Fact-Checking the First 2024 Presidential Debate: Harris vs. Trump

The first presidential debate of the election year 2024 between incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was held on Tuesday at Philadelphia, National Constitution Center. The live debate of 90 minutes was organized where the candidates debated on the major concerns of the country to win the White House seat.

Debate Highlights and Fact-Checking

While the Democratic and Republican nominees debated, ABC News did a live fact-checking of their claims and assertions. This process was designed to detect overgeneralized answers, answers that required more detail or provisos, and plain old lies.

Harris on Nobel Laureates and Economic Predictions

Vice President Harris spoke about Nobel laureates’ views on inflation and Trump’s presidency. According to the fact-check:

– Harris appropriately repeated the words of the Nobel laureates: “There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation.”

– But she was only somewhat correct, as she mentioned that economists have predicted a recession by mid-2025.

The Nobel Lecture: What the Nobel Laureates Said

A group of 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists expressed their views on the economic impacts of a potential second Trump term:

– They claimed that Harris had far better objectives in her mind than the latter did.

– The group argued that, “We think that the re-election of Trump will bring negative change on the US status in the global economy and disturb the domestic economy significantly.

– As has been mentioned above, the economists did not predict a recession by the middle of 2025 per se, as Harris mentioned.

The Nobel Laureates

The 16 economists who signed the letter are:

Of the 24 laureates, the following: George Akerlof, Angus Deaton, Claudia Goldin, Oliver Hart, Eric S. Maskin, Daniel L. McFadden, Paul R. Milgrom, Roger B. Myerson, Edmund S. Phelps, Paul M. Romer, Alvin E. Roth, William F. Sharp, Robert J. Shiller, Christopher A. Sims, Joseph Stigl

This first head-to-head presidential debate established the tone for the continuous 2024 election campaign, as this showed the significance of truth-checking and proper journalism in political discussions.