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stated on September 12, 2024 in an Instagram post:

Former President Donald Trump admitted during the Sept. 10 presidential debate that he “blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.”

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)

By Loreben Tuquero September 13, 2024

Did Donald Trump take credit for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline? No, that’s misconstrued

If Your Time is short

During the Sept. 10 presidential debate, when former President Donald Trump said, "I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline," he referred to sanctions he signed while in office that affected the project’s completion, not a 2022 attack that damaged the pipeline.
A Trump campaign spokesperson called the claim "absolutely false and insane."
Germany continues its investigation into the attack and in June issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of being involved.

See the sources for this fact-check

Two years after an attack on the Nord Stream pipeline, the culprit remains unknown. But social media users say that during the Sept. 10 presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump let slip who it is.

"Who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline?! Donald Trump reveals who he thinks the culprit is," read a Sept. 12 Instagram video’s text. The video included two clips of Trump, one from a 2023 interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and the other from the presidential debate.

The Instagram video begins with a clip from Carlson’s Fox News interview that aired April 12.

Carlson: Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline?

Trump: Um, I don’t wanna get our country in trouble, so I won’t answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn’t, was Russia. How about when they blamed Russians, you know? They said Russia blew up their own pipeline. You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn’t Russia. So I won’t answer the question ‘cause I don’t wanna get our country any deeper than they already are."

The Instagram video then cut to Trump at the debate saying, "He said, ‘Russia was afraid of him.’ I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline."

"Oops! This guy just told on himself during the debate!," the video’s caption read. "So if anybody was wondering who took out the Nordstrom two pipeline. You don't have to wonder anymore."

(Screenshot from Instagram)

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook,Instagram and Threads.)

When PolitiFact reached out to Trump’s campaign about this claim, Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary, called it "absolutely false and insane."

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Nord Stream 1 and 2 are natural gas pipelines that run hundreds of miles from Russia to Germany. In September 2022, explosions damaged three out of four gas links of the pipelines, leaking methane into the atmosphere.

Trump’s comment that he "ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline" referred to how he imposed 2019 sanctions that affected the pipeline’s construction, which continued during the Biden administration until its 2021 completion.

Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump campaign team member, also referred PolitiFact to a 2019 Atlantic Council article about Trump imposing sanctions that halted the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Ending the pipeline is a familiar talking point for Trump. In the same April 2023 interview with Carlson, Trump also said, "I had that pipeline stopped, Nord Stream 2. I had it stopped. Totally stopped! When Biden came in, he approved it, and they immediately started the finishing action."

And in a May 31 press conference, Trump said, "You take a look at the way (President Joe Biden) treats China, Russia, so many others. You know, I ended the Russian pipeline. It was dead. He comes in and he approves it."

Leavitt pointed to 2019 sanctions Trump signed that impacted companies that helped Russia complete the pipeline and prompted a Swiss company to exit the project. Leavitt said Biden and Harris removed those sanctions in 2021, enabling Russia to finish the pipeline’s construction.

But experts told PolitiFact the sanctions only delayed the construction. Ninety percent of the pipeline had already been completed at the time.

Germany continues its investigation into the attack and in June issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man who is suspected of being involved in the attack. The United States denied Russia’s accusations that it was responsible.

An Instagram video said Trump admitted during the Sept. 10 presidential debate that he "blew up the Nord Stream pipeline."

Trump referred to sanctions he signed that led to a pause in the project, not to the attack that damaged the pipeline. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!