Several Republican presidential candidates made false and exaggerated claims at a candidate forum in New Hampshire on Aug. 3.
FactChecking the GOP Candidate Forum
Sanders Overstates Unemployment Rate
Bernie Sanders has repeatedly said 51 percent of young black high school graduates are “unemployed.” That’s wrong.
Wisconsin’s Trumped Up Deficit
Donald Trump says that Wisconsin has a $2.2 billion budget deficit. It doesn’t.
Mistaken Tax Facts
In an ad attacking a Republican senator, the League of Conservation Voters claims the average Wisconsin family pays $7,500 a year in federal income tax. Not so. The tax would be $724 for the family shown in the ad with the income specified by the league.
Huckabee’s Hot Air on Volcanoes
Mike Huckabee claimed that a single volcanic eruption “will contribute more than 100 years of human activity” toward global warming. This is far from accurate.
Sanders’ PTSD Statistic
Sometimes politicians are right, but their campaigns can’t prove it. And we do. That’s what happened when we took a look at Sen. Bernie Sanders’ talking point about veterans.
Obama-Rouhani Photo Is Not Real
A word of caution to ad makers: Don’t believe everything you see online, even images “in circulation widely on the internet.”
Sanders Stretches State of the Rich
Sen. Bernie Sanders claims that in the United States, “almost all of the wealth rests in the hands of the few.” He exaggerates. At most, the top 0.1 percent of U.S. families own 22 percent of the nation’s wealth.
Trump’s McCain Attack
Donald Trump distorts the facts in a recent op-ed in which he says Sen. John McCain has “abandoned our veterans” and “failed the state of Arizona and the country.”
Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video
The full Planned Parenthood video shows an executive repeatedly saying its clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research.