Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, gave her “closing argument” speech for the 2024 presidential election at the Ellipse by the White House, the location former President Donald Trump spoke at on Jan. 6, 2021, before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Harris repeatedly condemned Trump, attempted to define herself as different from President Joe Biden, and presented herself as a conciliator when her record suggests the opposite.
Here are 6 fact checks of statements from her speech.
Harris began her speech by referencing the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol.
She said of Trump, “He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost.”
She went on to claim that “Americans died as a result of that attack,” and she noted that 140 law enforcement officers were injured.
The claim that the Jan. 6 protesters were “armed” has been disputed. Several carried pepper spray or bear spray. Some wielded flagpoles as clubs and attacked law enforcement officers.
Prosecutors charged at least three protesters with having firearms “on Capitol grounds,” or stashed nearby, meaning not necessarily inside the Capitol.
Harris is correct that people died, but only two people died directly from the Jan. 6 violence. Seven others died indirectly from events of the day, according to The New York Times. A Capitol Police officer fatally shot protester Ashli Babbitt when she was trying to break through a door, and another protester died in a stampede of fellow rioters. Others died of natural causes or suicide, but the stress from the violence and commotion of the day could have contributed to those deaths.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, initially thought to have died from an attack, actually died of natural causes, although the stress from the day’s events could have prompted his strokes.
?ARMED MOB? Kamala Harris spins a yarn about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
She claims Trump "sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost."
Yet was the mob… pic.twitter.com/cy9uN5MG3r
Harris repeated three lies about Trump’s agenda on abortion.
“He would ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put IVF treatments at risk, and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies,” Harris said. “Just Google Project 2025.”
Trump has pledged to leave the issue of abortion up to the states, even saying he would not sign a federal law restricting the practice.
Although Trump briefly mentioned that he would consider restrictions on contraception, he immediately reversed his position and has not returned to it.
As for IVF, an acronym for “in vitro fertilization,” Trump has not only not opposed it, but pledged to subsidize it with federal tax dollars.
As for Project 2025—a project launched by The Heritage Foundation in partnership with over 100 conservative organizations to empower a conservative president to undermine the deep state and restore........