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Factchecking the US vice-presidential debate

In the lead-up to Tim Walz and JD Vance’s first and only vice-presidential debate of this election cycle, host CBS News said the two candidates will be responsible for factchecking each other.

The moderators – Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan – will be primarily focused on facilitating the debate and enforcing the rules of the debate, CBS said.

Here are the facts on some of the false or misleading claims offered during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate.

Trump’s position on abortion

Vance said that Donald Trump has supported states making their own abortion laws.

Vance claimed that Trump has said that “the proper way to handle this … is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy”.

That’s not quite right. Donald Trump declined to say whether he would sign a national abortion ban during the last debate.

Vance on immigrants in Springfield, Ohio

Referring to Springfield, Ohio – where a number of Haitian immigrants have recently settled – Vance referred to immigrants with legal status as “illegal”.

“You’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that’s totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans.”

The Haitian immigrants in Springfield, as CBS moderator Margaret Brennan noted, have legal status. Their arrival in the town, local residents and leaders have said, has helped revive the town, which lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.

Vance on the climate crisis and manufacturing

The Ohio senator has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the reality that carbon emissions have caused global heating.

Tonight, he was a bit subtle: “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change … let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument.”

Despite Vance’s skepticism, it is indeed true. One hundred percent of global heating since 1950 is due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

Vance also took viewers on a circuitous journey to suggest that if Harris really cared about the climate crisis, she would bring back manufacturing jobs to the US.

Carbon emissions, whether they are manufactured in the US or overseas, contribute to global heating. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – the Biden administration’s landmark climate legislation – is greatly aimed at incentivizing domestic manufacturing.

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