Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance met on the debate stage for the first time in New York on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
The vice presidential debate, which was hosted by CBS News, may be Walz’ and Vance’s only debate ahead of the 2024 presidential election in November.
During the debate, the two candidates sparred over issues including immigration, the economy and abortion.
VERIFY analyzed several claims that Vance and Walz made during the debate.
THE CLAIM
Vance: “We're the cleanest economy in the entire world.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The U.S. is not the “cleanest economy in the entire world.” But it isn’t the dirtiest, either.
Shortly after calling the U.S. economy the cleanest in the entire world, Vance clarified he meant in terms of the amount of carbon emissions per unit of economic output. He referenced China as one of the dirtiest economies in the world using that metric.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) compared 2021 carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP between the U.S., Canada, Europe and formerly Soviet countries. The U.S. was one of the dirtier economies on that list, performing better than Canada and much of eastern Europe, but worse than every country in western Europe.
The World Bank and International Energy Agency (IEA) made similar comparisons on a global scale. The U.S. economy was cleaner than those in many countries around the world, including China, but was still far from the cleanest.
The IEA charted the carbon emission intensity of GDP for the U.S., China, India, Japan, the European Union and the world from 1980 to 2021. In 2021, the U.S. economy was much cleaner than China’s, a little cleaner than India and the world average, a little dirtier than Japan’s and much dirtier than the European Union’s economy.
THE CLAIM
Walz: “We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, the United States produced more oil and natural gas in 2023 than in any year prior.
In 2023, the U.S. produced 12.935 million barrels of crude oil per day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The EIA has data going back to the 1850s, and at no point was more oil ever produced. The second-highest year on record was 2019, after which there was a moderate fall resulting from the economic collapse associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and then a steady rise each year since 2021.
In 2023, the U.S. also produced 41.19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, also a record since data was first recorded by the EIA in 1900.
Unlike oil, natural gas did not see a drop-off in production during the pandemic, and America has increased its production figures every year since 2016.
THE CLAIM
Vance: “Donald Trump delivered for the American people, rising wages, rising take home pay.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, wages did rise under Trump’s administration. They are also now rising under Biden’s administration, too, albeit at a slower rate than they did under Trump prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are a number of ways one can measure rising wages or take home pay for the average American.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis tracks both real median household income and real median personal income by year. “Real” income adjusts for inflation
Both measures peaked in 2019 after steadily rising during the first few years of the Trump administration, then dropped in 2020, the first year of the pandemic and the last year of Trump’s presidency.
Personal income stagnated and household income declined in the following two years, but jumped in 2023. Each measure is now higher than it was at the end of Trump’s presidency in 2020, but is still lower than the 2019 peak.
Wages can also be measured using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for average hourly wages of all private sector employees divided by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which is a BLS measure of inflation. BLS updates its data each month, making August 2024 the most recent data point of this set.
Real hourly wages actually peaked in 2020, according to BLS data. But even before then, real hourly wages steadily increased every year between the end of 2016 and the end of 2019.
There has also been a smaller increase in real hourly wages from the end of 2019 to August 2024, largely thanks to the growth of real hourly wages in 2023 and 2024. However, real hourly wages are currently still below their 2020 peak.
THE CLAIM
Vance: “She [Harris] had the opportunity to enact all of these great policies, and what she's actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25%, drive the cost of housing higher by about 60%.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures prices via the Consumer Price Index, a figure that represents the relative cost of a basket of common goods. It breaks that index down into categories, including food.
In January 2021, when Biden and Harris took office, the CPI for food was 271.226. In August 2024, that number had risen to 330.434. That’s a 21.83% increase in food prices, just slightly below what Vance claimed.
There are multiple metrics available for tracking the cost of housing.
The BLS also has a price index for rent. In January 2021 that number was 344.758 and in August 2024 it was 422.223, a 22.5% increase. That’s far less than the 60% increase claimed by Vance.
The sale price of homes also rose, according to data from the Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the first quarter of 2021, the median home sold for $355,000. In the second quarter of 2024, that number was $412,300. That’s a 16.1% increase.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency also calculates an index for housing prices. In Q1 2021 the figure was 483.77 and in Q2 2024 it was 682.18 – a 41% increase.
Mortgage rates, a key factor of housing costs, also rose during the Biden presidency. On Biden’s first day in office, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 2.77%. On the day of the most recently available data, Sept. 26, rates were 6.08%, according to Freddie Mac. That’s a 119.5% increase.
THE CLAIM
Walz: “Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies.”
THE SOURCES
- “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise"
- Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation
- Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to advancing reproductive rights
THE ANSWER
Project 2025, an initiative launched by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation to reshape the federal government under a conservative administration, is laid out in a 922-page how-to guide called the “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.”
That document does not include any proposals to create a federal pregnancy registry. Instead, it calls on the federal government to ensure that states are submitting data about abortions and miscarriages after they happen.
“P2025 merely recommends CDC restore the decades-long practice of compiling *anonymous* abortion statistics for all states,” Roger Severino, who is vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation and authored the relevant section in “Mandate for Leadership,” said in an X post on Sept. 10.
States are not required to submit abortion data to the CDC, but the “overwhelming majority” of them do, The Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to advancing reproductive rights, says.
“Mandate for Leadership” argues that “accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors and abortion-related maternal deaths are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.”
“Because liberal states have become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method,” the document says. “It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.”
The document also says the CDC should require “monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.”
But “Mandate for Leadership” does not include any mentions of requiring pregnant people to register in a federal database, as Walz suggested.
While both Vance and Trump have previous connections to The Heritage Foundation, the Trump campaign has recently distanced itself from Project 2025.
THE CLAIM
Vance: Walz signed a Minnesota law that “says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives…is under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.”
THE SOURCES
- KFF, a health policy organization
- Minnesota SF 2995
- Minnesota state statutes
THE ANSWER
Walz did not sign a Minnesota law that says doctors are under no obligation to provide life-saving care to an infant who survives a late-term abortion.
He signed a health omnibus bill in 2023 that updated the language to a state law regarding infants born alive as a result of an attempted abortion. But that bill did not say doctors aren’t obligated to provide life-saving care to infants.
While rare, induced labor abortions happen late in pregnancies, when the health of the mother may be at risk or the fetus has an anomaly that would kill or seriously impair it, according to KFF, a health policy organization.
In 2021, five of these abortions resulted in an infant being born alive in Minnesota. In cases like this, these infants are not killed by the medical provider; usually they are not healthy enough to survive outside of the womb and thus die within minutes of birth, even after being given some form of medical care.
Walz signed the health omnibus bill updating language to a state law regarding infants born alive as a result of an attempted abortion in 2023, a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The previous version of the statute required medical personnel provide “all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” But the updated version of the statute requires medical personnel provide “all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” to “care for the infant who is born alive.”
The law’s updated version kept language that said, “An infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.”
THE CLAIM
Vance: “Right now, we have 320,000 children that DHS has effectively lost.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Vance is likely referencing findings from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report published in August 2024.
That report said federal authorities may not be able to monitor the locations of about 320,000 unaccompanied migrant children who had been released from federal custody, due in part to poor communication between agencies. However, not all of the children were recently released; some were released in 2019 and 2020, when Donald Trump was president. The report also did not confirm that all of the children are lost.
Vance is combining two numbers that appear in the DHS report.
According to the DHS report, ICE reported that more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from fiscal years 2019 to 2023.
“ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCs [unaccompanied children] who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court,” the report said.
The report also found that ICE had not served Notices to Appear (NTAs) in court to more than 291,000 unaccompanied children who did not have immigration court dates as of May 2024.
A Notice to Appear (NTA) is a charging document that DHS issues and files with an immigration court to start removal proceedings.
The report acknowledged that the number of unaccompanied children who missed their court dates may have been higher than 32,000 if ICE had issued NTAs to the more than 291,000 unaccompanied children.
By not issuing these NTAs to unaccompanied children, ICE also “limits its chances” of verifying their safety when they are released from the federal government’s custody, according to the report.
“Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” the report said.
THE CLAIM
Vance: “The only thing that [Kamala Harris] did when she became the vice president, when she became the appointed border czar, was to undo 94 Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The Biden administration has not undone 94 Trump executive actions on the border, although it has undone quite a few.
During his first 100 days in office, Biden took 94 total executive actions on the border, more than half of which were meant to undo Trump administration measures, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Additionally, Harris was never put in charge of overseeing immigration policy or security at the southern border, and has no authority over executive actions. She was never appointed the Biden administration’s “border czar,” which isn’t an official title.
The Biden administration tasked Harris with leading its Root Causes Strategy. That strategy aims to reduce the number of people who leave Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for the U.S. by addressing the major reasons those people leave their countries. The issues it focuses on are economic insecurity and inequality, corruption, human rights, violence prevention, and sexual and gender-based violence.
None of those three countries borders the United States.
Harris began leading the Biden administration’s “diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras” in March 2021, the White House said in a July 2021 fact sheet about the Root Causes Strategy.
In remarks during a virtual roundtable discussion in April 2021, Harris reaffirmed that her work was focused on the root causes of migration in Central America’s Northern Triangle – not border security.
“So, as I mentioned to the experts, the President has asked Secretary Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border. And he has been working very hard at that and it’s showing some progress because of his hard work,” a transcript of her remarks says. “I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what then-Vice President [Biden] did many years ago.”
THE CLAIM
Walz: “Donald Trump hasn't paid any federal tax in the last 15 years.”
THE SOURCES
- Report released by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation in December 2022
- New York Times report on Trump’s tax returns published in 2020
THE ANSWER
Walz’s claim that Trump hasn’t paid any federal income taxes in the last 15 years is false.
Before Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he “paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years – largely because he reported losing much more money than he made,” according to a 2020 report published by The New York Times.
A report released by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation in December 2022 shows that Trump did pay federal income taxes in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. He filed a tax return in 2020, but he did not pay any federal income taxes that year.
According to that report, Trump paid $641,931 in income taxes in 2015. In 2016 and 2017, he paid $750 in federal income taxes. That number rose to nearly $1 million in 2018.
Trump paid over $133,000 in federal income taxes in 2019, the report shows.
THE CLAIM
Walz: “The person closest to…Donald Trump said he's unfit for the highest office. That was Senator Vance.”
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Vance did say Trump was unfit to be president in an April 2016 op-ed for The New York Times.
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office,” Vance wrote in the opinion piece titled, “Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America.”
“But to those humiliated by defeat, he promises we’ll win again. To those discouraged by a government unable to care for the people it sent to war, he promises to take care of our veterans. To those voters furious at politicians who sent their children to fight and bleed and die in Iraq, he tells them what no major Republican politician in a decade has said — that the war was a terrible mistake imposed on the country by an incompetent president,” Vance wrote.
Vance also referred to himself as a “Never Trump Guy” in an October 2016 interview with talk show host Charlie Rose. “I never liked him,” Vance said during that interview.
By the time Vance met Trump in 2021, he had reversed his opinion, citing Trump’s accomplishments as president.
In an interview with Ohio newspaper The Vindicator in October 2021, Vance said his criticism was the result of voting for Republican presidential candidates in 2004, 2008 and 2012, and being disappointed.
“I assumed that everybody who ran was basically a scumbag so I had a certain mistrust that any politician would deliver on his promises, and Trump actually did a good job,” he said. “So one of the important things is when the facts change, you change your mind. The facts to me were he actually honored his promises.”
Those honored promises included Trump “getting tough with China and securing the border with Mexico,” the newspaper reported.
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