Donald Trump’s Interview with Dr. Phil—Fact-Checked

Former President Donald Trump sat down for a one-on-one interview with “Dr. Phil” McGraw as the race to Election Day continues to heat up.

Trump’s interview with McGraw, a TV personality and psychologist, aired Monday night exclusively on the Merit Street network and featured several of Trump’s familiar talking points, including attacking his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, for her policies on the southern border and the economy.

The hourlong conversation has been touted as a two-part special on Dr. Phil Primetime, with McGraw planning to air a sit-down interview on Wednesday with former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the 2024 race late last week and threw his support behind Trump.

“We’re going to turn this country around,” Trump told McGraw. “The country is very sick right now, very sick. We’re going to turn it around. We’re going to make America great again, and we’re going to do it rather rapidly.”

Newsweek fact-checked several of Trump’s claims throughout the interview in detail.

Trump: “I won the election against Biden”

Early into Monday’s interview, Trump falsely claimed that he defeated President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, where the former president lost by over 7 million votes. Trump was responding to a question from McGraw about whether he believes he was “spared for a reason” after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

“Well, God believes that,” Trump said. The former president has said that he believes a higher power played a role in protecting him from the shooting. One of the would-be assassin’s bullets grazed the tip of Trump’s right ear. Two other people suffered injuries and another rallygoer was killed in the gunfire.

“Number one, I’m in an election with a very vicious group of people,” he continued. “I won the election against Biden.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud, a position that has yet to be proven through numerous legal challenges from the former president and his allies. Later on in his interview with McGraw, Trump specifically tore into the use of mail-in ballots during elections, claiming, “Anytime you have a mail-in ballot, there’s going to be massive fraud.”

Several experts have dispelled Trump’s claims that mail-in voting leads to an increased risk of election mishaps. The former president is facing four federal felony charges related to his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump: “Five weeks ago, [Harris] was known as a joke.”

McGraw asked the former president about his opinion on Harris as “a person” during Monday’s interview, prompting the former president to say he doesn’t “know her” but that he disagrees with a lot of her policies.

“She’s going down as the worst vice president,” Trump said. “Five weeks ago, she was known as a joke. She was known as a terrible vice president.”

The vice president’s popularity was of some concern for Democrats early into the 2024 election. But in a month or so since launching her presidential campaign, Harris has largely flipped the election on its head, with polling showing her leading Trump by over 3 percentage points on average across national voters, per FiveThirtyEight’s analysis.

A day before she launched her campaign, Harris was found by FiveThirtyEight to have a net disapproval rate of 11.8 percentage points, with 50.4 percent of Americans saying they disapprove of her on average. As of August 26, her favorability rating is still in the negatives, but she has built some favorability among Americans, with a net disapproval rate of 6 percentage points (48.9 disapprove to 42.9 approve).

When Trump left office in January 2021, he had a net disapproval rating of 19.3 percentage points on average across national polling. FiveThirtyEight said that as of Tuesday, the former president has a net disapproval rating of 9.5 percentage points (52.5 percent unfavorable to 43 percent favorable).

Trump: “I’m leading with independents”

The former president told McGraw that he is “leading” among independent voters “by a lot” in the national polls, although recent surveys do not back this claim.

“And for whatever reason it’s harder for Republicans to lead with independents,” Trump said in Monday’s interview. “You know, the Republican route is a harder route.”

Trump was leading Biden among independent voters in the weeks leading up to the president suspending his campaign. But Harris has seemed to make up for that deficit.

A recent report from Politico found that the vice president has jumped 9 percentage points on average among independents compared to Biden’s polling numbers. In a survey from The New York Times and Siena College in late July, Harris was trailing Trump by just 1 percentage point among independents (45 percent to 46 percent). The vice president has also made gains in several key swing states considered vital to winning in November, including Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia.

Trump: “I’m leaving Social Security just the way it is.”

Trump pushed back on several claims Harris made during her nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention late last week, including accusations from the vice president that Trump plans to “cut Social Security and Medicare.”

“I’m going to save Social Security,” Trump told McGraw. “They’re going to destroy Social Security because the millions of people pouring in [to the country] are going on Social Security.”

Trump later said he plans to leave Social Security “just the way it is” if reelected.

“I’m not raising age limits; I’m not don’t anything,” he added. “They’re going to destroy it.”

The former president did attempt to eliminate the Affordable Care Act while president but has since dialed down such plans while running for reelection. He also states in his policy platform that he would not introduce cuts to Social Security or Medicare, as suggested by some Republican lawmakers. Point 14 of Trump’s agenda states that his administration would “fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age.”