Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance went head-to-head Tuesday night in what was likely the only vice presidential debate before the November presidential election.
A team of Scripps News journalists monitored the debate for claims that were false, misleading or required more context. Here's what we found:
ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CLAIM: Vance said Iran has received $100 billion from the Harris administration.
FACTS: There is no evidence that any of the $6 billion from a hostage-release agreement with Iran has made its way to Iran.
In August 2023, the U.S. announced an agreement with Iran to secure freedom for five U.S. citizens who’d been detained in the country in exchange for allowing Iran to access $6 billion of its own funds that had been frozen in South Korean banks.
The money consisted of Iranian oil revenue frozen since 2019, when Trump imposed a ban on Iranian oil exports and sanctions on its banking sector. (It was not, as some have suggested, U.S. taxpayer money.)
The agreement also included the release of five Iranians held in U.S. prisons.
In April 2024, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said that those funds had been frozen after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and had not reached Iran.
Under President Barack Obama, Iran took possession of $100 billion in unfrozen assets after the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump later overturned. But Harris was not involved in the Obama administration.
CLAIM: Vance says the only time a U.S. president didn't have a major conflict break out was under Trump.
FACTS: It’s true that during the Trump administration, there were no new major overseas wars or invasions. However, during his time in office, there were still conflicts within Israel and between Russia and Ukraine.
ON THE ECONOMY
CLAIM: Walz said Trump created the largest trade deficit in American history with China.
FACTS: The most inclusive trade deficit measurement, for goods and services, shows that the U.S. trade deficit with China was smaller under Trump in 2019 than it was in any of the final three years of the Obama administration. By this metric, it was not the highest in American history.
Looking only at goods shows the trade deficit was generally higher under Trump than it was in the Obama years, but it declined in 2019 to around the same level as the final year of the Obama administration.
CLAIM: Walz said Trump is imposing a 20% consumption or sales tax on imports.
FACTS: Trump has proposed tariffs of up to 20% on all goods imported and sold in the U.S., and even stiffer tariffs — 60% or more — on goods imported from China.
ON IMMIGRATION
CLAIM: Walz said border crossings are down since Trump left office.
FACTS: It's true that border encounters are down from when Trump left office. They went up in 2020 at the end of Trump's term of office, but peaked in December of 2023 — well into Biden's term.
That said, immigration data is limited, has been collected inconsistently over time, and doesn't tell the whole story.
CLAIM: Vance says there's an application for illegal migrants where you can be granted legal status "at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand."
FACTS: The "CBP One App" is a phone application for processing asylum applications. It was introduced by the Biden administration to encourage asylum-seekers to apply for appointments and enter through official points of entry — making them eligible for work permits — instead of entering the country illegally.
There are legal programs that Haitian refugees are being processed under: Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and humanitarian parole. The CBP One App is a software program that can be used to submit applications for these legal programs.
The Department of Homeland Security has granted TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians to let them remain in the U.S. temporarily because of dangerous unrest in Haiti. Humanitarian parole lets a limited number of Haitians stay in the U.S. for two years if they’re sponsored and pass a background check — part of a Homeland Security deal with Mexico that overall cut down the number of Haitian asylum-seekers allowed entry at the border.
CLAIM: Walz said Trump told Congress to veto the bipartisan border bill to give himself a campaign issue.
FACTS: After Trump publicly criticized the Senate's bipartisan attempt to address immigration reform, the bill died in the Senate and never received a vote in the House.
CLAIM: Vance said 1 million illegal migrants have committed crimes in addition to crossing the border illegally.
FACTS: U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2024, immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions whether in the U.S. or abroad, so long as the conviction was for conduct deemed criminal by the U.S.
ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
CLAIM: Vance said he and Trump will support fertility treatments after Walz claimed they would limit or eliminate access.
FACTS: Speaking at a Rally in Michigan this summer, Trump said if he wins a second term in office, his administration would make IVF treatment free to all women.
"I'm announcing today in a major statement, that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women," Trump said.
CLAIM: Walz said maternal mortality is skyrocketing Texas, outpacing many other countries in the world.
FACTS: Texas' Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee — which releases analyses several years after the fact — reported earlier this year that the state's rates of pregnancy-related deaths within one year of childbirth rose sharply to 27.7 and 37.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, respectively, in 2020 and 2021. Even accounting for COVID-19, the rates were still elevated over previous years.
For comparison, the U.S. overall had a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021, according to CDC data.
According to WHO, most high-income countries have maternal mortality rates of around 13 per 100,000.
CLAIM: Vance said Walz signed a Minnesota bill into law that says a doctor presiding over an abortion when a baby survives is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to the baby who survived.
FACTS: In May 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed and Walz signed an update to a state law for "infants who are born alive." Previously, state law said, "All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken by the responsible medical personnel to preserve the life and health of the born alive infant."
The law was updated to instead say medical personnel must "care for the infant who is born alive."
The law’s updated version, however, kept the provision that said, "An infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law."
CLAIM: Walz said Minnesota is one of the lowest teen pregnancy states and is in the top 3 to raise children.
FACTS: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Minnesota has a teen birth rate of 8.2, putting it in 45th nationally.
Minnesota was also ranked by the publication WalletHub as the third-best state for families. citing features like high median family incomes when adjusted for cost of living, and high life expectancy.
CLAIM: Walz said Amber Thurman died because she had to travel from Georgia to North Carolina for an abortion.
FACTS: Walz was referencing the death of 28-year-old Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after her care was delayed because of the state's six-week abortion law. A judge called the law unconstitutional this week.
A Sept. 16 ProPublica report found that Thurman had taken abortion pills and encountered a rare complication. She sought care at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Atlanta to clear excess fetal tissue from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. The procedure is commonly used in abortions, and any doctor who violated Georgia’s law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.
Doctors waited 20 hours to finally operate when Thurman’s organs were already failing, ProPublica reported. A panel of health experts tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, deemed Thurman’s death “preventable,” according to the report, and said the hospital’s delay in performing the procedure had a “large” impact.
CLAIM: Walz said "their" Project 2025 will have a registry of pregnancies.
FACTS: Project 2025, which was developed by the Heritage Foundation, does not mention, nor call for, a new federal agency to be created for pregnancy registration.
Contributors to Project 2025 include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration. However, Trump has tried to distance himself from the document, saying he "knows nothing" about it.
CLAIM: Walz said fertility treatments are why he has a child.
FACTS: Though the Walzes did undertake fertility treatments, Walz has inaccurately conflated the treatments they underwent — intrauterine insemination (IUI) — with in vitro fertilization, a different process.
ON DEMOCRACY
CLAIM: Vance said Trump stated on Jan. 6 that the protestors should protest peacefully.
FACTS: Trump used the word "peacefully" once during the speech on Jan. 6, 2021.
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard," he said.
However, the statement ignores Trump’s words and actions that led up to Jan. 6 and his full remarks. In December, Trump repeatedly encouraged his supporters to fight the election results and gather at the Capitol.
On Jan. 6, Trump used his "Save America" rally to repeat inaccurate claims that he won the election. He continually urged the crowd to "fight" before inviting them to march to the Capitol. "Our country has had enough," Trump said. "We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal." The crowd later chanted: "Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!"
OTHER TOPICS
CLAIM: Vance said close to 90% of gun violence committed in the country is committed with illegally obtained firearms.
FACTS: According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of prison inmates, more than half of prisoners with guns in their possession during their offense reported that they had obtained the firearms illegally: 6% had stolen them, 7% found them at the scene of the crime, and 43% got weapons "off the street or from the underground market."
Another 7% reported they had bought guns "under their own name from a licensed firearm dealer."
An additional 25% said they'd obtained the guns in question as a gift. Gifting a firearm can be legal, with requirements varying by jurisdiction.
CLAIM: Walz saidTrump tried to sign an executive order to repeal the Affordable Care Act on his first day.
FACTS: Trump did sign an executive order on January 20, 2017, that it was the policy of the administration to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. However, efforts in Congress to completely repeal the law never materialized.
CLAIM: Walz said the governor of Ohio had to send state law enforcement to Springfield to escort kindergarteners to school due to Vance's claim about migrants eating pets.
FACTS: Gov. Mike DeWine announced Sept. 16 that he had authorized Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers to "to provide added security at each of the [Springfield school] district's 18 school buildings." In a news release, he said troopers "will sweep each building for threats before students and faculty arrive and will stay on-site to provide security throughout the school day and during dismissal."
His announcement noted this was "in response to "a series of unfounded bomb threats" and did not explicitly connect this authorization to the unfounded rumors that some immigrants were eating pets. However, multiple outlets noted that schools and other institutions in Springfield began receiving threats after those rumors went viral.
CLAIM: Vance said we haven't built a nuclear facility in the U.S. in 40 years.
FACTS: Two new nuclear power reactors entered commercial operation in the past few years, at the Vogtle plant in Georgia. When the Obama administration approved them, they were the first reactors to receive federal approval in three decades.
CLAIM: Walz said the last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in the nation's history.
FACTS: CDC data shows opioid deaths fell to their lowest in three years in the year ending in April 2024, the latest complete year for which data was available. This marked the first annual decline in opioid overdose deaths since the year ending in April 2019.
CLAIM: Walz said we are producing more natural gas, more oil and more clean energy than we ever have.
FACTS: Overall U.S. energy production is at a record high, and, by some definitions, the U.S. is energy independent. However, in one key regard, the U.S. is not energy independent: The U.S. is a net importer of crude oil, which keeps the U.S. and its economy beholden to overseas developments.
CLAIM: Walz said Trump said climate disasters would make more beachfront properties.
FACTS: Trump told Elon Musk in a highly publicized conversation on X, "The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property."
Additional reporting from our fact-checking partner PolitiFact.
