggest tax increase in history,” Trump said. “On top of this, she wants to add a lot of tax … This country will end up in a depression if she becomes president, like 1929.”
Harris does support increasing taxes by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade, although the plan would not include an increase for anyone earning $400,000 per year or less and would instead target the wealthiest Americans and corporations.
Trump’s claim about Harris’ economic policies ushering in a depression has a familiar ring, with the former president having repeatedly made similar claims about Biden. However, there are no indications that a depression is likely any time soon.
Trump on Terrorism
The former president claimed that there were no acts of “radical Islamic terror” during his four years in office, a claim that has previously been proven false.
Trump made the statement while criticizing the Biden administration’s policies toward America’s foreign adversaries, including Iran, which the U.S. has accused of financially supporting Islamic militant groups, including the Palestinian group Hamas.
The former president told Hannity that Hamas’ attacks against Israel on October 7 “would have never happened if I were president,” and claimed that Iran was “broke” under his administration.
Iran’s funding for groups like Hamas did decline during the second half of Trump’s presidency in part due to the sanctions his administration put on Iran that negatively impacted its economy, according to a previous fact-check by CNN.
Trump went on to say that his administration “went four years without any blowups.”
“We had no radical Islamic terror, we had no radical Islamic terror,” he added. “Because we were very tough at the borders, we were very tough with our statements and we—the whole world was a safe place.”
Trump’s Justice Department accused radical Islamic ideals for being behind two separate incidents during his time in office. After eight people were killed and several others injured on a crowded street in New York City in 2017, the DOJ said that the suspect had carried out the attack in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
A few years later, in 2019, the FBI said that the suspect behind the attack at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, had been in touch with Al-Qaeda before the shooting, which left three servicemembers dead and injured eight others.
The State Department’s report on terrorism in 2020 stated at the time that “terrorist groups remained a persistent and pervasive threat worldwide,” the year prior, and said that “ISIS affiliates outside Iraq and Syria caused more fatalities during 2020 than in any previous year.”
Trump on His Debate With Biden
With less than a week until his first debate with Harris, Trump praised his own interviewing skills, including those displayed his June 27 debate against Biden, then the Democratic presidential nominee.
“I thought I did well,” Trump told Hannity of the debate. “I don’t think he [Biden] did too well … And you know what, he didn’t make it.”
“He wasn’t going to win, I don’t—I don’t think he was going to win,” Trump added later. “But we did a good debate, we had a good debate, and it was a fair debate, and he was down like 18 or 19 points after the debate.”
Biden faced pressure from his fellow Democrats to step aside as the party’s nominee after a rocky debate performance against Trump, and polling showed the former president slowly pulling away from Biden in the weeks leading up to Harris entering the 2024 race.
On the day that Biden dropped out, FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate said that Trump was beating Biden by 3.2 percentage points on average across national polls. A handful of polls showed Trump with a much larger lead following the debate, however. In a poll conducted by 1983 Labs from June 28 to June 30, Trump was up on Biden by 15 percentage points (48 percent to 33 percent), per the responses of 492 likely voters.
A survey from Targoz Market Research on behalf of the Beacon Center of Tennessee gave Trump a 27-point lead in the race (55 percent to 28 percent), based on the responses of 1,152 registered voters surveyed from June 20 to July 1. In another poll conducted by Torchlight Strategies on behalf of GOP Senator Deb Fischer from July 8 to July 11, Trump was ahead of Biden by 19 points (52 percent to 33 percent), according to the responses of 698 likely voters.
Closer to the day that Biden stepped aside, polling showed the race much tighter, although Trump was consistently in the lead. A poll from The Economist/YouGov from July 13 to July 16 found the former president up 2 points on Biden (43 percent to 41 percent), according to 1,404 registered voters. An Ipsos/Reuters poll from July 15 and July 16 found Biden and Trump neck-and-neck, with the former president leading by just 1 point (40 percent to 39 percent) among 992 registered voters.