Fact check: Did Harris exaggerate scale of Trump’s pre-career inheritance?
Al Jazeera
Harris claimed Trump started out in business with ‘$400m on a silver platter’ from his father. But is that accurate?
United States Vice President Kamala Harris has periodically needled her opponent in the presidential race, former President Donald Trump, over his business record.
During a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 12, Harris touted her plan to provide a $50,000 tax deduction for small business startups, then segued into a knock on how Trump started his own business career.
“You know, not everybody started out with $400m on a silver platter and then filed for bankruptcy six times,” Harris said.
Harris used a similar line the same day in an appearance in Greensboro, North Carolina, two days earlier in her debate with Trump, and in a livestreamed conversation Oprah Winfrey hosted on Thursday.
During the debate, Trump responded, “I wasn’t given $400m. I wish I was. My father was a Brooklyn builder. Brooklyn, Queens. And a great father, and I learned a lot from him. But I was given a fraction of that, a tiny fraction, and I built it into many, many billions of dollars.”
