FactChecking the Vice Presidential Debate

Summary Despite a mostly civil debate between Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the two disagreed repeatedly not just on policy, but also on the facts. We referee some of those competing claims, and other factual missteps by the vice presidential candidates. Vance claimed that housing “is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.” But economists and housing experts say that the primary reason for the tight housing market is the decline in new residential construction that followed the Great Recession. Walz misleadingly linked former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts to “an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever.” But trillions of that debt were due to bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages. And the debt increase so far under the Biden administration is nearly as high. In describing an abortion law Walz signed in Minnesota, Vance said physicians were no longer required to provide life-saving care to infants “born alive.” But he neglected to say that the law still requires such infants to be given proper medical care and be “accorded immediate protection under the law.” Such cases pertain to situations involving induced labor for medical...