CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale swooped in at the VP debate to challenge “false claims” by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), and Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), on the same topic — abortion.
Vance and Walz met Tuesday night for the one and only vice-presidential debate, moderated by CBS News anchors Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell and simulcast across cable and broadcast news platforms.
The two candidates battled on a variety of issues, including abortion.
During CNN’s Debate Night In America post-debate coverage, anchor Anderson Cooper brought Dale in to challenge statements by Walz and Vance — both of whom made claims about abortion:
COOPER: Let’s go to Daniel Dale, a fact-checker. Daniel, what stood out to you?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think what most struck me, Anderson, was significant revisionist history from Senator Vance on the subject of Obamacare in January 6th. But I was also struck by the fact that we had a false claim from each candidate on the subject of reproductive rights. So, first, let’s listen to something that Governor Walz said about the conservative heritage foundation think tanks initiative known as Project 2025.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: Their project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It’s going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate, to infertility treatments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This claim, which Governor Walz has made before, is false. Project 2025’s 900- page policy document is online. You can read it. I’ve read it. Nothing in it proposes to make anyone register their pregnancy with the government. What Project 2025 does propose is that the federal government takes steps to make sure it is getting from every state detailed after the fact anonymous data on abortion and miscarriage. The federal government already gets this data from almost every state on a voluntary basis.
Project 2025 wants to make it mandatory for all states, but there’s no pregnancy registration involved in this data collection today. Project 2025 doesn’t propose to change that. And, in fact, Tim Walz’s own state of Minnesota already posts details after the fact, anonymous abortion and miscarriage data online on the state health department website. There is no pregnancy registration in Minnesota, of course.
And I should also note that while the governor referred to their Project 2025, it is not an initiative of the Trump-Vance campaign itself though it is, of course, also true that Trump and Vance have extensive and close ties to it.
Now, I want to look at a claim that Senator Vance made on his past position on abortion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORAH O’DONNELL, CBS ANCHOR AND MANAGING EDITOR: Why have you changed your position?
VANCE: Well, Norah, first of all, I never supported a national ban. I did, during when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard. (END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This is false. Before Senator Vance joined the Trump campaign and fell behind Trump’s professed desire for a state-by-state approach to abortion, Vance did support a national abortion ban. In 2022, when he ran for the U.S. Senate, he said it in an interview, and this is a direct quote, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” No caveats there. He added that he was — quote — “sympathetic to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across state lines to obtain abortions.”
And he also said in his website during that Senate campaign that he was — “100% pro-life” — end quote — and that he favored eliminating abortion. These categorical words were on his website until Trump chose him as his running mate. They certainly included no caveats about opposing a federal legislation.
And then in the Senate, as recently as late last year, he explicitly pushed a national ban as early as 15 weeks gestation, as a debate moderator said to him. He can try to spin that as just a standard, but it’s not like a goal or a target. That was federal legislation or the idea of it, at least, that would have banned abortion at 15 weeks. And again, he was even more categorical, Anderson, before he was elected.
COOPER: Daniel Dale, thank you very much.
Watch above via CNN’s Debate Night In America post-debate coverage.
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