Fact-checking Kamala Harris's 'media blitz'
- Published
After facing criticism for not doing many interviews during the election campaign so far, the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has embarked on what is being called "a media blitz".
Her appearances in the last few days include a podcast, a talk show and a Fox interview.
She has been defending the Biden-Harris administration's record on key issues such as immigration and the economy.
BBC Verify has examined some of her claims.
Were transgender surgeries available to prisoners under Trump?
CLAIM: “Under Donald Trump's administration, [transgender] surgeries were available… to people in the federal prison system”.
VERDICT: This claim needs context. Prison policy under Trump did allow for this type of treatment, but no federal prisoners received transgender surgery while he was president, while two did in 2022 and 2023.
On Wednesday, Kamala Harris was interviewed on Fox News where she was challenged on previous positions she has taken, including on transgender surgery for prisoners.
She was played a Republican ad which has a clip of her saying “surgery … every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access”.
This is from an interview she did in 2019 when she was talking about a law she said she helped change in California.
She was asked whether she still supported this, but did not give a direct answer. She said she would “follow the law” and pointed out that this type of surgery was also available in federal prisons under Trump.
“BOP [the Federal Bureau of Prisons] policy during both the Trump and Biden Administrations did, in fact, allow for care for gender dysphoria that included surgeries”, ACLU-Illinois, a civil rights organisation who represented a transgender inmate, told BBC Verify.
But there were no such surgeries under Trump in the federal prison system. To date, there have been two, in 2022 and 2023.
Is US unemployment at an historic low?
CLAIM: “We now have historic low unemployment in America.”
VERDICT: The current rate of unemployment is not at its lowest level in US history and it was lower at one point under Donald Trump.
Harris made this claim in an interview on CBS's '60 minutes' programme on Monday.
The current jobless rate is 4.1%, relatively low but higher than the lowest point on record, which was 2.5% in 1953.
It is also higher than its lowest point under Trump, when it fell to 3.5%.
As in many countries, Covid lockdown measures led to soaring levels of unemployment in the US but these fell to 6.5% by the time he left office.
Under the Biden administration, unemployment hit a low of 3.4% in January 2023.
This was the lowest rate in more than 50 years but it has since ticked up.
Has illegal immigration been cut in half?
CLAIM: "We’ve cut the flow of illegal immigration by half."
VERDICT: There are figures to support this claim, but they do not give a full picture of illegal immigration under the Biden-Harris administration.
Harris did not give a timeframe when making this claim on CBS show 60 Minutes.
Border officials record the number of encounters with migrants who have tried to cross into the US.
In August 2024, there were just below 160,000, external of these encounters.
If you compare this with December 2023 - which saw a record high of 370,000 - you get a 57% drop.
There has been a significant reduction in encounters at the southern border with Mexico since June 2024, when President Biden introduced regulations restricting the right of those crossing the border to claim asylum.
But his administration has seen record numbers of encounters.
Since January 2021, when he came to office, there have been about 8 million encounters at the southern border.
Under Trump, there were 2.4 million encounters on this border.
Have 800,000 manufacturing jobs been created?
CLAIM: “In terms of manufacturing… creating almost 800,000 new jobs.”
VERDICT: This claim is somewhat exaggerated and needs context.
Harris made this claim on ABC talk show The View.
Since January 2021, the Biden administration has added 729,000 manufacturing jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics., external
The number of these jobs has been falling in recent months.
From May to September 2024, the sector lost 44,000 jobs.
As of September 2024, just over 12.9 million people were working in manufacturing - 90,000 more than at the peak under Trump.
Like many industries, manufacturing jobs saw a significant fall during the pandemic, but began to bounce back under Trump.
He added 419,000 manufacturing jobs during his first three years in office.
Is there an abortion ban in nearly all southern states?
CLAIM: “Every state in the south, except for Virginia, has an abortion ban.”
VERDICT: This claim needs more context as there are differences in abortion restrictions between these states.
Harris spoke about abortion during her appearance on ‘Call Her Daddy’ - a podcast promoting open conversations about sex and relationships.
Thirteen US states have outlawed nearly all abortions, according to pro-choice research group the Guttmacher Institute. Some have narrow exceptions for cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother.
Most of these are southern states.
But in other southern states, like Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, abortions are only allowed in the first six weeks of pregnancy.
In North Carolina, abortions are banned after 12 weeks and in Virginia, abortion is banned after the start of the third trimester (28 weeks).
Correction 9 October 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that abortion in Virginia is banned after the third trimester when it should have said after the start of the third trimester.
