WASHINGTON: Although more buttoned-up on the stage than his boss, Vice President Mike Pence nevertheless echoed many of President Donald Trumps falsehoods in the one and only debate with Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
Pence muddied the reality on the pandemic, asserted Trump respects the science on climate change when actually the president mocks it, overstated the threat of voting fraud and misrepresented the Russia investigation in the Salt Lake City debate.
Harris got tangled in tax policy at one point and misleadingly suggested that Trump branded the coronavirus a hoax.
Altogether, the debate wasnt the madhouse matchup of Trump vs. Joe Biden last week. But there were plenty of distortions. A sampling:
CLIMATE CHANGE
PENCE: The both of you repeatedly committed to abolishing fossil fuel and banning fracking President Trump has made clear were going to continue to listen to the science on climate change.
THE FACTS: Pence is correct when he says Harris supported banning fracking, incorrect when he says Biden does, and false when he says Trump follows the science on climate change.
At a CNN climate change town hall for Democratic presidential candidates last year, Harris said, Theres no question Im in favor of banning fracking. Starting with what we can do from Day One on public lands. Now, as Bidens running mate, she is bound to his agenda, which is different.
Biden has an ambitious climate plan that seeks to rapidly reduce use of fossil fuels. He says he does not support banning hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, however, and says he doubts such a ban is possible.
As far as Trump and climate change, Trumps public comments as president all dismiss the science on climate change that its caused by people burning fossil fuels, and its worsening sharply. As recently as last month, Trump said, I dont think science knows what its talking about regarding global warming and the resulting worsening of wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters. Hes ridiculed the science in many public comments and tweets.
His regulation-cutting has eliminated key Obama-era efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
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PENCE: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “tells us that, actually, as difficult as they are, there are no more hurricanes today than there were 100 years ago, but many of the climate alarmists use hurricanes and wildfires to try and sell a bill of goods.
THE FACTS: Hes evading what science actually says about climate change and hurricanes. The main studies dont assert Earth is seeing more hurricanes than a century ago. They find that todays hurricanes are worse because of the warming climate.
Research shows that intensification of the storms has increased tremendously since the 1980s in the Atlantic and the only explanation is human-caused climate change.
An analysis of 167 years of federal storm data by The Associated Press in 2017 found that no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, with winds greater than 110 mph, this many days of those whoppers spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms.
Such findings are what alarm scientists and part of what Pence calls alarmist.
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PENCE: You know, whats remarkable is the United States has reduced CO2 more than the countries that are still in the Paris climate accord.
FACTS: True but hardly remarkable. With its giant economy, the U.S. has far more raw emissions of climate-damaging carbon dioxide to cut than any other country except China.
A more telling measure of progress in various countries is to look at what percentage of emissions they have cut. Since 2005, the United States hasnt been even in the top 10 in percentage of greenhouse gas emission reductions.
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ECONOMY
PENCE: Joe Biden wants to go back to the economic surrender to China, that when we took office, half of our international trade deficit was with China alone. And Joe Biden wants to repeal all of the tariffs that President Trump put into effect to fight for American jobs and American workers.
THE FACTS: The tariffs were not the win claimed by Pence.
For starters, tariffs are taxes that consumers and businesses pay through higher prices. So Pence is defending tax increases. The tariffs against China did cause the trade deficit in goods with China to fall in 2019. But thats a pyrrhic victory at best as overall U.S. economic growth slowed from 3% to 2.2% because of the trade uncertainty.
More important, the Trump administration has not decreased the overall trade imbalance. For all trading partners, the Census Bureau said the trade deficit was $576.9 billion last year, nearly $100 billion higher than during the last year of Barack Obamas presidency.
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HARRIS, on Trumps tax cuts: On Day 1, Joe Biden will repeal that tax bill.
THE FACTS: No, thats not what Biden proposes. He would repeal some of it. Nor can he repeal a law on his own, much less on his first day in office. Harris also said Biden will not raise taxes on people making under $400,000. If he were to repeal the Trump tax cuts across the board, he would be breaking that promise.
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CORONAVIRUS
PENCE, on the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event after which more than 11 attendees tested positive for COVID-19: It was an outdoor event, which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise.
THE FACTS: His suggestion that the event followed public-health safety recommendations is false. The event, introducing Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, drew more than 150 people and flouted safety recommendations in multiple ways. And it was not all outside.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says large gatherings of people who have traveled from outside the area and arent spaced at least 6 feet apart pose the greatest risk for spreading the virus.
Thats exactly the type of high-risk event the White House hosted.
Guests were seated close together, not 6 feet apart, in rows of chairs outside. Many were captured on camera clapping backs, shaking hands and talking, barely at arms length.
The CDC also strongly encourages people to wear masks, but few in the Rose Garden wore them. There was also a private reception inside the White House following the Rose Garden ceremony, where some politicians, including North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who has since tested positive, were pictured not wearing masks.
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HARRIS on the virus: The president said it was a hoax.
THE FACTS: Thats misleading.
Shes referring to a Feb. 28 campaign rally in South Carolina in which Trump said the phrases the coronavirus and this is their new hoax at separate points. Although his meaning is difficult to discern, the broader context of his words shows he was railing against Democrats for their denunciations of his administrations coronavirus response.
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, he said at the rally. You know that, right? Coronavirus. Theyre politicizing it. He meandered briefly to the subject of the messy Democratic primary in Iowa, then the Russia investigation before returning to the pandemic. They tried the impeachment hoax. … And this is their new hoax.
Asked at a news conference the day after the rally to clarify his remarks, Trump said he was not referring to the coronavirus itself as a hoax.
No, no, no. he said. Hoax referring to the action that they take to try and pin this on somebody, because weve done such a good job. The hoax is on them, not Im not talking about whats happening here. Im talking what theyre doing. Thats the hoax.
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HEALTH CARE
PENCE: President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and to protect preexisting conditions for all Americans.
THE FACTS: No, there is no clear plan. People with preexisting conditions are already protected by the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and if the Trump administration succeeds in persuading the Supreme Court to overturn it, those protections will be in jeopardy.
Trump has signed an executive order declaring it the policy of the U.S. government to protect people with preexisting conditions, but he would have to go back to Congress to work out legislation to replace those Obamacare” provisions.
Various Republican approaches offered in 2017 would have undermined the protections in the ACA, and Trump has not offered details of how his plan would work. Although Trump has been in office nearly four years, he has yet to roll out the comprehensive health care proposal he once promised.
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MORE ON THE VIRUS
PENCE: He suspended all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world. Joe Biden opposed that decision, he said it was xenophobic and hysterical.
THE FACTS: Trumps order did not suspend all travel from China. He restricted it, and Biden never branded the decision xenophobic. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did.
The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from Chinas Hong Kong and Macao territories for months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.
Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.
Biden has accused Trump of having a record of xenophobia but not explicitly in the context of the presidents decision to limit travel from China during the pandemic. Trump took to calling the virus the China virus and the foreign virus at one point, prompting Biden to urge the country not to take a turn toward xenophobia or racism in the pandemic.
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HARRIS, on the effects of the pandemic: One in five businesses, closed.
THE FACTS: Thats not accurate, as of now. We dont know yet how many businesses have permanently closed or could do so in the months ahead.
What we do know is that the National Federation of Independent Business said in August that one in five small businesses will close if economic conditions dont improve in the next six months.
Many small businesses survived in part through the forgivable loans from the Payroll Protection Program. Larger employers such as Disney and Allstate insurance have announced layoffs, as have major airlines. Restaurants that survived the pandemic with outdoor eating will soon face the challenge of cold weather. So its too soon to tell how many businesses have closed or will.
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RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
PENCE, on the conclusions of special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation: It was found that there was no obstruction, no collusion. Case closed. And then Senator Harris you and your colleagues in the Congress tried to impeach the president of the United States over a phone call.
THE FACTS: Thats a mischaracterization of Muellers nearly 450-page report and its core findings.
Mueller did not absolve the president of obstructing the investigation into ties between Trumps 2016 campaign and Russia. Instead, his team examined roughly a dozen episodes in which the president sought to exert his will on the probe, including by firing his FBI director and seeking the ouster of Mueller himself. Ultimately, Mueller declined to reach a conclusion on whether Trump had committed a crime, citing Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president. But thats different than finding no obstruction.
Mueller also didnt quite find no collusion. His investigation identified multiple contacts between Russians and Trump associates and outlined sweeping Russian interference that he said the Trump campaign welcomed and expected to benefit from. Mueller said that he did not have enough to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia; collusion is not a precise legal term.
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VOTING
PENCE: President Trump and I are fighting every day in courthouses to prevent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from changing the rules and creating this universal mail-in voting that will create a massive opportunity for voter fraud.
THE FACTS: Pence is vastly overstating the potential for fraud with mail-in ballots, just as Trump frequently does.
Broadly speaking, voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare. A 2017 report from the Brennan Center for Justice ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections. A panel commissioned by the Trump administration to explore the issue uncovered no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud.
Trump and his allies have tried to argue that absentee balloting is fine when someone has to request a ballot as opposed to automatically getting one in the mail while universal mail-in balloting is open to fraud because all the states registered voters receive a ballot through the mail. Its true that some election studies have shown a slightly higher incidence of mail-in voting fraud compared with in-person voting, but the overall risk is extremely low.
There is ongoing litigation in several states over a host of election issues, including absentee ballots. States nationwide expect a surge in mail-in voting due to the ongoing risk posed by the coronavirus.
Five states routinely send ballots to all registered voters, allowing them to choose to vote through the mail or in person. In November, four other states California, New Jersey, Nevada and Vermont and the District of Columbia will be adopting that system, as will almost every county in Montana.
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Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Colleen Long, Amanda Seitz, Michael Balsamo and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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EDITORS NOTE A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.
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