Fact-checking Walz’s claim about a registry of pregnanciespublished at 03:06 British Summer Time 2 October 2024

03:06 BST 2 October 2024

Earlier in the debate, Walz said of the Trump-Vance bid for the presidency, “their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies”.

This is misleading. There is no evidence that Trump is planning this and there is no mention of plans for a registry of pregnancies in Project 2025 - a list of ultra-conservative policy proposals by the Heritage Foundation think tank.

The Democrats have tried to link Trump to it as “his agenda” but he has repeatedly denied knowing anything about it.

Walz might be referring to a section in the Project 2025 document which states that a future Trump administration “should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders”.

Project 2025 suggests that US health authorities and states should collect such data, but does not refer to any new federal agency to register pregnancies.

When asked whether he would create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency, Vance replied: “No.”

Just before the break, we heard from both candidates on abortion care and reproductive rights - a key issue in this election cycle after the reversal of Roe v Wade by a majority Republican-appointed Supreme Court.

Walz cited the story of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after not being able to access abortion care in the state. He said if she lived in Minnesota, where he is governor, she "would be alive today".

He argued Roe v Wade, the 1970s Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to an abortion nationally, should be reinstated.

Vance countered and said he doesn't support a national ban on abortion and wants states to decide the matter.

He cited his home state of Ohio and a referendum enshrining the right to abortion care in the state.

Vance said "we have got to earn people's trust back" on the issue and said the Trump administration would support pro-family policies and help lower childcare costs.

It's half time - the key takeaways so farpublished at 02:57 British Summer Time 2 October 2024

02:57 BST 2 October 2024

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent, at the debate in New York

Image source, Reuters

JD Vance and Tim Walz entered this debate with different sets of skills. Vance has been a regular on television news programmes, often sparring with journalists in heated exchanges. Walz is at home on the campaign stump, using his folksy style to contrast himself with more polished politicians.

In the early part of this debate, with both candidates standing behind podiums in a New York City television studio, Vance seems much more comfortable.

His answers have been smooth, and he has been relentlessly on-message, constantly reminding the audience that for all of Vice-president Kamala Harris’s promises, Democrats have held the White House for the past three and a half years.

“If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle class problems, then she ought to do them now,” he said.

Walz, for his part, seemed halting and unsure on the opening topic, dealing with Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack on Israel. The Minnesota governor rarely talks about foreign policy, and his discomfort on the subject was apparent.

The Democrat has settled in as the debate has moved along, and during his exchanges with Vance on the topic of immigration – an area of strength for the Republicans – both delivered well-honed messages that framed the issue in their favour.

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Vance is asked about abortion policy, and he toes the Trump campaign line that they think abortion policy should be left to individual states.

"The proper way to handle this…is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make the abortion policy.”

Vance is asked about his past statements on abortion and his previous support for a national abortion ban - he said in 2022 when he was running for the Senate that would be open to abortion being "illegal nationally".

Now, Vance says that Republicans need "to earn people's trust back" and that Trump was advancing pro-family policies.

Abortion is an area where polls show Democrats have a large advantage over Republicans after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022.

Kamala Harris has long been a vocal champion of abortion rights and, since becoming the presidential nominee, has played to her strengths by keeping the issue at the forefront. Abortion is often listed as the second-most important issue to voters behind the economy.

Phil McCausland
Reporting from the debate in New York

Walz just made the first mention of Project 2025, the right-wing wish list for another Trump presidency.

The Harris-Walz campaign has regularly brought up the 900-page policy tome to raise concern over what Trump might do if he returns to the White House.

The former president has maintained that he has "nothing to do with Project 2025" and has disavowed it. But dozens of former Trump administration officials contributed to the think tank proposal - and its authors have links to Vance as well.

The next question for the candidates is on abortion rights, an issue Democrats have used to galvanise voters.

Walz targets Trump and his appointing of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which allowed the federal right to abortion to be overturned in 2022.

The Harris campaign is "pro-freedom for women to make their choices, pro-women to make their choices", Walz says.

He also discusses Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation's blueprint for a Republican presidency, saying the plan involves a federal pregnancy monitoring agency. BBC Verify is looking at this claim.

Image source, Reuters

Vance is now being asked about his prior attacks on his running mate Donald Trump, including when he said that Trump might be "America's Hitler" and recent media reports of times he attacked Trump's policies.

He says "I was wrong about Donald Trump".

Walz is next asked inconsistent claims he has previously made, including about his time in the military.

As we reported earlier, Walz has faced fresh scrutiny over his repeated statements that he was in Hong Kong when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in June 1989.

"I will say more than anything, many times I will talk a lot, I will get caught up in the rhetoric," he responds.

The moderators press him on possible discrepancies in his statements, and Walz gets more specific.

“I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, and from that, I learned a lot," he said.

BBC Verify has looked at Walz's claims, and you can read a full post on this here.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the debate in New York

Moderators try to keep these debates centred on policy, but television is a visual medium and the candidates' performance in front of a camera will surely resonate with viewers.

Vance is coming across as a more comfortable debate performer and public speaker than Walz.

He may be helped by spending several years in the spotlight, first as the author of Hillbilly Elegy and later as a politician. Vance has several media tours under his belt and knows how to issue a soundbite.

Walz, on the other hand, is no stranger to media - his non-stop appearances on cable news this summer arguably contributed to Harris picking him as a running mate. But he is far more focused on making detailed arguments, and frequently pauses before continuing his argument as he recalls facts and talking points.

We're hearing rebuttals from both vice-presidential candidates on the issue of the economy.

Walz is accusing Trump of not paying taxes and arguing this is not fair. He also blames Trump's Covid-19 pandemic response for the economy which Harris inherited when she started her term as vice-president in 2021.

Vance, meanwhile, says judging economic issues don't require "listening to experts" but instead "common sense".

Vance is now being asked about the economy and how to prevent a ballooning deficit. He starts by talking about Harris and pointing out she's the current vice-president and could make changes now to bring down the deficit, but argues that she and the Biden administration have not done so.

He says Trump's economic plan is attacked by those who have PhDs but don't have "common sense".

Many experts have said that according to their analyses, both candidates' economic plans would increase the US deficit, though Trump's would increase it more.

Image source, Reuters

Moderators are now asking about another key issue: the economy.

Walz is getting the first question about Harris's plans, which includes an expansion of the child tax credit. Moderators note that the plan would increase the nation's deficit by $1.2 trillion, according to economists.

He is asked how a Harris-Walz administration would pay for this.

Walz responds by taking aim at Trump, saying he gave tax benefits to the wealthy and now wants to increase tariffs, which Walz claims would lead to more inflation.

Inflation has increased the prices of everything from groceries to housing, making the economy the number-one issue for voters - although rates have sharply fallen since their post-pandemic peak. The economy is the biggest thorn in Democrats' side, as polls show voters blame Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for high prices and think Donald Trump is the better candidate to handle the world's largest economy.

Fact checking Vance's claim on '25 million illegal aliens in the US'published at 02:34 British Summer Time 2 October 2024

02:34 BST 2 October 2024

Earlier in the debate, JD Vance criticised Kamala Harris’s record on the border.

He said: “We’ve got 20-25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country”.

Vance didn’t say where he got this number from - or give a timeframe - but this is far higher than the number of encounters with migrants recorded by border officials under the Biden administration.

Since January 2021, there have been more than 10 million encounters, external at the US borders - numbers which have risen to record levels.

It is important to point out that these figures don't mean this many people stay in the US and the same person can be recorded trying to enter multiple times.

A report , externalpublished by the Office of Homeland Security earlier this year estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the US as of January 2022 at 11 million.

It said these people had arrived over several decades.

Phil McCausland
Reporting from the debate in New York

It happened - CBS News fact-checked JD Vance over his claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, who Trump and Vance contended were eating their neighbours' pets.

Margaret Brennan, one of the moderators, noted after Vance spoke that most of those migrants are legal residents in the US.

Vance was not too happy to be fact-checked, and he refused to allow the debate to continue until he could clarify his point.

"Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process," Brennan deadpanned.

Vance tried to continue, but his microphone was ultimately muted.

Phil McCausland
Reporting from the debate in New York

Whether it's the Middle East, storm emergency response, or the southern border, JD Vance is doing a good job of blaming the "Kamala Harris administration".

The Ohio senator seems to have purposefully forgotten that Joe Biden is the US president and that his name typically is used when referring to the current administration.

Still, it's hard to dispute that it's an effective way of connecting current issues with Harris, who is currently serving in the White House - though as vice-president.

Walz is now responding to Vance's comments on immigration policies and deportation.

He says "we all want to solve this", before adding, "well most of us", before hitting out at Trump for encouraging Republicans to block a bill in Congress that aimed to curb illegal immigration.

The bill was crafted in part by conservatives on Capitol Hill. Walz says Trump was against the bill because "it gives him a campaign issue".

He then pivots to recent events in Springfield, Ohio, and points to language surrounding migrants coming from the Trump-Vance campaign.

The city has recently come into the spotlight after Vance and Trump repeated debunked accusations that legal Haitian immigrants there had been eating residents' pets.

Walz criticises the senator for spreading untrue claims, saying there are "consequences" for such statements, including that that they "vilified a large number of people who were there legally in the community of Springfield".

"The people that I'm most worried about in Springfield, Ohio are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris's open border," Vance says. "It is a disgrace."

The head-to-head has now turned to one of the most hot-button topics of the 2024 presidential election: immigration.

Vance is responding to a question from moderators about how his administration would carry out the mass deportations that his campaign has pledged.

Vance is also asked if he would separate migrant families at the border, as Trump did while in office.

He starts by accusing Kamala Harris of allowing fentanyl to flow into the US through the southern border, adding the the country should "build the wall" along its border with Mexico.

The senator says the mass deportation plan would start with targeting migrants with criminal histories.

The topic of immigration is among the top concerns for voters and among the biggest weak points for Democrats. Detentions of undocumented migrants rose to record-breaking levels during Joe Biden's presidency, though numbers have fallen recently.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from the debate in New York

Image source, Reuters

So far, the debate is focused on differences in issues and policy, rather than personal attacks. Without Trump on the stage, the debate is currently devoid of major fireworks.

Vance and Walz are both speaking in even tones, even as they attack each others' running mates and their records.

We even had what Walz just called "close to an agreement on climate change," when moderators brought up the subject in relation to Hurricane Helene.

However, we're just than 20 minutes in to this debate, and things could get more tense as the night continues.

Walz is now answering the question about Hurricane Helene and the impacts of climate change.

"My farmers know climate change is real," Walz says, adding that they are adapting to changing weather patterns as the planet warms.

He then points to America producing more natural gas and oil than ever.

It's possible for America to become an "energy superpower for the future, not just the current", he says.