Trump-Harris debate updates: Candidates go on attack in zinger-filled showdown

Fact Check: False

Trump has claimed that Democrats in some states allow for the killing of an infant after birth. This is false. There is no state that allows the killing of a baby after birth. Infanticide is illegal in all 50 states. His false claim stems from a refusal by many Democrats to support any legal restrictions on abortion, and he specifically references comments by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a physician, who once said that in rare, late-pregnancy cases when fetuses are nonviable, doctors deliver the baby, resuscitate it if the mother wishes, and then have a "discussion" with the mother.

While most states that allow abortion do so only up until fetal viability, there are several states – including Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Gov. Tim Walz’s home state of Minnesota — that do not impose a legal limit on abortion procedures. Advocates for abortion rights say the absence of legal consequences after fetal liability doesn’t mean doctors will try to terminate full-term, healthy pregnancies. In fact, access to late term procedures is limited, costly and medically complex – typically done only when a woman’s life is threatened or the fetus isn’t expected to survive. Many Democrats say they want to pass legislation that would codify the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which protects abortion rights up until viability.

Fact Check: False

Trump has claimed that Democrats in some states allow for the killing of an infant after birth. This is false. There is no state that allows the killing of a baby after birth. Infanticide is illegal in all 50 states. His false claim stems from a refusal by many Democrats to support any legal restrictions on abortion, and he specifically references comments by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a physician, who once said that in rare, late-pregnancy cases when fetuses are nonviable, doctors deliver the baby, resuscitate it if the mother wishes, and then have a "discussion" with the mother.

While most states that allow abortion do so only up until fetal viability, there are several states – including Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Gov. Tim Walz’s home state of Minnesota — that do not impose a legal limit on abortion procedures. Advocates for abortion rights say the absence of legal consequences after fetal liability doesn’t mean doctors will try to terminate full-term, healthy pregnancies. In fact, access to late term procedures is limited, costly and medically complex – typically done only when a woman’s life is threatened or the fetus isn’t expected to survive. Many Democrats say they want to pass legislation that would codify the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which protects abortion rights up until viability.

Fact Check: False.

Trump lost the 2020 election after Biden won 306 electoral votes, compared to Trump’s 232 electoral votes.

After losing the 2020 election, Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits to challenge the outcome of the election – the overwhelming majority of which were dismissed or dropped. Many of the cases were dismissed because the plaintiffs in the cases could not prove a strong enough connection to the action they were challenging. Not having “standing” is a common and legally justifiable reason for a case to be dismissed.

It’s no accident that Harris mentioned the possibility of Putin invading Poland just now. The two states with the largest Polish American populations in the U.S. are Michigan and Wisconsin. Polish Americans are 8% of the population in those two pivotal swing states.

—538’s Nathaniel Rakich