VP Debate Fact-Check: How Mike Pence and Tim Kaine Stack Up

Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine tonight met for the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2016 campaign, where they worked to defend the records of their running mates -– Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The debate, which was moderated by Elaine Quijano of CBS News and took place at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., showed the veteran politicians know how to mix it up as tackled issues facing the presidential hopefuls.

But were they always telling the truth? How often were they spinning the facts when defending why voters should support their ticket in November?

ABC News fact-checked some of the most noteworthy claims made in the debate:

Fact-check No. 1: Kaine said the "debt explosion" under the Trump plan is bigger than anything in Clinton has offered.

Kaine: "You're not going to cut taxes. You're going to raise taxes on the middle class."

Pence: "So we can meet the obligations of Social security and Medicare. If we stay on the path that your party has us on, we'll be in a mountain range of debt and we’re gonna face hard choices."

Kaine: "You did ask this question about debt and the debt explosion on the Trump plan is much, much bigger than anything on the Clinton side."

Grade: True

Explanation: The Committee for a Responsible Budget said "both Clinton and Trump would increase the debt relative to current law – though Trump would increase it by an order of magnitude more, and Clinton’s plan would slightly reduce deficits if we incorporated unspecified revenue from business tax reform. Specifically, we estimate Clinton’s plans would add $200 billion to the debt over the next decade, while Trump’s plans would add $5.3 trillion."

According to another analysis by Moody’s Analytics, if Trump’s economic proposals are adopted to some degree, the economy would suffer "a lengthy recession" and by the end of his presidency, there would be close to 3.5 million fewer jobs. The unemployment rate would also rise to as much as 7 percent, compared with the current rate, which is below 5 percent.

The analysis also stated "those who would benefit most from Mr. Trump’s economic proposals are high-income households. Everyone receives a tax cut under his proposals, but the bulk of the cuts would go to those at the very top of the income distribution, and the job losses resulting from his other policies would likely hit lower- and middle-income households the hardest."

When the original study was published, Trump’s tax and spending proposals would result in a $9.5 trillion deficit over 10 years, according Mark Zandi, the lead author in an attempt to clarify its findings on the deficit. Under his current tax and spending proposal that he unveiled a couple weeks ago the deficit over the next decade is closer to $5 trillion according to their latest estimate.

Fact-check No. 2: Kaine says Clinton helped eliminate the Iranian nuclear program.

Kaine: "She worked a tough negotiation with nations around the world to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program without firing a shot."

Pence: "Eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program?"

Kaine: "Absolutely without firing a shot and instead of 175,000 American troops deployed overseas we now have 15,000. These are very very... "

Grade: False

Explanation: The nuclear agreement reached between six world powers and Iran last year does not completely eliminate the Iranian nuclear program. Its major achievement, as told by the Obama administration, was getting Iran to commit to reduce its stockpile of nuclear material and cease further enrichment, effectively extending the time it would take Iran to build a bomb from a few months to one year, over 10 years.

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