PolitiFact fact-checked the first 2024 vice presidential debate in New York City between Republican Sen. JD Vance and Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
hosted the debate, with "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell and "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan moderating.
PolitiFact has fact-checked Vance 20 times since 2018 and Walz 6 times since August 2024. Tonight, we鈥檒l to check the accuracy of the candidates鈥� statements.
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Vance: Trump "salvaged" the Affordable Care Act.
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The Trump administration cut millions of dollars in marketing and enrollment aid for the law鈥檚 health plans and backed failed congressional and legal efforts to overturn the law. The Trump administration in June 2020 asked the Supreme Court to overturn the law in a case more than a dozen Republican-led states had brought; the high court rejected it.
by more than 2 million people during Trump鈥檚 presidency, and the by 2.3 million, including 726,000 children, from 2016 to 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau reported; that includes three years of Trump鈥檚 presidency.
Walz: "Donald Trump hasn鈥檛 paid any federal tax in the last 15 years. The last year as president."
A congressional committee released portions of Trump's tax records from 2015 to 2020. In some years, Trump paid no federal income tax. But not in every year.
Trump's 2018 return declared total income of $24.4 million, with taxable income of $22.9 million. Trump and his wife Melania paid $999,466 in federal income taxes. In 2019, the Trumps paid $133,445 in federal income taxes.
The New York Times reported in 2020 that Trump often paid no income taxes before being elected president, largely, they wrote "because he reported losing much more money than he made."
Trump's tax records since 2020 have not been made public.
Vance: "We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost."
This is not what a federal oversight report said.
The claim refers to a federal oversight about unaccompanied minors 鈥� children who came to the U.S. without a parent and guardian. The report mentioned 32,000 children who failed to appear for their immigration court hearings and 291,000 children who Immigration and Customs Enforcement had not served a "Notice to Appear."
A Notice to Appear is a authorities issue and file in immigration court to start removal proceedings. The report said that by not issuing these notices to the children, Immigration and Customs Enforcement limits its chances of verifying their safety after they are released by the federal government.
The report led and conservative news outlets to say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement "" the children or that they are "." But the report did not make that claim.
Walz: "Their Project 2025 is gonna have a registry of pregnancies."
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Project 2025 recommends that states submit more detailed abortion reporting to the federal government. It calls for more information about how and when abortions took place, as well as other statistics for miscarriages and stillbirths.
The manual does not mention, nor call for, a new federal agency tasked with registering pregnant women.
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PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman, Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Maria Brice帽o, Jeff Cercone, Madison Czopek, Marta Campabadal Graus, Samantha Putterman, Sara Swann, Loreben Tuquero, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Researcher Caryn Baird, KFF Health News Senior Editor Stephanie Stapleton and KFF Health News Senior Correspondent Stephanie Armour contributed to this story.
Our debate fact-checks rely on both new and previously reported work. We link to past work whenever possible. In some cases, a fact-check rating may be different tonight than in past versions. In those cases, either details of what the candidate said, or how the candidate said it, differed enough that we evaluated it anew.
