Sorry I didn’t get this out yesterday, I’ve got a new baby and a house guest and it just didn’t happen…

The first and only Vice Presidential Debate was Tuesday night, with Mike Pence and Tim Kaine squaring off at a roundtable type debate. Pence distanced himself from Trump on many issues and dodged the question on quite a few more, but overall looked calm and collected and had a pretty good, if boring, debate. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t tell a whole pack of untruths. On this special edition of What Mike Pence Lied About Yesterday I’m going to quickly run down some of the lies and falsehoods claimed by the Vice Presidential nominee with limited commentary.

“The fact that under this past administration, we’ve almost doubled the national debt is atrocious…. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine want more of the same,” Pence said. The Obama administration raised the debt by 35% as a share of the total economy, according to the AP. Comparing the Trump and Clinton plans, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that the Trump plan would create almost $4 trillion more debt than the Clinton plan.

“They want to expand (Obamacare) into a single-payer program,” Pence said. While Clinton and Kaine want to expand and protect the Affordable Care Act, neither has suggested or supported a single payer system.

PENCE: I’m very, very happy to defend Donald Trump. If he wants to take these one at a time, I’ll take them one at a time.

QUIJANO: I will give you an opportunity to do that.

KAINE: More nations should get nuclear weapons. Try to defend that.

PENCE: Don’t put words in my mouth. Well, he never said that, Senator.

KAINE: He absolutely said it. Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan.

PENCE: Most of the stuff you’ve said, he’s never said.

Donald Trump said “maybe [Japan and South Korea] would be better off — including with nukes, yes, including with nukes” in April. Trump has made several similar statements but also contradictorily claims to opposes nuclear proliferation. I don’t think that Donald Trump knows what proliferation means.

“We delivered $400 million in cash as a ransom payment for Americans held by the radical mullahs in Tehran,” Pence said. The optics were not great on that cash delivery as it happened on the same day as hostages were released, but both were part of the Iran nuclear deal, and the $400 million actually belonged to Iran and was repaid as part of the deal. It was not a payment for the release of hostages.

“Less than 10 cents on the dollar of the Clinton Foundation has gone to charitable causes,” Pence said. Charity watchdog Charity Watch said the 88% of the Clinton Foundation went towards charitable causes. They gave the Clinton foundation a rating of “A.” For comparison purposes, the American Red Cross received a rating of “A-.”

While ultimately the Vice Presidential debates matter very little, it was interesting to watch Mike Pence try to justify and deflect much of the criticism towards Trump. Perhaps I need to lock down http://www.whatmikepenceliedaboutyesterday.com for 2020.

Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/04/the-mike-pence-vs-tim-kaine-vice-presidential-debate-transcript-annotated/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/oct/04/fact-checking-tim-kaine-mike-pence-vp-debate-runni/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/10/05/fact-check-pence-kaine-vice-presidential-debate/91578626/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/05/mike-pence/debate-mike-pence-claims-trump-never-said-more-nat/