Trump confuses Virginia with West Virginia in debate when sharing debunked lie

Trump confused Virginia with West Virginia when he brought up an old lie about abortion care, and Harris attacked him for his comments after the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

In a high-stakes presidential debate over two different visions of the country, Virginia was among a small number of states brought up during the contentious exchange between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. 

In a gaffe early on in the evening, Trump confused Virginia and West Virginia when he referenced comments made in 2019 by then Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. 

“You can look at the governor of West Virginia – the previous governor of West Virginia – not the current governor – he’s doing an excellent job,” Trump said. “But the governor before, he said, ‘The baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby.’ In other words, we’ll execute the baby.” 

Trump was repeating a widely debunked lie about what Northam actually said when asked about a bill that was aimed to ease restrictions on abortions. Northam’s comments have been misrepresented by right-wing commentators and Trump for years, according to numerous fact checks including this one from Politifact.

Trump gaffes early and confuses West Virginia with Virginia in his claims about the former Governor pic.twitter.com/FinCw3hgPU

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2024

Northam tried to explain what happens in the rare cases when a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormality leads a woman to seek a third-trimester abortion—the context was about pregnancies where a medical problem meant the fetus simply would not survive. 

And regardless of what Northam said, there are simply no laws that would allow babies to be executed, nor proposals to do so.

After Trump finished making his false claims, ABC News debate moderator Linsey Davis fact checked him on the spot: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”

READ MORE: Fact-checking Trump’s lies on abortion during the presidential debate

Charlottesville

During one of her attacks on Trump’s record of divisiveness, Harris brought up the former president’s comments about the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. 

“Let’s remember Charlottesville,” Harris said, looking directly at Trump while he stared ahead. “Where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches spewing anti-semitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? ‘There were fine people on each side.’”

Harris was referring to comments Trump made in the aftermath of the deadly rally when he said, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.“

Trump pushed back, saying the story had been “debunked” and suggesting his comments were taken out of context. 

“If they go an extra sentence they will see it was perfect,” Trump said.