• Fact check: How claims from Pence, Harris stack up against reality.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris tussled Wednesday in the first and only vice presidential debate before the Nov. 3 election, coming as the coronavirus sidelined President Donald Trump at the White House.
A look at how the running mates’ statements from Salt Lake City stack up with the facts:
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 that’s a pyrrhic victory at best as overall U.S. economic growth slowed from 3 percent to 2.2 percent 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 Obama’s presidency.
Harris, on Trump’s tax cuts: “On Day 1, Joe Biden will repeal that tax bill.”
The facts: No, that’s not what Biden proposes. He would repeal someof 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.
CORONAVIRUS
Harris: “The president said it was a hoax.”
The facts: That’s misleading. She’s 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 hewas railing against Democrats for their denunciations of his administration’s coronavirus response.
“Nowthe Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” he said at the rally. “You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re 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.
Pence, on the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event after which more than 11 attendees tested positive for COVID-19: “Itwas 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 aren’t spaced at least 6 feet apart pose the greatest risk for spreading the virus.
That’s 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 arm’s length.
The CDC also “strongly encourages” people to wear masks, but few in the Rose Garden wore them.
ENVIRONMENT Pence:
“The both of you repeatedly committed to abolishing fossil fuel and banning fracking . President Trump has made clear we’re going to continue to listen tothe 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.
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, Trump’s public comments as president all dismiss the science on climate change — that it’s caused by people burning fossil fuels, and it’s worsening sharply.
His regulation-cutting has eliminated key Obama-era efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
HEALTH CARE
Pence: “President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and to protect preexisting conditions for all Americans.”
The facts: 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 jeopardy.
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: Trump’s order did not suspend “all travel from China.“He restricted it, and Biden never branded the decision “xenophobic.”
Trump took to calling the virus the “China virus” andthe “foreign virus” at one point, prompting Biden to urge the country not to take a turn toward xenophobia or racism in the pandemic. Harris, on the effects of the pandemic: “One in five businesses, closed.”
The facts: That’s not accurate, as of now. We don’t know yet how many businesses have permanently closed.