Debate Disinformation: Lies So Bad That They Cross a Line

During Tuesday's presidential debate, Donald Trump continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged and he actually won.

That wasn't the only debunked conspiracy theory or outright lie pushed by the former president during the debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. He also repeated unsubstantiated stories, recently gone viral on social media, that migrants from Haiti are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, along with false claims that some Democrats want the right to "execute" babies after they're born.

Separately, his reposting on social media of deepfake photos that made it look like he had been endorsed by Taylor Swift finally drew a response from the mega star. She endorsed Harris in a lengthy Instagram post after the conclusion of the debate, citing the artificial intelligence-generated images.

It's nothing new for candidates to stretch the truth a bit, or bend it to suit their needs, during a debate. Media and other fact-checkers were busy long before Trump entered politics. But the amplification of known conspiracy theories and flat-out lies takes things to a new level. 

While Harris wasn't perfectly accurate on her claims -- for example, exaggerating Trump's stance on abortion -- fact-checking of her claims showed that she was generally in the realm of truth but sometimes lacked context. Conversely, Trump made more clearly false and disproven claims, pushing bogus claims pulled from social media. 

Although disinformation is often amplified by technology like social media, the future of technology and the tech industry didn't come up much during what could end up being the one and only debate between the pair. 

Harris briefly touched on the need for investment to ensure the US wins the race in AI and quantum computing. But topics like the possible regulation of social media companies, national data privacy legislation and the possible eventual ban of TikTok never came up.

Here's a look at the tech takeaways from Tuesday's debate:

Trump continues making false claims about the 2020 election

As he has for the past three and a half years, Trump continued to push the lie that he actually won the 2020 election between him and current President Joe Biden, despite never producing any evidence to back that claim.

"Look, there's so much proof. All you have to do is look at it," Trump said. "And they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval."

The debate moderators pointed out that after the 2020 election Trump and his supporters filed 60 lawsuits against state and local elections officials around the country claiming election fraud, but none of the judges in those cases found evidence of widespread fraud. Trump argued back that the cases were thrown out on technicalities, rather than a lack of evidence.

He also blamed immigrants, along with the willingness of Democrats to allow them in the country, for election fraud, but didn't provide any evidence of that happening, either. 

"Our elections are bad," he said. "And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they're trying to get them to vote."

It's illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and there's no evidence to show that this is happening on a widespread basis.

Harris said the outcome of the 2020 election was a clear one.

"Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people," she said. "But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election."

Trump cites social media myths about migrants

Immigration is one of the biggest issues in this year's election and seen by many experts as one where Trump could pick up votes. So it's not a big surprise that regardless of the question posed by the moderators, Trump tried to bring the conversation back around to that.

He accused immigrants and migrants of everything from stealing American jobs to voter fraud, without evidence of either, instead pointing to unverified posts on social media. But the most shocking claim was his repetition of unfounded and dehumanizing accusations of migrants stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

According to local news reports, someone posted on a local Facebook group that "their neighbor's daughter's friend" had lost her cat and found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor's home being carved up to be eaten.

The post was debunked by local police and the Springfield city manager, who both said that they'd received no reports of this actually happening. But that didn't stop it from going viral on the internet or Trump from repeating the story during the debate.

"A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it," Trump said. "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- 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."

When the moderators responded that the story was refuted by the city manager, Trump insisted that "people on television" had said their dog was taken and eaten but didn't provide details.

Democrats don't want to 'execute' newborns

In perhaps one of the most horrific misrepresentations of the push to codify abortion rights at a national level, Trump falsely claimed during the debate that Democrats could try to extend abortion rights to allow the "executions" of newborns.

He pointed to vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who last year signed a bill guaranteeing abortion rights in his state, as one of the "radical" Democrats that would allow that to happen.

"Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine," Trump said. "He also says execution after birth, it's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay. And that's not okay with me."

The comments prompted a fact-checking moment from the moderators who clarified that it's not legal in any state to kill a baby after it's born. And Watz has never made a public statement saying any of that.

Trump was likely referring to a Senate bill that was approved by 49 Democrats but blocked by Republicans in 2022. It would preserve the current constitutional standard for abortions later in pregnancy, which allow states to restrict abortions after fetal viability, except when abortions are necessary to protect the health or life of the mother.

But abortion opponents have misrepresented the bill in social media posts, saying that it would allow abortions during childbirth. CDC research shows that less than 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks.  

AI prompts a real Taylor Swift endorsement

After the debate's conclusion, Taylor Swift took to social media to finally break her silence about the deepfaked photos posted to Trump's Truth Social account that made it look like she had endorsed him.

In a lengthy Instagram post, the singer-songwriter endorsed Harris saying that the deepfakes Trump promoted "conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation."

"It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter," Swift said. "The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth."

Trump recently posted images, at least some of which appeared to be AI-generated, to his Truth Social account that implied he was being endorsed by Swift and her fans. The images, which he topped with the text "I accept," were originally posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by a user who labeled them as satire. One of the images reposted on Trump's Truth Social account even has the word "satire" in the image text.

On the flip side, Trump has also falsely accused Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign of deepfaking a photo taken at Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan Airport, saying she "AI'd" it to show a massive crowd that he claims didn't exist. But numerous other videos and photos of the event showed a crowd similar in size to the one shown in the Harris campaign photo. Local reporters at the event estimated the crowd at about 15,000 people.