Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday evening, marking their first interview together since Walz was announced as Harris’ running mate for the 2024 presidential election. This interview comes amid ongoing criticism from Republican figures, who have pointed out that Harris has avoided holding a news conference since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign. The excitement within the Democratic Party has surged with the Harris-Walz ticket, particularly as polls indicate Harris is outperforming Biden’s numbers and leading Donald Trump. Newsweek’s Fact Check team delved into the claims made during this interview, providing detailed analysis.
Contents
Duration of the Interview
Critics of Harris claimed that the interview was a brief 18 minutes, especially when compared to the much longer but less confrontational podcast appearances by Trump. However, CNN has released the full interview, which lasts just under 27 minutes, along with a complete transcript, contradicting these claims.
Harris on Job Creation
Harris stated that the Biden administration has created “over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs” and “300,000 new clean energy jobs.” These figures require some context. According to seasonally adjusted data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. increased from 12,188,000 in February 2021 to 12,953,000 in July 2024, reflecting an increase of 765,000 jobs. The peak over the past four years reached 12,966,000, showing an increase of 778,000 jobs, not the “over 800,000” as claimed by Harris. It is possible that Harris referred to non-seasonally adjusted data, which shows an increase of more than 900,000 since January 2021. The Harris campaign’s figures may account for these differences.
As for clean energy jobs, the figure Harris cited appears to be based on an estimate by Climate Power, an advocacy group that tracked the announcement of 334,565 clean energy jobs since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, though this includes jobs not yet filled and temporary positions. The Department of Energy’s recent report indicates that clean energy employment increased by 142,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023, following an increase of 114,000 jobs between 2021 and 2022.
Harris on the Economy
Harris also claimed that inflation had fallen below three percent and that the U.S. had recovered from COVID “faster than any wealthy nation around the world.” Currently, inflation is at 2.9 percent, its lowest since March 2021, and significantly down from the peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. GDP has grown by 9.4 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, surpassing the growth of all G7 nations and the average growth of OECD countries.
Harris on Immigration
Bash questioned Harris on the record number of U.S. immigration cases and her role in addressing the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle of Central America, including Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Harris claimed there had been a reduction in “immigrants coming from that region.” Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows a year-on-year decrease in encounters with citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras between October 2021 and September 2023. However, the year-to-date figures for 2024 exceed last year’s totals, with 365,246 encounters reported between October 2023 and July 2024, compared to 346,704 during the same period in 2023.
Harris on Fracking
Harris’s stance on fracking has been a target for criticism, particularly after she stated her support for a fracking ban during the 2020 presidential campaign. In the interview with Bash, Harris said, “I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020—that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.” During the 2020 Vice Presidential debate, Harris mainly reiterated Joe Biden’s position against banning fracking. When former Vice President Mike Pence claimed that Biden and Harris had “repeatedly committed to abolishing fossil fuel and banning fracking,” Harris responded, “That’s not true.”
Harris also mentioned that she cast a “tiebreaking vote that actually increased leases for fracking as vice president,” likely referring to her vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions to increase oil and gas leasing. Newsweek has reached out to Harris’s representatives for additional data on the increase in natural gas leases.
Walz’s Defense
Tim Walz’s only significant statement during the interview not addressed by Harris was his claim that a Trump presidency could result in an “abortion ban.” As previously reported by Newsweek, Trump has not advocated for a national abortion ban, stating that such decisions should be left to the states. Furthermore, Project 2025, which some have described as a Trump government blueprint, does not include a national abortion ban.
Walz also defended previous comments he made about carrying “weapons of war” during his deployment to Italy in 2003 as part of America’s war on terror, despite not having seen open combat, and a statement about him and his wife using fertility treatments, which some interpreted as a reference to IVF.
Scrutinizing the Facts
The CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz has sparked significant interest, and the claims made by both figures have been carefully examined. While Harris and Walz presented information that aligns with broader trends and data, some of their statements require additional context or clarification. The ongoing political discourse will undoubtedly continue to scrutinize these details as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
