DEBATE FACT CHECK THE FLUB AND FIB ROUNDUP
The first presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump certainly kept fact-checkers busy. Here are a few of the less-than-accurate claims:
TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS
Clinton said the only tax returns anyone has seen from Trump “showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.” That’s not correct.
CLINTON: “Maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”
Trump paid federal income taxes in three out of five years from 1975 to 1979, according to a report to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, which viewed Trump’s tax returns when the Trump Plaza Corp. applied for a casino license in 1981.
Although the returns were not disclosed, the report indicated that Trump paid $18,714 in taxes on $76,210 in income in 1975, $10,832 in taxes on $24,594 in income in 1976 and $42,386 in taxes on $118,530 in income in 1977. Trump reported income losses of $406,379 in 1978 and $3,443,560 in 1979, and thus paid no federal income tax for those years.
FORD JOBS LEAVING?
Trump claimed that Ford is moving its small-car division overseas and that, as a result, thousands of jobs are leaving Michigan and Ohio. Trump is half right. Ford is moving its small-car division to Mexico, but Ford’s CEO insists not a single job will be lost in the USA.
TRUMP: “So Ford is leaving. You see that, their small-car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio. They’re all leaving. And we can’t allow it to happen anymore.”
Ford CEO Mark Fields confirmed on Sept. 16 that “over the next two to three years, we will have migrated all of our small-car production to Mexico and out of the United States,” the Detroit
Free Press reported. The Free Press wrote that the “impact on Ford’s U.S. employment will be minimal in the near-term.”
The Free Press article states that last year, “the automaker made a commitment to invest $9 billion in U.S. plants and create or retain more than 8,500 jobs as part of a new four-year contract with the UAW (United Auto Workers). Of that, $4.8 billion goes to 11 facilities in Michigan.”
PAYMENT TO IRAN
Trump left the false impression that the Obama administration failed to disclose the full amount paid to Iran in January to settle a long outstanding claim.
Trump claimed $400 million paid to Iran in January “turned out to be wrong. It was actually $1.7 billion.” But the administration accurately described the total payment as $1.7 billion — $400 million in principle and $1.3 billion in interest — on the day it was announced.
In criticizing the Iran nuclear deal during the debate, Trump referenced the $400 million payment to Iran. Trump described the payment as being “for the hostages,” because it was paid on the same day in January that Iran released U.S. prisoners. The Obama administration has insisted the United States did not pay Iran ransom for the prisoners’ release.
The $400 million was the first installment in a $1.7 billion payment to resolve a dispute that dates to 1979, when Iran paid the United States $400 million for military equipment it never received. The United States refused to provide the equipment after the shah of Iran was overthrown during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The agreement ended a claim that Iran had filed against the United States in an international tribunal in The Hague. President Obama announced it Jan. 17 as part of a series of agreements involving Iran. In August, The Wall Street
Journal reported new details on the payment, and the administration acknowledged that it delayed paying Iran until the prisoners were released — fueling criticism that it was ransom.
CLIMATE CHANGE A HOAX?
Clinton said Trump thinks “climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.” Trump denied it. He did tweet that the Chinese created the “concept of global warming ” but later said it was a joke. Trump has called global warming a hoax repeatedly.
Clinton said she thinks climate change is real: “I think science is real.”
On Nov. 6, 2012, Trump tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
On Jan. 18, Trump told Fox News, “Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. … I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less.”
Ninety-seven percent of scientists say it’s “extremely likely” that human-caused global warming is real.
STILL WRONG ON ‘BIRTHER’ CLAIMS
Trump claimed without evidence that in 2008, the Clinton campaign pushed “very hard” the false story that President Obama was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii.
Trump, who finally acknowledged Sept. 16 that “Obama was born in the United States,” had a long, somewhat rambling response when asked by the moderator, Lester Holt of NBC News, why he continued to question that Obama was born in Hawaii even after the president produced his long-form birth certificate in 2011.
HOLT: “Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation’s first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?”
TRUMP: “I’ll tell you very — well, just very simple to say. Sidney Blumenthal works for the campaign and close — very close friend of Secretary Clinton. And
her campaign manager, Patti Doyle, went to — during the campaign, her campaign against President Obama, fought very hard. And you can go look it up, and you can check it out.
“And if you look at CNN this past week, Patti Solis Doyle was on Wolf Blitzer saying that this happened. Blumenthal sent McClatchy, highly respected reporter at McClatchy, to Kenya to find out about it. They were pressing it very hard. She (Clinton) failed to get the birth certificate.
“When I got involved, I didn’t fail. I got him to give the birth certificate. So I’m satisfied with it. And I’ll tell you why I’m satisfied with it.” HOLT: “That was …”
TRUMP: “Because I want to get on to defeating ISIS, because I want to get on to creating jobs, because I want to get on to having a strong border, because I want to get on to things that are very important to me and that are very important to the country.”
HOLT: “I will let you respond. It’s important. But I just want to get the answer here. The birth certificate was produced in 2011. You’ve continued to tell the story and question the president’s legitimacy in 2012, ’13, ’14, ’15 …”
TRUMP: “Yeah.” HOLT: “… as recently as January. So the question is, what changed your mind?”
TRUMP: “Well, nobody was pressing it, nobody was caring much about it. I figured you’d ask the question tonight, of course. But nobody was caring much about it. But I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate. And I think I did a good job.
“Secretary Clinton also fought it. I mean, you know — now, everybody in mainstream is going to say, oh, that’s not true. Look, it’s true. Sidney Blumenthal sent a reporter — you just have to take a look at CNN, the last week, the interview with your former campaign manager. And she was involved.”
It is false that Solis Doyle, Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager, was involved in spreading the rumor of Obama’s birthplace.
Solis Doyle said — in the CNN interview that Trump cites — that a “rogue volunteer coordinator” in Iowa was immediately fired when the campaign found out that the aide forwarded an email promoting the birther conspiracy.
Solis Doyle said she called Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and apologized for the incident. “This was not the kind of campaign we wanted to run,” she said she told Plouffe.
The Blumenthal case is more complicated, but it doesn’t provide clear evidence that the Clin- ton campaign was “pressing it very hard.”
Blumenthal was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and he remained in close contact with Hillary Clinton after she became secretary of State.
Blumenthal didn’t send a reporter to Kenya. McClatchy’s former bureau chief James Asher said he had a meeting with Blumenthal during the 2008 campaign, and at that meeting, Blumenthal encouraged McClatchy to chase the story of Obama’s birth.
Blumenthal denies urging Asher to investigate Obama’s birthplace, and Asher has nothing in writing — so there is no clear evidence to support Asher’s account.
STOP AND FRISK
Trump and Clinton dueled over whether ending stop-and-frisk police stops in New York City had been accompanied by more crime and killings. Clinton said crime, including murders, is down, and Trump said, “Murders are up.” Turns out, both are correct.
TRUMP: “Stop and frisk has a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City. Tremendous beyond belief. So when you say it has no impact, it really did, a very, very big impact.”
CLINTON: “It’s also fair to say, if we’re going to talk about mayors, that under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop, including murders.”
TRUMP: “No, you’re wrong. You’re wrong.” CLINTON: “No, I’m not.” TRUMP: “Murders are up. All right. You check it. You check it.”
Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio was sworn in Jan. 1, 2014, after being elected on a promise to halt the stop-and-frisk practice.
During his first year in office, homicides did fall — by two — to 333, the lowest number on record.
Last year, the number of killings went up by 5.7% to 352 — the third-lowest year on record but still 17 more than in 2013.
This year, the number is down once again, but if the current rate continues, the total for the year would be slightly above where it was before De Blasio took office.
According to the most recent weekly report issued by the city’s police department, 257 murders had been reported in 2016 as of Sept. 18, which is 4.3% below the same period in 2015. That’s slightly less than one per day, but at that rate, 2016 (a leap year with 366 days) would end up with 345 killings, 10 more than the 335 recorded in 2013.
Despite the uptick in murders last year, the city did record the lowest number of major crimes on record in 2015.
“It’s also fair to say ... that under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop, including murders.” Hillary Clinton “Stop and frisk has a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City. Tremendous beyond belief.” Donald Trump