Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ running mates, Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz, faced off on Tuesday for what is expected to be their only televised debate before the US presidential election on November 5.
• Also read: Five takeaways from the debate between Trump and Harris’ running mates
• Also read: Running mate debate: JD Vance and Tim Walz engage in a civilized duel
• Also read: Walz-Vance debate: “We have the impression that they were going to have a beer together after the debate,” notes Jean-Marc Léger
During mainly cordial exchanges, the two candidates notably discussed immigration, health insurance, and the Middle East.
Here are the main false, misleading or unsubstantiated assertions on the main themes of the debate, verified by the AFP team.
Middle East
Hours after Iran launched 200 missiles against Israel, Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz were asked whether they supported an Israeli strike on Iran.
The Republican said, “Iran, which launched this attack, received more than $100 billion in assets released thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.”
This statement is false.
As part of a comprehensive deal reached in 2015 under Barack Obama and put in place the following year to limit the development of Iran’s nuclear program, $100 billion in revenue from Iranian oil sales previously frozen by sanctions was released. . But Kamala Harris, then attorney general of California, was not part of the Obama administration.
Immigration
Responding to a question about Donald Trump’s plan to deport migrants and then another about housing costs, JD Vance twice claimed there were “25 million illegal aliens” in the United States. .
He added: “We want to put the blame on Kamala Harris for letting millions of illegal aliens into this country, driving up prices, Tim. Twenty-five million illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce housing is one of the largest factors behind the nation’s home prices.
The figures put forward by the Republican senator are not supported by the available data.
The Department of Homeland Security estimated in an April report that as of January 2022, some 11 million immigrants were unauthorized in the United States.
Several organizations working on the migration issue have arrived at similar estimates, including the Migration Policy Institute, which places the figure at 11.3 million by the middle of 2022.
“None (of these figures) comes close to that of 20 to 25 million unauthorized migrants,” Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director of the Migration Policy Institute, told AFP.
Health
Addressing the issue of health insurance, JD Vance said Donald Trump “saved” the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, a law that has allowed tens of millions of Americans to be insured in terms of health. For the Republican senator, before Donald Trump, the system was “collapsing”.
This statement is false.
The Republican president has tried several times to repeal this law, and in 2020 he asked the Supreme Court to annul it, in vain.
Despite numerous promises, the Trump administration has never delivered an alternative to Obamacare. Pressed during his debate with Kamala Harris in September to clarify his program on the issue, Donald Trump responded: “I have a draft plan.”
Abortion
Tim Walz, who as governor of Minnesota signed a law to enshrine the right to abortion without exception in his state, said Donald Trump would “make it more difficult, if not impossible, to obtain contraceptives.”
This is a misleading statement.
Donald Trump’s plan would not restrict standard methods of contraception, such as the pill, but calls for eliminating full reimbursement for certain emergency contraceptives under the Obamacare health insurance plan.
Referring to “Project 2025,” a nearly 900-page document developed by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Tim Walz also erroneously claimed that a new Trump administration would create “a pregnancy registry.”
“Project 2025,” a road map for overhauling the federal state under Donald Trump, calls for the collection of detailed statistics on abortions, but does not provide for the creation of a federal force to monitor pregnancies.
