When Vice President Kamala Harris walked throughout the controversy stage Tuesday night time to shake the hand of former President Donald Trump, it was the primary time the 2 had met in individual. However that was the uncommon collegial second in a face-off in any other case marked by false and typically weird statements by the previous president.
The talk was hosted by ABC with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who sometimes fact-checked Trump. He complained on the Fox Information present “Fox & Mates” on Wednesday morning that it was a “three-to-one” contest.
The 2 presidential candidates lined a variety of points — from job and inflation numbers to abortion and immigration — in exchanges marked by private assaults. As our PolitiFact companions famous, Harris usually straight addressed Trump whereas answering the moderators’ questions. Trump largely stared straight forward. In response to Trump’s claims concerning the Biden administration’s file on crime, Harris cited Trump’s prison conviction in New York and different indictments.
The moderators questioned Trump about whether or not he would try to dismantle the Inexpensive Care Act, also referred to as Obamacare — the medical health insurance program he pledged and didn’t repeal and change throughout his earlier administration.
He stated, if president, he would “solely change it if we provide you with one thing that’s higher and cheaper.” He went on to say, “There are ideas and choices we’ve got to do this, and also you’ll be listening to about it within the not-too-distant future.”
Trump has promised an Obamacare alternative since he was on the marketing campaign path in 2015. He claimed throughout the debate that he “saved” the ACA by issuing rules aimed toward reducing insurance coverage premiums.
Harris’ earlier help for “Medicare for All,” a proposal to switch personal medical health insurance with a government-run well being system, drew questions from the moderators and assaults by Trump.
Abortion was a transparent flash level. Harris referred to as state restrictions on the process enacted since 2022 “Trump abortion bans” and stated it was immoral to remove a lady’s means to make selections about her personal physique. She additionally pledged to signal any invoice that might reinstate the protections outlined in Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court docket overturned in 2022.
Trump stated that as president he would by no means face the query of signing a nationwide abortion ban as a result of the difficulty is now being settled in states. “I’m not signing a ban,” he stated. “There’s no cause to signal a ban.”
Trump additionally resurfaced claims — repeatedly judged false by PolitiFact and different fact-checking organizations — that Democrats help abortions up-to-the-minute of delivery and the “execution” of infants after delivery. ABC’s Davis flagged Trump’s assertion, saying that willfully terminating a new child’s life is prohibited in each state. As well as, the vast majority of Democrats help abortion entry as much as fetal viability, when the fetus is ready to survive outdoors the womb, sometimes round 24 weeks of being pregnant.
Harris introduced up Venture 2025, a coverage blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Basis from which Trump has sought to distance himself.
Moments after the controversy ended, pop celebrity Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she could be voting for Harris “as a result of she fights for the rights and causes I consider want a warrior to champion them.” Swift’s put up featured a photograph of her together with her cat and was signed “Childless Cat Girl” — a reference to feedback made by JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate.
Our PolitiFact companions fact-checked the controversy in actual time on a dwell weblog, with extra protection right here, as Harris and Trump clashed on the economic system, immigration, and abortion.
Excerpts detailing particular health-related claims observe.
Trump: “However the governor earlier than, he stated, ‘The infant shall be born, and we are going to resolve what to do with the newborn.’”
Trump initially referenced a West Virginia governor. He meant Virginia, and corrected himself later within the debate.
Former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat and a doctor, by no means stated he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he did say throughout a 2019 radio interview is that in uncommon, late-pregnancy circumstances when fetuses are nonviable, docs ship the newborn, maintain it snug, resuscitate it if the household needs, after which have a “dialogue” with the mom.
The problem is that Northam declined to say what that dialogue would entail. Trump places phrases within the then-governor’s mouth, saying docs would urge the mom to allow them to forcibly kill the new child, which is a felony in Virginia (and all different states) punishable by an extended jail sentence or dying.
Trump: “Each authorized scholar, each Democrat, each Republican, liberal, conservative, all of them wished [abortion] to be introduced again to the states the place the individuals may vote.”
The 1973 Roe v. Wade determination impressed legions of supporters and opponents. Earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned it in 2022, quite a few authorized students wrote briefs urging the courtroom to uphold the ruling.
Some authorized students who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s authorized underpinnings, saying that completely different constitutional arguments, primarily based on equal safety, would have supplied a stronger case. However authorized specialists, together with some who held this view, stated these students wouldn’t have advocated for overturning Roe on this foundation.
Trump: On the Inexpensive Care Act, “I saved it.”
False.
Throughout 2016, Trump campaigned on repealing and changing the Inexpensive Care Act. Whereas president, he sought to repeal the measure — and failed.
However his administration pursued numerous insurance policies that hindered its attain and effectiveness, together with reducing tens of millions of {dollars} in promoting and outreach funding. He reduce subsidies to insurance coverage firms that provided protection on the exchanges. He additionally took regulatory steps to allow cheaper and fewer complete well being protection — for instance, short-term well being plans that didn’t adjust to the ACA.
Throughout the Trump administration, ACA enrollment declined, and the variety of uninsured People rose by 2.3 million from 2016 to 2019, together with 726,000 kids, in line with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Trump: Harris “desires all people to be on authorities insurance coverage” for well being care.
That is deceptive.
Harris as soon as co-sponsored a invoice to broaden Medicare to People of all ages, however she doesn’t presently help this proposal.
In April 2019, Harris turned one in every of 14 authentic co-sponsors of the Medicare for All Act of 2019 sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The laws would have established a nationwide medical health insurance program administered by the federal Division of Well being and Human Companies.
The invoice would have created an computerized, federally run medical health insurance program for all People, which might mirror the socialized medication techniques in such international locations as the UK.
Harris backed the invoice when she was getting ready to run within the 2020 presidential primaries and lots of candidates believed that Democratic base voters wished essentially the most liberal positions doable.
Nevertheless, Medicare for All didn’t advance to a vote within the Senate. After her 2020 candidacy ended, Harris centered as a substitute on bolstering the ACA versus pushing for Medicare for All.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working packages at KFF—an impartial supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Study extra about KFF.
USE OUR CONTENT
This story might be republished totally free (particulars).