Lied 33 times: "Doesn't matter"

American politics
Trump's lies: Democrats want to kill babies

Karin Thurfjell

Updated 10.34 | Published 10.07

Kamala Harris once lied during the debate.

Opponent Donald Trump lied 33 times, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale.

- Lie after lie in topic after topic, he says.

The Democrats want to kill babies that have already come into the world. It is one of at least 33 lies that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told during the debate last night.

Kamala Harris lied at least once when she said unemployment was at its highest level since the Depression of the 1930s when President Biden and herself as Vice President took over from the Trump administration after the 2020 election.

- It was a stunningly dishonest debate performance from former President Trump, says CNN's reporter Daniel Dale, who has done the fact-checking on his own tv-channel.

Tonight's debate was the first time that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

Trump lied about immigrants eating cats

Trump also repeated false claims made by his running mate JD Vance aboutHaitian immigrants.

- In Springfield they eat dogs. The people who came there, they eat the cats. They eat the pets that belong to those who live there, Trump said.

Trump also lied about opponents' views on abortion. According to Trump, the Democrats want to be able to kill children after they are born.

- If you know what Trump says about the Democrats' abortion policy and what they themselves say they want to do, you know that it is a terribly gross lie, says Erik Åsard, who is professor emeritus of North American Studies at Uppsala University.

          

Erik Åsard, professor emeritus in North American studies at Uppsala University.      Photo:AndersWiklund/TT

"Doesn't matter to Trump's supporters"

For voters who have already decided to vote for Trump, it probably means little that he is accused of a series of untruths.

- It doesn't seem to matter to Trump's most loyal supporters. They somehow baked this into his personality. They like that he is so aggressive when he goes against his opponents and then it matters less if he slips the truth, says Erik Åsard.

How it affects voters who still haven't decided how to vote is hard to say. As far as Erik Åsard knows, there is no data on that.

- It is difficult to separate such a thing as how much a candidate lies from other impressions one has of a candidate. For example, the view on the healthcare issue, migration, the economy, inflation. I don't think the opinion polls can get at that.

He doesn't think voters will be deterred from voting for Kamala Harris because of her factual errors.

         

         Donald Trump after the debate.