When Vice President Kamala Harris walked throughout the talk stage Tuesday evening 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 generally weird statements by the previous president.
The talk was hosted by ABC with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who often fact-checked Trump. He complained on the Fox Information present “Fox & Buddies” 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 typically instantly addressed Trump whereas answering the moderators’ questions. Trump principally stared straight forward. In response to Trump’s claims in regards to the Biden administration’s report on crime, Harris cited Trump’s felony conviction in New York and different indictments.
The moderators questioned Trump about whether or not he would try and dismantle the Inexpensive Care Act, often known as Obamacare — the medical insurance program he pledged and didn’t repeal and change throughout his earlier administration.
He mentioned, if president, he would “solely change it if we give you one thing that’s higher and cheaper.” He went on to say, “There are ideas and choices we now have to try 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 campaign trail in 2015. He claimed in the course of the debate that he “saved” the ACA by issuing laws geared toward reducing insurance coverage premiums.
Harris’ earlier assist for “Medicare for All,” a proposal to exchange personal medical 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 mentioned it was immoral to remove a girl’s capacity 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 Courtroom overturned in 2022.
Trump mentioned 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 mentioned. “There’s no motive to signal a ban.”
Trump additionally resurfaced claims — repeatedly judged false by PolitiFact and different fact-checking organizations — that Democrats assist abortions up-to-the-minute of start and the “execution” of infants after start. ABC’s Davis flagged Trump’s assertion, saying that willfully terminating a new child’s life is unlawful in each state. As well as, the vast majority of Democrats assist abortion entry as much as fetal viability, when the fetus is ready to survive outdoors the womb, usually round 24 weeks of being pregnant.
Harris introduced up Challenge 2025, a coverage blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Basis from which Trump has sought to distance himself.
Moments after the talk ended, pop famous person Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she could be voting for Harris “as a result of she fights for the rights and causes I imagine want a warrior to champion them.” Swift’s publish featured a photograph of her along with her cat and was signed “Childless Cat Woman” — a reference to feedback made by JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate.
Our PolitiFact partners fact-checked the talk in actual time on a live blog, with more coverage here, as Harris and Trump clashed on the financial system, immigration, and abortion.
Excerpts detailing particular health-related claims comply with.
Trump: “However the governor earlier than, he mentioned, ‘The infant can be born, and we’ll resolve what to do with the child.’”
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 mentioned he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he did say throughout a 2019 radio interview is that in uncommon, late-pregnancy instances when fetuses are nonviable, docs ship the child, maintain it comfy, resuscitate it if the household needs, after which have a “dialogue” with the mom.
The difficulty 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 demise.
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 folks might vote.”
The 1973 Roe v. Wade choice impressed legions of supporters and opponents. Earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned it in 2022, quite a few authorized students wrote briefs urging the court docket to uphold the ruling.
Some authorized students who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s authorized underpinnings, saying that totally different constitutional arguments, based mostly on equal safety, would have offered a stronger case. However authorized consultants, together with some who held this view, mentioned 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 various policies that hindered its attain and effectiveness, together with slicing tens of millions of {dollars} in promoting and outreach funding. He minimize 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 health plans that didn’t adjust to the ACA.
Throughout the Trump administration, ACA enrollment declined, and the number of uninsured Americans rose by 2.3 million from 2016 to 2019, together with 726,000 youngsters, based on 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 at the moment assist this proposal.
In April 2019, Harris turned one of 14 original 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 insurance program administered by the federal Division of Well being and Human Companies.
The invoice would have created an automated, federally run medical 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 probably the most liberal positions doable.
Nonetheless, Medicare for All didn’t advance to a vote within the Senate. After her 2020 candidacy ended, Harris targeted as an alternative on bolstering the ACA versus pushing for Medicare for All.
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working packages at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Study extra about KFF.
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