Local authorities have debunked viral smears spreading among right-wing media that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. In a statement to ABC News prior to the debate, the city’s manager said that “in response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” 

But during the debate, Trump repeated the false claim in response to a question about immigration: “They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. … They're eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame.” 

Right-wing media had been spreading the accusations on air and online in the days before the debate, claiming Haitian migrants in Springfield were consuming “cats and ducks.” 

During the debate, moderator David Muir fact-checked the lie, reiterating that the Springfield city manager told ABC “there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

According to the Brennan Center, “Numerous studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite. Studies have also examined the impact of the concentration of immigrants in a community on crime patterns, finding that immigration is associated with lower crime rates and an increase in structural factors — such as social connection and economic opportunity — that are linked to neighborhood safety.”

Despite this evidence, during the debate, Trump claimed that migrants have “destroyed the fabric of our country,” with crime “through the roof” and taking on a “new form” as “migrant crime.”

Right-wing media figures have saturated their airwaves with false claims of so-called “migrant crime.” As of mid-July, Fox had run nearly 1,000 weekday segments on “migrant crime” so far this year, and right-wing media figures have relentlessly accused migrants of coming to “rape and pillage and murder” Americans.

As The New York Times has explained: “Immigrant populations in the United States have been growing fast for decades now. Crime in the same period, however, has moved in the opposite direction, with the national rate of violent crime today well below what it was in 1980.” And: “The 10 places with the largest increases in immigrants all had lower levels of crime in 2016 than in 1980.”

The Washington Post has reported that “abortion ‘until the day of birth’ is almost never a thing,” with the number of abortions even performed after viability “vanishingly small.” According to the Post, only about 1 percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks, and most of those come before 24 weeks.

Yet during the debate, Trump claimed of Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: "Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth.”

Right-wing media figures have also lied about Walz’s record on reproductive care, accusing him of allowing “abortion until the moment of birth.”

In response to Trump’s claim, moderator Linsey Davis said, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. Madam vice president, I want to get your response to President Trump.”

FBI data shows violent crime continues to trend down since a pandemic spike.

During the debate, Trump said: “The FBI -- they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”

Right-wing media made this same point earlier this year, insisting that the FBI was releasing incorrect data to show crime is decreasing to help President Joe Biden win the 2024 presidential election and baselessly suggesting they were “cooking the books.”

The Washington Post called Trump’s statement “false,” noting that “Violent crime rates, especially for homicide in large cities, have fallen sharply during Biden’s presidency, after a surge during the pandemic.”

Harris’ father is Black, and she has referred to herself as Black throughout her political career, while also recognizing her mother’s Indian heritage.

But during the debate, Trump claimed that he read that Harris “put out” that she was not Black, “then I read that she was Black.”

After Harris became the likely Democratic nominee, right-wing media both called Harris the “DEI candidate” and questioned whether she is Black (adding to a yearslong pattern). Trump also previously made the false claim during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.

Forbes notes: “There is no evidence Harris has ever denied or downplayed her mixed race.”

Biden won the 2020 election, as confirmed by the initial vote counts, multiple recounts and reviews, and numerous failed lawsuits challenging the win.

Yet during the debate, Trump declared that he won states that he in fact lost, saying, “I’ll show you Georgia, and I’ll show you Wisconsin, and I’ll show you Pennsylvania. … We have so many facts and statistics.”

In the lead-up to January 6, right-wing media promoted lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump. And the election lies haven’t stopped: Trump and right-wing media have also seemingly been priming viewers to expect voter fraud in the 2024 contest.

Election fraud is very rare, and there is no evidence of fraud impacting the outcome of the 2020 election.

In 2017, discussing the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said that “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

During the debate, Harris quoted the statement, and Trump replied, “On Charlottesville, that story has been, as you would say, debunked,” also mentioning Fox News prime-time hosts: “Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Jesse — all these people, they covered it. If they go an extra sentence, they will see it was perfect. It was debunked in almost every newspaper.”

Right-wing media recently touted a questionable fact check issued by the outlet Snopes, which asserted that in 2017 Trump did not call white supremacists “very fine people.”

But some have criticized Snopes’ fact check, with The New Republic noting that it “fails to recognize the intricacies of Trump’s rhetoric, which serves as a prime example of doublespeak” and The Washington Post noting that “in context, Trump was indeed downplaying the action of the racist actors involved.”

As The Washington Post explained: “There is not a deliberate effort to bring immigrants to the country to ‘replace’ native-born White Americans.” Additionally, immigrants are not “rapidly being granted citizenship,” “outnumbering births,” or responsible for “most new births in the United States.”

In the debate, Trump baselessly asserted that “a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can't even speak English. They don't even know what country they're in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote. And that's why they're allowing them to come into our country.”

In recent years, right-wing media have pushed this racist great replacement theory, a white nationalist conspiracy theory that nonwhite people are replacing white people in the United States and other predominantly white countries, specifically through immigration. Ahead of the 2024 election, right-wing media have recycled this theory, fearmongering that these immigrants will vote in elections.

The false theory has also been cited as inspiring numerous acts of mass violence, including both the El Paso, Texas, and Christchurch, New Zealand, mass shootings in 2019, and the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting in 2022.