FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims during the vice presidential debate

[October 02, 2024]  The Associated Press

The vice presidential candidates, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on Tuesday engaged in a fast-moving, largely civil debate on a wide range of issues. Here’s a look at some false and misleading claims from the debate.

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Iran has not received $100 billion in unfrozen assets under the Biden-Harris administration

VANCE: “Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they’re now launching against our allies.”

THE FACTS: The Biden administration agreed last year to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets as part of a deal to free five U.S. citizens being held by Iran. But administration officials say not a dollar of that has yet been given to Iran. It was part of a deal negotiated by the Obama administration, before Biden and Harris took office, that could have allowed Iran to access frozen assets in exchange for accepting limits on its nuclear program.

In 2016, Iran said it had received access to more than $100 billion worth of frozen overseas assets following the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal with world powers. The money had been held in banks in China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey since international sanctions were tightened in 2012 over Tehran’s nuclear program. Then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress that only about $50 billion of the frozen assets would actually be accessible by Iran.

Walz overstates the cost of insulin before cap

WALZ: “They were charging $800 before this law went into effect.”

THE FACTS: Walz overstated how much Americans were paying for insulin before a new law capped prices at $35 per month for millions of older Americans on Medicare. A December 2022 study found that people who were on Medicare or enrolled in private insurance paid $452 yearly on average before the new law took effect.

Vance links unaffordable housing to immigrants who have come into the country illegally

VANCE: “You’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”

THE FACTS: Most economists blame a long-term decline in the housing supply for the steady increase in home prices. The number of new homes under construction plunged from an annual pace of 1.4 million in April 2006 to barely above 400,000 in August 2011, and didn’t recover to 2006 levels until 2021.

Vance said at least one prominent economic analysis from the Federal Reserve supports his claims that immigrants are pushing up housing costs, but he didn't provide details. He was likely citing a May 2024 blog post by Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Kashkari says immigration’s long-run effect on inflation is “unclear,” but immigrants need a place to live and their arrival has overlapped with higher prices.

There might be upward pressure on home prices in some markets because of immigrants arriving, but most economists say the issue is a lack of supply of homes on the market. Homebuilders say they need the immigrants to build the homes. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a September news conference that high mortgage rates mean people aren’t listing their homes for sale and there has not been enough supply.

Walz wrongly claims Project 2025 creates pregnancy registry

WALZ: “Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true. The conservative initiative calls for the collection of “accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths,” but not a record of every pregnancy that occurs.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News, with Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

More specifically, Project 2025 proposes that the Department of Health and Human Services require all states to report detailed information about abortions that are performed within their borders, including the total number of abortions, the age and state of residence of the mother, the gestational age of the fetus, the reason for the abortion and the method used to perform the abortion. It suggests that this data be separated into categories such as spontaneous miscarriages, intentional abortions, stillbirths and other medical treatments that result in the death of the fetus, like chemotherapy.

Vance overstates immigration numbers

VANCE: “We’ve got 20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country.”

THE FACTS: That figure is highly inflated. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports more than 10 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through September 2024.

That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest available estimate, there were approximately 11 million people living illegally in the U.S. as of January 2022, 79% of whom entered prior to January 2010.

Vance distorts Minnesota abortion law

VANCE: “It says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.”

THE FACTS: This claim misrepresents a bill Walz signed into law in 2023, updating language about the care of newborns.

The new language uses the phrase “an infant who is born alive” instead of “a born alive infant as a result of an abortion.” It states that medical personnel are required to “care for the infant who is born alive” rather than “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.”

Both the current version of the law and the 2015 version that was amended state that “an infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.”

Infanticide is criminalized in every state, including Minnesota, and the bill does not change that.

Vance on Trump and Jan. 6, 2021

VANCE: “Remember he said that on January the 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully.”

THE FACTS: It’s true that Trump told the crowd gathered near the White House, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

But Vance ignored the incendiary language Trump used throughout his speech, during which he urged the crowd to march to the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Trump told the crowd: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” That’s after his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, declared: “Let’s have trial by combat.”
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Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin in New York, and Amanda Seitz, David Klepper, Chris Rugaber, Ellen Knickmeyer and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.

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