What Tim Walz, JD Vance got right (and wrong)

The two vice presidential nominees, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, faced off tonight on a debate stage in New York City with just over a month until the Nov. 5 election.

The USA TODAY Fact Check Team investigated claims from both nominees and added context where it was missing on issues such as abortion, immigration and Project 2025.

Read on for our analysis of statements that exaggerated, misled, misrepresented or otherwise strayed from reality. Our team uses primary documents, trustworthy nonpartisan sources, data and other research tools to assess the accuracy of claims.

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Debate live updates: JD Vance, Tim Walz face off in high-stakes vice presidential debate

Tim Walz claim: Minnesota ranked No. 1 in health care affordability 

“I come from a major healthcare state. … We understand health care. It’s why we’re ranked first on affordability and accessibility and quality of health care.” 

Walz is presumably referring to a WalletHub report in July that found Minnesota is the country’s “best state” for health care, based on methodology that took into account cost, access and health outcomes.

Minnesota has the “fourth-lowest average out-of-pocket medical spending and the sixth-lowest average monthly insurance premium,” said the report, which ranked the state at No. 2 for cost. Iowa was ranked No. 1 for cost, and fourth overall.  Walz had also touted the WalletHub report in a press release from his office.

Such rankings can vary widely between organizations given the various methodologies in use.

A study by Forbes ranked Minnesota No. 34 in their study of the most expensive states for health care. North Carolina took the top spot for the most expensive state for health care, ranking at No. 1. US News & World Report ranks Minnesota No. 6 for health care affordability.

-Andre Byik

JD Vance claim: Trump ‘peacefully’ ceded power to Biden in 2021 

“He peacefully gave over power on Jan. 20.”

This is missing a glaring piece of context given what happened 14 days earlier.

Yes, former President Donald Trump didn’t do anything to interrupt President Joe Biden’s inauguration that specific day in 2021, skipping the ceremony and flying to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for the final minutes of his term.

But that ignores the reason for Trump’s second impeachment – for inciting the “insurrection” on Jan. 6. It’s a day that was anything but peaceful, and Trump played a key role in it.

Trump “lit that fire,” Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the bipartisan House Committee that investigated the riots, wrote in the body’s 814-page report.

Before Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, he spoke on the Ellipse and urged them to march while Congress was voting to certify the 2020 election results. Democrats have pointed to one phrase Trump used as an incitement: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said. His attorneys, however, argued that he urged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Trump, who faces federal criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has for four years refused to acknowledge that he lost it. An array of recounts, reviews and lawsuits have generated no evidence of widespread voter fraud or a Trump win – and repeatedly confirmed Biden’s victory.

Notably, Vance did not directly answer a question from Walz about whether Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, saying he is “focused on the future.”

– Joedy McCreary

Tim Walz claim: Trump created the largest trade deficit with China 

“Donald Trump was the guy who created the largest trade deficit in American history with China.”

Assigning responsibility for a trade deficit to a president may be an oversimplification, according to industry experts and media reports that point to both policies and the habits of consumers abroad as drivers of deficits. 

But the numbers do show the trade deficit with China hit a record high in 2018 under Trump, reaching $419.2 billion, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The largest gap during the Biden administration was $367 billion in 2022, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.  

-Nate Trela

Tim Walz claim: Trump didn’t deliver on border wall promise

“Less than 2% of that wall got built, and Mexico didn’t pay a dime. 

Former President Donald Trump had said the U.S. needed 1,000 miles of border wall during the 2016 campaign.

Under his term in office, 458 miles of barriers were constructed at the southern border, but as U.S. News reported, the “vast majority” of these miles were built where “some kind of barrier already existed.”

Before Trump took office, the U.S.-Mexico border had about 654 miles of primary barriers and 37 miles of secondary barriers, PolitiFact reported, citing a U.S. Customs Border Protection report it obtained. By January 2021, the border had 706 miles of primary barriers and 70 miles of secondary barriers, the article said.

Those 52 miles of new primary barriers represent about 2.7% of the total length of the U.S.-Mexico border, which is 1,933 miles. USA TODAY’s interactive border wall map shows large stretches with no barriers at all.

Trump had said Mexico would pay for his border wall construction, but the country did not, multiple media outlets reported.

-Andre Byik, Brad Sylvester

JD Vance claim: No ‘major conflict’ during Trump presidency 

“When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out? The only answer was during the four years Donald Trump was president.”

This claim echoes one Trump made during his Republican National Convention speech that “we had no wars,” and it depends on how you define a major conflict.

It’s true that no new wars started during Trump’s term. Nor were there any authorizations of military force. But no new wars broke out during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter, either. While Nixon governed through the Vietnam War, as our previous fact check determined, he didn’t start any foreign wars. And Carter – who turned 100 on Oct. 1 – has expressed pride that “we never dropped a bomb.”

The claim also fails to acknowledge the military actions taken by Trump, who ordered airstrikes on Syria in 2018 in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack and killed Iranian military leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a 2020 airstrike. And according to a 2020 Brown University report, the rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan were relaxed in 2017, leading to a 330% increase in civilian fatalities.

– Joedy McCreary

JD Vance claim: US has world’s ‘cleanest economy’  

“We’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”

Discussions of “clean” economies or industries generally focus on carbon dioxide emissions, and by that measure this claim is off base. The U.S. is not the world’s cleanest economy in terms of carbon intensity, which measures carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of a country’s gross domestic product.

In 2022, the U.S. emitted 0.26 kilograms per dollar of GDP, according to Our World in Data. That is less efficient than many European and South American countries, such as France at 0.11 kilograms per dollar of GDP or Brazil at 0.15 kilograms per dollar.

The U.S. also emits more CO2 per capita than most other countries in the world – about 14.9 tons per person in 2022. That’s higher than China, which emitted about eight tons per person in 2022, though it has more than four times as many people as the U.S.

-Chris Mueller

JD Vance claim: Biden-Harris administration unfroze $100 billion in Iranian assets 

“Iran has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.”

This is an apparent reference to a pair of agreements that allowed Iran to access up to $16 billion of previously frozen assets – not $100 billion, as Vance claimed.

First, in September 2023, a prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Iran included the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets, Factcheck.org reported. It also led to the release of five Americans from Iranian custody and allowed them to return to the U.S., while five Iranians either charged or convicted in the U.S. also received clemency.

Second, in November 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed a waiver that allowed Iraq to continue to purchase electricity from Iran, with restrictions that require Iran to use the proceeds for humanitarian purposes, according to Factcheck.org. Multiple news outlets reported that an estimated $10 billion had built up from Iraqi payments for Iranian electricity.

In 2016, under then-President Barack Obama, the U.S. dropped sanctions on Iran as a result of a nuclear deal that led the U.S. and European countries to unfreeze about $100 billion in Iranian assets. Harris wasn’t involved in that deal.

-Chris Mueller

Tim Walz claim: Donald Trump’s Project 2025 will create a federal pregnancy registry 

“Their (Donald Trump and JD Vance’s) Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies.”

Project 2025 seeks to limit abortion access and calls for healthcare workers to report abortion pill complications using the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System, but it doesn’t mention anything about a federal pregnancy tracking agency.

When asked during an April 12 Time magazine interview whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies to determine if they are in compliance with abortion laws, former President Donald Trump said states “might do that” but that it was a decision the states would be allowed to make themselves.

USA TODAY has previously debunked several similar claims, including the incorrect labeling of this as Trump’s plan.

Project 2025, a 900-page political playbook for the next Republican president, was created by the Heritage Foundation in collaboration with more than 100 conservative groups. Though the project involves numerous allies of former President Donald Trump and some of its proposals overlap with Trump’s policies, the project wasn’t created by Trump.

The former president previously attempted to distance himself from the project, saying in a July 5 Truth Social post, “I know nothing about Project 2025. … I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”

-Hannah Hudnall

Tim Walz claim: The US is producing more oil and natural gas than ever 

This is largely true, although natural gas production is projected to dip slightly in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration,

The U.S. produced a record 12.9 million barrels of oil per day in 2023, reaching 13.4 million barrels daily in December 2023. The EIA projects 13.25 million barrels daily production this year.

The EIA also said 2023 was a record year for natural gas production, with 37.8 trillion cubic feet of dry gas produced. However, its 2024 outlook expects a dip because of producers reducing activity in response to lower prices. The agency projects production to climb back to record levels in 2025.

-Nate Trela 

JD Vance claim: Homeland Security ‘lost’ 320,000 children 

“Right now in this country … we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost.”

This distorts a key finding in an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. It found Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been unable to keep track of all unaccompanied minors released from government custody.

The claim combines two numbers in the report. More than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for their immigration court hearings between 2019-23 – a period spanning the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, according to the report. It said, “ICE was not able to account for the location of all (unaccompanied migrant children) who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court.”

The report also found more than 291,000 unaccompanied children who as of May 2024 had not been served notices to appear in court by ICE or had court dates scheduled for them.

The report found the number of unaccompanied children who missed their court dates may have been higher than 32,000 had ICE issued notices or scheduled court dates for those children.

– Joedy McCreary

JD Vance claim: The US built one nuclear power facility in the last 40 years

“We haven’t built a nuclear facility, I think one, in the past 40 years.”

The Energy Information Administration says on its website that the newest nuclear reactor began commercial operation in Georgia on April 29. Other nuclear reactors came online in the years prior, including another new reactor in Georgia that began operating in July 2023 and a reactor in Tennessee that joined the grid in 2016.

Almost all of the U.S.’s nuclear reactors were constructed between 1967 and 1990, according to the World Nuclear Association, but no new construction took place between 1977 and 2013 due to the increased popularity of gas generation and heightened safety concerns following Three Mile Island.

-Hannah Hudnall

Tim Walz claim: Trump dismissed US troops’ injuries as ‘headaches’ following Iran missile strike 

“When Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops, and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as ‘headaches.’”

Walz is referring to an Iranian missile attack in January 2020 on a military base in Iraq where U.S. troops were located, following the killing of high-ranking Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike, according to the Associated Press.

American troops suffered head injuries in the attack, and then-President Donald Trump, at a press conference in Davos, Switzerland, said, “I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things … and I can report it is not very serious,” according to the AP.

In 2021, the Military Times, citing a Defense Department Inspector General report, reported that traumatic brain injuries suffered by over 100 American troops in the missile attack weren’t properly reported and tracked by U.S. Central Command.

-Andre Byik

Get the latest fact checks via newsletter, Facebook 

In addition to live events like tonight’s debate, the USA TODAY Fact Check Team publishes about 100 checks each month on the most viral and significant claims circulating online. Here’s how to find our work.

–Eric Litke

Debate background: Our fact-check coverage of JD Vance 

Ohio Sen. JD Vance was thrust into the national spotlight after being picked as former President Donald Trump’s running mate in July. This increased attention came with a flurry of online speculation about the Hillbilly Elegy author.

From his military background to his marital history, online users have spread an array of misinformation about the vice-presidential candidate.

Here are some of USA TODAY’s fact-checks about Vance:

– Hannah Hudnall

Debate background: Rounding up our recent claims on Tim Walz

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been on the national political stage for fewer than two months. Yet an array of false or misleading claims has circulated about the Democrats’ nominee for vice president.

Many centered on his gubernatorial record and the various policy proposals he and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have promoted. Others reference his prior occupations. Before going into politics, Walz was a teacher, a football coach and a soldier in the Army National Guard.

Among the false or misleading claims related to Walz that USA TODAY has debunked:

– Joedy McCreary

Catch up on our debate, convention fact-checks 

We fact-checked key speakers throughout the Republican and Democratic conventions. Catch up here on what was false, what was true and what was in between from Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tim Walz and a host of others.

Video series: Find us on TikTok, Instagram 

Follow USA TODAY’s social media profiles during and after the debate as our team fact-checks vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz, correcting falsehoods and adding context where it’s needed.

We’ll post a roundup of the most noteworthy moments of the night in a fact-check video, part of a series we launched this year.

Here are some of our recent video fact-checks:

–Andre Byik

How we pick and research fact checks

Ever wonder how fact-checkers do their work? We’ve got you covered.

Check out our process explainer to see how we pick claims, research them and edit them. This includes a rundown of how we cover live events like tonight’s debate.

And if you’ve ever wondered who fact-checks the fact-checkers, you might want to read this op-ed explaining our emphasis on transparency. Because the answer is you! We use the format and approach precisely so that everyone has the ability to check our work.

-Eric Litke

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: VP debate fact check: What Walz, Vance got right (and wrong)