Combination image of Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance and Democrat candidate Tim Walz at their debate on Oct. 1.AP/Reuters
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Vice-presidential candidates Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz debated each other for more than an hour and a half on Oct. 1 as the presidential election enters its final weeks. Here are fact-checks on some topics raised in the debate.
Vance had no answer when asked if Trump lost the 2020 election
In one of the debate’s final exchanges, Mr. Vance struggled to explain former president Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the outcome of the 2020 election. Mr. Vance said that Trump “peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.” Jan. 20, 2020 was the inauguration of Joe Biden as president, which Mr. Trump did not attend.
“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Mr. Walz questioned Mr. Vance, who dodged and pivoted. Mr. Vance argued that the Democrats were the real threat to democracy and claimed that Democrat presidential candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris censored Americans, citing old Facebook policies, but did not answer the question itself.
Vance: ‘The gross majority, close to 90% in some of the statistics I’ve seen, of the gun violence in this country is committed with illegally obtained firearms.’
This is misleading. Most public mass shootings – a shooting that kills four or more people – between 1966 and 2019 were carried out by legally obtained handguns, according to research funded by the National Institute of Justice.
The data showed “77 per cent of those who engaged in mass shootings purchased at least some of their guns legally,” an article on the 2021 study said, while 13 per cent of the mass shootings involved illegally purchased firearms. The report also noted that over 80 per cent of individuals involved in K-12 school shootings had stolen guns from family members.
Between 2017 and 2021, over 1.4 million crime guns were traced to a known purchaser with a Federal Firearms License, of which 99 per cent were acquired from a dealer, pawnbroker or manufacturer, according to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. These crime guns, however, “may change hands a number of times after that first retail sale, and some of those transactions may be a theft or violate one or more regulations on firearm commerce,” the report adds.
Walz: U.S. producing more natural gas and oil than ever before
This is mostly true. In March 2024, the government Energy Information Administration said in a release that the U.S. had produced “more crude oil than any nation at any time” for a sixth straight year. The report added that it is unlikely the record for 2023 will be broken by another country in the “near term,” as none have a production capacity of 13.0 million barrels per day. The U.S. averaged 12.9 million barrels per day that year.
Monthly production of dry natural gas in the U.S. reached a record high in December 2023, having steadily increased through most of the past decade. However, production is forecast to decline in 2024, which would mark the first time output declined since 2020.
Walz and Vance clashed on Tuesday at a vice-presidential debate that was surprisingly civil in the final stretch of an ugly election campaign marred by inflammatory rhetoric and two assassination attempts.
Reuters
Vance: Iran ‘received over $100-billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration’
This is mixed. In August 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden approved a prisoner swap deal between the U.S. and Iran that involved the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in South Korea.
After the Iranian-backed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. said five days later that Iran would not gain access to the funds, parked in a Qatari bank, any time soon and that Washington retained the right to freeze the funds.
Separately, Biden had previously sought to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which had been abandoned by Donald Trump. The talks stalled in September 2022.
In 2015, U.S. officials said that the deal would give Iran access to $100 billion in frozen assets if implemented. Former Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid said in 2022 that the deal would give Tehran $100-billion a year to destabilize the Middle East, but did not provide details for the calculation.
Vance: ‘When was the last time that an American president did not have a major conflict break out?’
This needs more context. Donald Trump joins other presidents such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower in not officially bringing the U.S. into a new war since 1945.
Trump’s presidency, however, involved military hostilities and the risk of new wars. Trump ordered in 2020 a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, and launched in 2017 an attack on a Syrian army base, a move that marked an escalation of the U.S. military’s role in Syria. The former president also said in 2017 during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that he would “totally destroy” North Korea.
Walz: Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in 10 of the past 15 years
This is mostly true based on the information available. In 2020, the New York Times reported, based on an analysis of tax return data from 2017, that Trump had paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years. This was “largely because he reported losing much more money than he made,” the Times said. Trump did pay $750 the year he won the 2020 election, the paper added, as well as in his first year in the White House. Trump had dismissed the report as “fake news.”
Six takeaways from the VP debate between Vance and Walz
Walz: Trump created the largest trade deficit in American history with China
This is true. The U.S. trade deficit in goods with China reached a record high during Trump’s second year in the White House. The trade gap rose by 11.6% to US$419.2-billion in 2018, from the previous record of US$375.5-billion in 2017, a Commerce Department report showed in 2019.
In 2018 under Trump, the U.S. imposed tariffs on US$250-billion worth of goods imported from China, with Beijing then retaliating with duties on US$110-billion worth of American products, including soybeans and other commodities.
Vance: The U.S. is ‘the cleanest economy in the entire world’
This is false. According to the EU’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research 2024 report, the U.S. was second only to China as the highest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions globally last year. The U.S. accounted for 11.25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while China represented 30.1%.
Per capita, greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 for the U.S. stood at 17.61 tons of CO2 equivalent, higher than China’s 11.11, the UK’s 5.55, and Mexico’s 5.15, but lower than Canada’s 19.39 and Russia’s 18.66.
Vance: On ways to address carbon emissions, said Kamala Harris’ policies have led to ‘more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas’
Vance could be referring to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that provides incentives to boost domestic energy production and manufacturing investment, including support for clean energy jobs and the sale of new and used electric vehicles. The impact of the IRA on the U.S. manufacturing sector is still too early to tell, but some research has found it has benefited domestic clean energy manufacturing.
The IRA provides billions of dollars in tax credits to help consumers buy EVs and firms to produce renewable energy as part of the Biden administration’s plan to decarbonize the U.S. power sector. China, which dominates the global battery supply chain, is among the four countries excluded from the subsidy available to firms looking to invest in the U.S. EV supply chain.
China has since requested the World Trade Organization set up a panel to help settle the dispute over what it describes as “discriminatory subsidies.”
Another area of the global supply chain that China dominates is solar panel production. Some Chinese-backed companies with factories in the U.S. are claiming those subsidies for clean energy manufacturing under the IRA, and a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill in July that would block them from claiming subsidies for their American factories.
With a file from the New York Times