Fact-checking the free-for-all debate
To all the policy wonks tuning into the start of the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday looking for robust discussions of “Medicare for All,” income inequality or criminal justice policy, sorry.
Factual claims were often obstructed over shouting, cross talk and scripted soundbites from the seven candidates in Charleston, South Carolina.
But the facts — or fact-checks — became clearer as the two-hour debate wore on. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., even asked for a fact-check live from the stage. We delivered.
Here are a selection of fact-checks from the 10th Democratic presidential debate.
“You didn’t write that bill. I wrote that bill. … We’ll have a fact-check look at this.” — Sen. Amy Klobuchar , D-Minn.
“I wrote the bill, the Violence Against Women Act. … Let’s look at the fact-check.” — former Vice President Joe Biden
Our verdict? Klobuchar and Biden were talking past each other and about different bills they wrote to protect women against violent crime.
Klobuchar said she authored a bill “to close the boyfriend loophole that says that domestic abusers can’t go out and get an AK-47.”
Biden interjected, “I wrote that law.” Klobuchar dismissed him, saying she was the one who wrote it. But Biden said that he wrote the Violence Against Women Act, that the “boyfriend loophole” was not covered, and that Klobuchar was working on that: “I couldn’t get that covered. You in fact as a senator tried to get it covered and Mitch McConnell is holding it up on his desk right now.”
Klobuchar in January 2019 introduced a bill “to protect victims of stalking from gun violence.” In a news release, Klobuchar said her proposal would help close what’s known as the
“boyfriend loophole” and prevent people who have abused dating partners from buying or owning firearms.
As we have reported, the gun prohibition in federal law does not apply to a boyfriend who is or was simply dating the victim, but not sharing a residence or children. But it does apply to boyfriends who have a child in common with the domestic violence victim; live or lived with the victim; or who are “similarly situated to a spouse.”
For his part, Biden championed the Violence Against Women Act as a Democratic senator from Delaware in 1994. The act increased funding and provided additional legal tools for combating violent crimes committed against women. — Miriam Valverde
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., “said we should primary Barack Obama (in 2012) — someone should.” — former Vice President Joe Biden
In 2011, Sanders publicly suggested that a primary challenge to Obama would be a positive development.
In March 2011 on WNYC radio, Sanders said, “I think, you know, if a Democrat, a progressive Democrat, wants to run, I think it would enliven the debate, raise some issues, and people have a right to do that. I’ve been asked whether I am going to be doing that and I’m not. I don’t know who is, but in a democracy, it’s not a bad idea to have different voices out there.”
Then, in July 2011, Sanders appeared on the progressive radio show hosted by Thom Hartmann and criticized Obama’s willingness to compromise with Republicans on deficit reduction.
“My suggestion is, I think, you know, one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him,” Sanders said to a caller. — Louis Jacobson
“I believe I’m the only person on this stage who believes in reparations for slavery.” — Tom Steyer
That’s inaccurate. Other candidates on stage, like Steyer, support studying reparations. The senators on stage — Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren — cosponsored a bill to establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.
The Washington Post sent the Democratic candidates questionnaires asking where they stood on issues, including reparations. Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also said they support studying the issue.
Bloomberg did not answer the Post’s question. But in January, the Post separately reported that Bloomberg’s campaign said he supports studying the concept of federal reparations.
As for Steyer, he said it was uncertain what form a reparations program would take, who would benefit from it or how it would be paid. But he supported creating a Slavery Reconciliation Commission “to analyze the lasting effects of slavery and how to provide redress for the centuries of oppression, rape, torture and murder inflicted upon generations of African Americans.” — Miriam Valverde
“The president fired the pandemic specialists in this country two years ago.” — former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg
It’s true that in May 2018, the top White House official who was in charge of the U.S. response to pandemics left the administration. Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer was the senior director of global health and biodefense on the National Security Council and oversaw global health security issues. That global health team was disbanded after Ziemer’s departure and reorganized as part of a streamlining effort headed by then-National Security Adviser John Bolton. Ziemer’s position on the NSC has not been filled in the last two years. Tom Bossert, a homeland security adviser who recommended strong defenses against disease and biological warfare, also departed in 2018.
In January, Trump announced that Health and Human Services Secretary
Alex Azar would be the chair of the coronavirus task force that’s in charge of the U.S. response to the disease.
On Feb. 18, a group of 27 senators sent a letter to current National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien to ask him to appoint a new global health security expert to the NSC. — Victoria Knight, Kaiser Health News
“Sen. Sanders at one point said it was going to be $40 trillion, then 30, then 17. It’s an incredible shrinking price tag. At some point he said it is unknowable to see what the price tag will be.” — former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Sanders has cited differing estimates of what Medicare for All would cost.
The $30 trillion to $40 trillion figure alludes to work done by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.
The $17 trillion comes from newer research: a paper released Feb. 15 in the medical journal The Lancet. The researchers say Medicare for All would save $450 billion annually. That would bump down the cost significantly, to just about $17 trillion over 10 years.
Sanders has also said in at least one interview that the price of Medicare for All is “impossible to predict.”