Iran is very much in the news, with President Obama signing legislation that imposes new sanctions against Iran, which has warned it may retaliate by closing a key oil route. But there was more heat than light on the critical issue of Iran from two GOP presidential candidates this weekend:
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rep. Ron Paul falsely claimed the International Atomic Energy Agency “did not find any evidence” that Iran is “on the verge of a [nuclear] weapon.”
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This promises to be an exciting election year and we here at FactCheck.org have been doing a lot to prepare for it.
Newt Gingrich wrongly claimed the Dred Scott decision “ruled that slavery extended to the whole country.” It did not. The ruling stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in new territories, but it stopped short of applying the ruling to all states. Gingrich also claimed that President Lincoln “explicitly instructed his administration to not enforce Dred Scott.” But the research historian at the Lincoln presidential library knows of no such directive or any reason to issue one.
Michele Bachmann argued that “my facts are accurate” at the Dec. 15 debate, but a few days later, she got several facts wrong. On “Meet the Press” the presidential candidate had a couple of exchanges with host David Gregory over the validity of her statements on Social Security and the debt. Among the inaccuracies:
Bachmann said she didn’t support the payroll tax cut because “it denied $111 billion to the Social Security trust fund”and “put senior citizens at risk.”
The White House misleadingly suggests that the Republicans’ plan to pay for a payroll tax cut would result in “forcing cuts to things like education and medical research.” The bill passed by House Republicans mentions no such cuts. And while the bill may or may not require cuts to discretionary spending, there’s no reason those cuts would have to come from popular programs like education or medical research.
The White House’s nearly six-minute “white board” video,
The final Republican presidential debate in advance of the Jan. 3 first-in-the-nation Iowa party caucuses produced a few claims we found worthy of quibbling over. Gingrich challenged Bachmann’s factual accuracy regarding the former speaker’s record on abortion — but we found Bachmann was mostly correct. On the other hand, Bachmann used an inflated jobs figure when she criticized Obama’s decision to delay approval of a Canadian oil pipeline through the U.S.
Seven Republican presidential candidates debated Dec.
Newt Gingrich got it wrong when he claimed “an entry-level janitor gets paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher” in New York City.
An entry-level “cleaner” is the closest thing to Gingrich’s description of an “entry-level janitor,” and someone in that position is paid substantially less than an entry-level teacher. Some may be surprised to learn that “custodial engineers” are better paid than teachers. But they are supervisors (not entry-level janitors), and even they are not paid twice as much.
President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
Obama said that “John McCain’s former economist” said that the stimulus “created or saved 3 millions jobs.” Mark Zandi did say that the stimulus created about that many jobs, but the registered Democrat was one of many advisers to McCain, not his chief economist.
Obama also said “the majority of Republicans” believe there should be “a balanced approach to deficit reduction,
GOP presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney claim that the U.S. ambassador to Belgium “justified” and “downplayed” anti-Semitism and blamed it on “Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.” We find that to be a one-sided interpretation of what was actually said.
Others may view Ambassador Howard Gutman’s remarks differently than the Republican candidates when seen in full context. Gutman — who is Jewish and whose father survived the Holocaust — said, for example, that the “hatred”
A pro-Romney TV spot running heavily in Iowa touts an unproven claim that the candidate “helped create thousands of jobs” as CEO of an investment firm. When we asked the super PAC sponsoring the ad for proof of its claim, a spokeswoman said: “We aren’t supplying that information.” And so far, neither is the Romney campaign.
The ad from super PAC Restore Our Future also rehashes Mitt Romney’s claim that he didn’t raise taxes in Massachusetts when he was governor,