Walz-Vance debate updates: VP candidates tangle on abortion, immigration and Jan. 6

Fact Check: False

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has repeatedly claimed he was in China during the Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protests during his year-long stint as a high school teacher in the southeastern Chinese town of Foshan starting in 1989.

Tonight he admitted that was false, saying he “misspoke” earlier, though he travelled to China in the months after the protests.

The school Walz taught at was near Hong Kong. He was there as part of the WorldTeach program, a nonprofit affiliated with Harvard University. But according to local newspaper clipping obtained by ABC News, it appears he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989,

The pro-democracy protests, which led to a deadly government crackdown by the Chinese government, lasted from April 15 to June 4, 1989 — ending about two months ahead of Walz’s travel to the country.

An article in the Chadron Record in Chadron, Nebraska dated August 11, 1989, said that Walz, a graduate of Chadron State College, “will leave Sunday enroute to China, where he will teach English and American history during the next year.”

Walz has spoken about Tiananmen Square repeatedly— why he supported the protests and why he stayed to be a witness.

As recently as in February, Walz said during an episode of the podcast “Pod Save America” that he was in Hong Kong during the protests. “I was in Hong Kong when it happened – I was in Hong Kong on June 4th when Tiananmen happened … Quite a few of our folks decided not to go in,” he said, further expanding on the experience. “There was a lot of Europeans in Hong Kong [saying] don't do this, don't go, don't support them in this, and my thinking at the time was … what a golden opportunity to go tell how it was. And I did have a lot of freedom to do that, taught American history and could tell the story.”

Walz, while serving in Congress as ranking member on the Executive Commission on China, said at a 2014 congressional hearing marking 25 years since the massacre that “as the events were unfolding, several of us went in.”

“I will talk a lot,” Walz said tonight. "I will get caught up in the rhetoric. But being there, the impact it made, the difference it made in my life. I learned a lot about China.”

—Isabella Murray & Justin Fishel

Walz referenced the death of Amber Thurman, one of two Georgia women featured in a recent ProPublica report whose deaths the publication said were a direct result of the state's six-week abortion ban, as the debate pivoted to reproductive rights.

"There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth," Walz said. "The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right to control your own body is determined on geography?"

"There's a very real chance at Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today," he continued.

Harris met with the family of Thurman last month while participating in a livestream event with Oprah Winfrey.

Vance said he agreed that Thurman should still be alive.

"I certainly wish that she was," he said.

Fact-check: False

Trump's tax records since 2020 have not been made public. A congressional committee released portions of Trump's tax records from 2015-20. In some years, Trump paid no federal income tax. But not in every year.

Trump's 2018 return declared total income of $24.4 million, with taxable income of $22.9 million. Trump and his wife Melania paid $999,466 in federal income taxes. In 2019, the Trumps paid $133,445 in federal income taxes.

The New York Times reported in 2020 that Trump often paid no income taxes before being elected president, largely, they wrote "because he reported losing much more money than he made."

—PolitiFact's Aaron Sharockman

Fact Check: False

Vance’s attempt to correlate the CBP One App process with Temporary Protected Status is incorrect, as is his assertion that it’s akin to “the wave of a Kamala Harris open-border wand” and would "facilitat[e] illegal immigration."

The CBP One App was created and launched under the Biden-Harris administration as a way to provide some migrants the ability to apply for an appointment at a port of entry to potentially file an asylum claim and seek other lawful pathways into the country. It is not a guarantee that those migrants will be allowed into the country, but it is a legal process through which they can request an opportunity to make their claim.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security designates some countries Temporary Protected Status when they are deemed too dangerous for migrants to return to. TPS is a program that began in 1990 and was extended to Haitian migrants in 2010 under then-President Barack Obama after a devastating earthquake. The protections were extended by Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration, although he subsequently tried to end protections, prompting court challenges. Biden most recently extended TPS this past June through Feb. 3, 2026. In order to be eligible for TPS migrants from those specific countries must already be residing in the United States at the time it’s authorized.

—Armando Garcia