Here’s fact check of the Democratic Debate in Houston between Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.
ABC News fact-check
Klobuchar estimates 149 million would lose their insurance on Medicare-for-all plan
Klobuchar: “While Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill. And on page eight — on page eight of the bill, it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it. And that means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance. That’s in four years. I don’t think that’s a bold idea, I think it’s a bad idea.”
The facts: Klobuchar’s estimate might have actually been low. According to a 2017 Congressional Research Service report, 67.5% of the U.S. population in 2016 had private health insurance coverage “during all or part of the year.” That’s about 216.2 million people who had private coverage “through either the group or the non-group market,” the report said. That means as many as 67 million more people could lose their current insurance than Klobuchar estimated.
–Sophie Tatum and Lauren Lantry
Booker on African Americans and criminal justice
Booker: “We have more African Americans under criminal supervision today than all the slaves in 1850.”
The facts: Booker appears to be referring to the 2011 book, “The New Jim Crow: Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” The author, Ohio State law professor Michelle Alexander, said there were more African American men in the prison system today — in prison, jail, probation and parole — than who were enslaved in 1850.
According to the Census Bureau, there were about 3.2 million slaves in 1850. That included 872,924 men.
In 2017, the Justice Department estimated there were 726,000 African Americans in jail or prisoners and another 1,302,252 were under parole or probation.
That means 2,028,252 African Americans were under supervision of the criminal justice system in 2017, which is fewer than total slaves in 1850.
— Zachary Kiesch
Harris takes credit for Los Angeles’ blue skies
Harris: “I took on the big oil companies, and we saw progress. If any of you have been to Los Angeles 20 years ago, you’ll remember, that sky was brown. You go there now, the sky is blue, and you know why? Because leaders decided to lead, and we took on these big fossil fuel economies.”
The facts: Air quality in the Los Angeles has improved significantly since the late 1970s, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management Board and the area appeared to make gains during Harris’ time working as the state’s top prosecutor. But experts have raised concerns that progress has stalled in recent years.
The Health of the Air Report compiled by researchers at New York University and the American Thoracic Society, ranks Los Angeles the number one city for increases in deaths linked to air pollution since 2010.
Parts of Los Angeles county do not meet requirements to reduce ozone pollution under the Clean Air Act, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will require officials to submit a plan to federal officials laying out a plan to address the problem. Ground-level ozone that contributes to bad air quality days is released from vehicles, power plants, and industrial facilities and is worse in warmer temperatures.
–Stephanie Ebbs
Castro on Trump’s trade war costing US families $600
Castro: “It’s estimated that (the U.S.-China trade war) cost $600 to the average American family.”
The facts: It’s true that costs from the U.S.-China trade war will be passed on to American consumers.
Economists generally believe that tariffs on imported goods are indeed taxes that either businesses or consumers end up paying. While some economists argue that importers will receive a discount on Chinese goods because its currency has devalued during the trade war, most economists also say the costs associated with tariffs are eventually passed on to consumers. Businesses do this by raising the cost of the impacted good, which means consumers pay more in the end.
Castro is citing a study from non-partisan Congressional Budget Office which finds that tariffs on Chinese imports will reduce average American household income by approximately $600 by the year 2020.
–Matthew Vann
Klobuchar disputes account of record as Minnesota prosecutor
The facts: ABC News Correspondent Linsey Davis pressed Klobuchar on her record as a prosecutor in Minnesota, noting that she did not prosecute a single case of the “dozens of incidents” in which citizens were killed by police.
Klobuchar answered that it was “not my record.” However, she didn’t directly dispute the statement itself. She instead noted that her office had opted to task the cases with “outside investigators” and put them before a grand jury to consider charges.
But according to a report from American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio earlier this year, that approach was criticized by some of the victim’ families, as grand jury procedures are kept secret. A 2017 paper in the Harvard Law Review broadly described the perception of grand juries increasingly as being “used in furtherance of governmental goals — while acting as the prosecutor’s shield from the prying eyes of the public.”
Klobuchar appeared to acknowledge that as an issue, adding in the debate, “I now believe it is better for accountability if the prosecutor handles them and makes those decisions herself.”
-Alexander Mallin
Biden on Afghanistan being three countries
Biden: “The whole purpose of going to Afghanistan was to not have a counterinsurgency, meaning that we’re going to put that country together. It cannot be put together. Let me say it again. It will not be put together. It’s three different countries.”
The facts: Biden was asked a question that included a reference to Afghanistan though the thrust of the question was whether it was wrong for the Obama administration to pull out of Iraq because it led the Islamic State to fill in the power vacuum. It’s possible that Biden was jumping from Afghanistan to Iraq.
At the height of the Iraq War in 2006, Biden said Iraq should be decentralized into semi-autonomous states under a federal government divided along the three large ethnic communities in that country — Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and the Kurds. Laid out in a New York Times op-ed then-Sen. Biden and his co-author Leslie Gelb suggested the idea as an option for winding down the U.S. troop presence in Iraq without leaving behind an unstable security situation.
Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country with a Pashtun majority located mainly in the eastern and southern parts of the country and Tajiks and Uzbek minorities are located in northern Afghanistan. While the conflict in Afghanistan has been divided somewhat along ethnic lines, it has not been suggested that Afghanistan is made up of three different countries.
–Luis Martinez
Castro on Biden’s memory
Castro to Biden: “Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I can’t believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in, and you’re saying they don’t have to buy in. You’re forgetting that?”
The facts: Biden used the term “buy in” with regards to his health care plan. But his statement requires more context.
“Look, everybody says we want an option. The option I’m proposing is, Medicare for all — Medicare for choice. If you want Medicare, if you lose the job from your insurance company, from your employer, you automatically can buy into this,” Biden said.
Under Biden’s health care plan, people who want to keep their health insurance they receive through their job can keep it. But anyone who doesn’t like their insurance has the ability to “buy in” to a Medicare-like public option.
Biden’s plan would also allow for any individual who would qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act expansion to get access to his public option without premiums, but it is unclear if this would be an automatic enrollment, or an opt-in.
These details weren’t immediately clear, however, when the former vice president said people could automatically “buy in.”
At a later point in the debate, he said people would be automatically enrolled in Medicare if they could not afford health insurance. He said, “Anyone who can’t afford it gets automatically enrolled in the Medicare-type option we have.”
It’s unclear to what Biden is referring when he says “buy in,” because when challenged by Castro, Biden said repeatedly, “They do not have to buy in. They do not have to buy in.”
–Trish Turner and Molly Nagle
O’Rourke says wall produced ‘thousands’ of deaths
O’Rourke: “Democrats and Republicans alike voted to build a wall that has produced thousands of deaths of people trying to cross to join family or to work a job.”
The facts: Critics, including O’Rourke, have long maintained that creating imposing barriers at the border will only force people to see other more dangerous ways to cross.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Border Patrol has recorded since 1997 between 263 and 492 deaths along the southern border each year. Immigrant aid workers estimate that number could be even higher. The majority of recorded deaths were recorded in remote areas and places where border barrier construction is limited by the Rio Grande River. It’s unclear, if those who died were attempting to maneuver around the current barriers.
And a 2010 report from the Congressional Research Service found “considerable evidence” that ramping up security in urban border areas led migrants to cross in more remote and dangerous places.
In blaming both Democrats and Republicans, O’Rourke is likely referring to the budget stalemate earlier this year that resulted in the longest government shutdown in American history. Democrats ultimately agreed to $1.4 billion dollars for 55 miles of large steel fencing, designs used under previous administrations. It was significantly less than the $5.7 billion Trump had wanted.
–Quinn Owen
Klobuchar on Trump tariffs costing 300,000 US jobs
Klobuchar: “If we’re not careful, he’s going to bankrupt this country. One forecast said it’s already said it cost us 300,000 jobs, all right?”
The facts: It’s true that Trump’s trade war has indeed cost American jobs. When the president announced a 10% tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods, China struck back and announced it would stop buying any American agricultural products — negatively affecting many U.S. farm businesses.
China’s retaliatory moves have also brought U.S. farm sales of soybeans to record lows, as China is the world’s largest purchaser of soybeans.
Klobuchar appears to be citing a Moody’s Analytics report which finds the trade war has cost 300,000 U.S. jobs.
–Matthew Vann and Philip Wang
Biden and Sanders spar on cost of health care
Biden: “My plan for health care costs a lot of money. It costs $740 billion. It doesn’t cost $30 trillion — $3.4 trillion a year, it turns out, is twice what the entire federal budget is … “
Sanders: “That’s right, Joe. Status quo over 10 years will be $50 trillion.”
The facts: At issue is how much a government-run health care plan would cost, and that would depend greatly on how that plan is set up. Overall though, Biden and Sanders actually agree that $30 trillion is a good estimate of what Sanders wants.
It’s likely they are looking at a 2016 report by the nonprofit Urban Institute found that if Sanders’ plan were enacted, between the years 2017 and 2026, “federal expenditures would increase by $32.0 trillion over that period.”
As for the $50 trillion estimate cited by Sanders, National Health Expenditure Projections by the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that “under current law, national health spending is projected to grow at an average rate of 5.5 percent per year for 2018-27 and to reach nearly $6.0 trillion by 2027.”
–Sophie Tatum
Biden on immigration detention
Biden: “We didn’t lock people up in cages. We didn’t separate families. We didn’t do all of those things.”
The facts: The Obama administration detained undocumented immigrants, including families, at border facilities that often included chain-link fencing that critics have called “cages.” Border authorities have argued that these holding facilities are temporary, until people can be processed and either released or sent to another more permanent shelter. In 2015, the American Immigration Lawyers Association filed a formal complaint against a family detention center run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing a lack of access to medical care for detainees.
On family separations, the Obama administration — like the Bush administration – did separate parents from children but only in rare circumstances when the child’s safety might be at risk or a crime committed.
In contrast, the Trump administration enacted a “zero-tolerance” approach in April 2018 that called for stepped-up prosecutions of any adult crossing the border illegally, even without evidence of a serious crime. The result was some 2,700 children were separated from their families in a matter of weeks.
Both President Barack Obama and Trump asked a federal judge for permission to detain families together long term, but were rejected both times.
–Quinn Owen
O’Rourke and Castro tie Trump rhetoric to shooting
O’Rourke: “A racism and violence that had long been a part of America was welcomed out into the open and directed to my hometown of El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed, dozens more grievously injured by a man carrying a weapon he should never have been able to buy in the first place, inspired to kill by our president.”
Castro: “A few weeks ago, a shooter drove 10 miles inspired by this — 10 hours inspired by this president to kill people who look like me.”
The facts: According to a police affidavit, the 21-year-old man accused opening fires at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which left 22 dead and dozens more injured, said he was targeting “Mexicans.”
The El Paso police chief said authorities were also examining what he called a “manifesto” that they believed was written by the shooter and published online less than an hour before the shooting occurred. The document decried what the author believed was an ongoing “invasion” of Texas by Hispanic people and what the author foresaw as the impending destruction of America.
The document posted online anticipated the attack would be connected to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the author said that his ideology predated Trump and hadn’t changed for years.
Trump has repeatedly warned of an “invasion” of immigrants multiple times, including in a tweet on Jan. 31: “More troops being sent to the Southern Border to stop the attempted Invasion of Illegals, through large Caravans, into our Country. We have stopped the previous Caravans, and we will stop these also. With a Wall it would be soooo much easier and less expensive. Being Built!”
His campaign also has ran many online ads that used the word “invasion.”
–Quinn Scanlan
Castro on Biden’s health care plan
Castro: “Of course, I also worked for President Obama, Vice President Biden, and I know that the problem with your plan is that it leaves 10 million people uncovered. Now, on the last debate stage in Detroit, you said that wasn’t true and Sen. Harris brought that up. There was a fact check of that. They said that was true.”
The facts: This 10 million number has come up in past debates as a dig against Biden’s plan. Biden’s health care plan, according to his campaign website, would insure “more than an estimated 97% of Americans.” There would be roughly 3% of people who would not be covered under this plan. That 3% comes out to be about 9.8 million people.
–Sophie Tatum
Harris on Trump’s DOJ and the ACA
Sen. Kamala Harris: “Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.”
The facts: Harris is referring to the Justice Department’s move this past March in a major lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general. In that lawsuit, the administration argued that the entire Affordable Care Act should be deemed unconstitutional. A federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of the GOP attorneys general that the law was not constitutional because the 2017 Republican tax bill eliminated a requirement in the Obama-era health care bill that everyone carry insurance, known as the “individual mandate.”
If that court’s ruling is upheld by a higher court, as supported by the DOJ, the Affordable Care Act would be dismantled. Republicans have said, without providing specifics of how such a measure would succeed in a divided Congress, that they would quickly act to restore protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
–Alexander Mallin
Source: ABC News>NBC News fact-check
Dareh Gregorian26m ago / 12:46 AM EDT
Texas GOP lawmaker tells Beto O’Rourke: ‘My AR is ready for you’
A Texas state representative had a menacing response to Beto O’Rourke’s statement in Thursday’s debate that “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”
“My AR is ready for you Robert Francis,” Republican Representative Briscoe Cain tweeted about O’Rourke, using the presidential candidate’s legal first and middle name.
Cain’s tweet was heavily ratioed on Twitter, meaning it received more outraged comments than likes or retweets. Within three hours, 3,400 people had commented on the post, and 89 people retweeted it.
O’Rourke was one of those who was upset. “This is a death threat, Representative. Clearly, you shouldn’t own an AR-15 — and neither should anyone else,” he wrote.
This is a death threat, Representative. Clearly, you shouldn’t own an AR-15—and neither should anyone else. pic.twitter.com/jsiZmwjMDs
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 13, 2019
When asked about mandatory buybacks for assault weapons during the debate, O’Rourke’s response drew loud applause: “Hell yeah, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” he said. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore. If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on the battlefield, we’re going to buy it back.”
Elizabeth Janowski53m ago / 12:20 AM EDT
Fact check: Is America’s child poverty rate one of the highest in the world?
At one point, Sanders claimed, “We have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on Earth.”
This is hyperbole — there are numerous less-developed nations with higher child poverty rates.
America’s child poverty rate is above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average, but a slew of other countries have even higher child poverty rates, including Russia, Spain, India, Israel, Brazil and China.
Jane C. Timm1h ago / 12:04 AM EDT
Fact check: Buttigieg on teacher compensation
Buttigieg told a story about a Japanese exchange student in Indiana who returned to her home country and, after failing to pass a teacher’s exam, became a doctor — seeming to imply that teachers in Japan are compensated on par with those in the medical profession.
“She took the exam to try to become a teacher in a society that really regards teachers and compensates teachers well. And she came up just short. So, you know what she did? Since she was academically good but couldn’t quite make the cut to be a teacher, she had a fall-back plan; she became a doctor. That is how seriously some countries treat the teaching profession. If we want to get the results that we expect for our children, we have to support and compensate the teaching profession. Respect teachers the way we do soldiers and pay them more like the way we do doctors,” Buttigieg said.
According to data from the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), American teachers are actually paid better than Japanese teachers.
Primary school teachers in Japan with 15 years’ experience make approximately $51,000 a year. American primary school teachers with the same level of experience make approximately $62,000 a year.
Luxembourg might have been a better example: Teachers at this level make $104,000 a year.
Adam Edelman1h ago / 11:47 PM EDT
Fact check: Filibuster-free Senate would have saved 2013 bills on background checks, assault weapons ban
Elizabeth Warren, in defending her campaign position that she would roll back the legislative filibuster — a move that would allow Senate bills to advance to a full vote with a simple majority instead of the 60 the modern filibuster requires to end debate on a bill and move on to the vote — made the claim that “we’re not going to get anything done on guns” without her proposed roll-back.
“I was in the United States Senate when 54 senators said let’s do background checks, let’s get rid of assault weapons, and with 54 senators, it failed because of the filibuster,” she said.
This isn’t exactly true. Warren appears to be conflating two separate votes.
In 2013, following the December 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Senate held several votes on gun control bills. At the time, Democrats (as well as Independents that aligned with Democrats) controlled 55 seats in the Senate.
One vote was for a bill to expand and strengthen background checks on gun sales. Another vote was for a bill to ban assault weapons. Both failed. The so-called “Manchin-Toomey” compromise on background checks failed 54-46, meaning it could have passed a filibuster-free Senate, as Warren claimed Thursday.
But only 40 senators voted for the assault weapons ban (it failed 60-40), meaning a filibuster-free Senate could have not saved it.
Mike Memoli, Emma Barnett and Ryan Beals1h ago / 11:46 PM EDT
Biden aides push back at Castro attacks
Biden campaign advisers Kate Bedingfield, Anita Dunn and Symone Sanders scrummed in the spin room. Asked about the healthcare exchange with Castro, Dunn referred to it as a cheap shot and said he hasn’t learned the lesson other candidates at previous debates learned: that these attacks on Biden backfire.
“It was a cheap shot and a question Castro should answer,” Dunn said
NBC News2h ago / 11:40 PM EDT
Castro clarifies Biden criticism: ‘It’s about the health care policy’
Castro addresses his attacks on Biden in a post-debate interview with ABC.
“I wasn’t taking a shot at his age,” Castro said. “It’s about the health care policy.”
Julián Castro says he doesn’t regret his clash with Joe Biden, in which he asked whether Biden was “forgetting what you said two minutes ago?”
— ABC News (@ABC) September 13, 2019
“I wasn’t taking a shot at his age,” Castro tells @ABC News. “It’s about the health care policy.”https://t.co/INdRXlIwFs #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/MPuSiJzo6O
Rebecca Shabad2h ago / 11:39 PM EDT
RNC, Trump campaign blast Democrats’ ‘socialist’ policies
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a post-debate statement that the Democratic contenders would hurt U.S. communities with what she described as their “radical, socialist policies.”
“Tonight’s debate featured no new ideas to empower Americans as they work and raise their families. Instead, Democrats again promised tax hikes, ending private health insurance, and a total government takeover of our lives,” said McDaniel, adding, “President Trump will continue to fight for the American people.”
Trump’s re-election campaign echoed that message, with spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany saying that Democrats’ “big government socialism would force a government takeover of healthcare, eliminate private insurance, provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants, kill millions of jobs by ending the fossil fuel industry, disarm the American public, and raise taxes to pay for their radical agenda.”
Jane C. Timm2h ago / 11:31 PM EDT
Fact check: Do 90 percent of Americans want to ban assault weapons?
“Over 90 percent of the American people think we have to get assault weapons off the street — period. And we have to get buy-backs and get them out of their basements,” Biden said during Thursday night’s debate.
This is an exaggeration. Americans tend to support banning the sale of assault rifles, but mandatory buybacks are another question.
According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted last month, 70 percent of Americans said they support banning assault-style weapons. A Monmouth University survey this month found that 56 percent of Americans approve of a ban on assault rifles, but support falls dramatically when it comes to giving up the guns they already own. Just 43 percent of respondents supported a mandatory buyback program in the Monmouth survey.
And when Gallup asked in 2018 if respondents would be “for or against” a law making it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles, just 40 percent of respondents said they favored such a law.
Allan Smith2h ago / 11:28 PM EDT
Anticipated Biden v. Warren clash never materialized
It was what everyone was looking forward to: Biden, the front-runner since he joined the Democratic race, vs. Warren, who’s been slowly and steadily gaining ground on him. Thursday was the first time the two would be on stage together.
In the lead-up to the debate, both candidates signaled they’d be drawing contrasts with each other, with Biden’s campaign going the furthest in saying that getting things done was more important than having a lot of “plans.” Plus, attention was given to the candidates’ contentious history in the run-up to Thursday.
But the anticipated clash never happened. In fact, the two had little chance to address each other. Biden, Sanders and Warren had an exchange early on regarding one another’s health care plans, but that was the extent of it. For a long stretch in the middle of the debate, Warren went without being addressed by the moderators. Biden, meanwhile, was fending off attacks from Castro and others on stage.
As a result, the debate appeared unlikely to move the needle between Biden and Warren.
Jason Abbruzzese2h ago / 11:23 PM EDT
Third debate down, fourth to go
Thirsty for more? If so, yikes.
But no harm in getting ready. The fourth debate is set for Oct. 15 (and, unbelievably, maybe Oct. 16 if we need to go back to two nights). The qualifying criteria is the same. All 10 candidates on the stage tonight automatically qualify for the next debate, and billionaire activist Tom Steyer says he’s reached the polling to qualify. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard appears to have enough donors, but still needs to reach 2 percent in two more qualifying polls to make the cut. Author Marianne Williamson also appears to have hit the donor threshold, but she needs three more polls to make the stage. The deadline to qualify is Oct. 1.
Andrew Williams2h ago / 11:23 PM EDT
Here’s which candidates took aim at President Trump the most
For someone who wasn’t on the stage, President Trump got a lot of attention from the Democratic presidential candidates in tonight’s debate. Candidates criticized Trump on issues from immigration to trade policy and health care.
The debate ended with 60 verbal attacks from the candidates, 28 of them aimed at Trump.
Leading the list were Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke.
Dartunorro Clark2h ago / 11:18 PM EDT
What was not mentioned at the debate?
A breadth of topics were discussed in tonight’s third Democratic debate, but several major issues were not touched upon. There was only a single mention of the minimum wage by Sanders, and one indirect mention of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia and Trump by Harris. There was no talk however, about abortion, LGBTQ rights, Israel, Brexit, Big Tech, labor or impeachment.
Anna Brand2h ago / 10:52 PM EDT
Who was on the attack at tonight’s debate: The final tally
Final attack count:
-60 total attacks.
-Biden was the most attacked candidate
-Sanders delivered the most attacks
-Trump was attacked 28 times
-McConnell 2 times
-Wall Street and corporations 11 times
-The ‘ultra-rich’ 3 times https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/democratic-debate-september-2019-attack-tracker-graphic-n1053351 …
Erik Ortiz3h ago / 10:47 PM EDT
Protests interrupt Biden’s final answer
Muffled screaming could be heard coming from the back of the auditorium as Biden began speaking during the candidates’ closing statements about professional setbacks. The uproar caused confusion and stopped the debate for about a minute.
According to Bloomberg, they were protesting immigration and wore shirts that read, “Defend DACA, Abolish ICE, Citizenship for All.”
Here are the protesters who were removed just before Biden’s final statement at the #DemDebate
Two of their shirts read “DEFEND DACA, ABOLISH ICE, CITIZENSHIP FOR ALL”
Joy Y. Wang2h ago / 11:02 PM EDT
Reproductive rights, abortion questions missing from debate
While tonight’s debate was full of heated exchanges over health care, student debt and race issues, a major topic was missing: reproductive rights. Republican-led legislatures in various states are currently pushing abortion restrictions, and women seeking abortions in states like Texas and Mississippi continue to face severely limited options. None of which came up on the debate stage tonight.
Tim Fitzsimons3h ago / 10:49 PM EDT
Buttigieg closes with coming out tale
Buttigieg finishes the debate by telling his coming out story.
“As a military officer serving under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, at a certain point, when it came to professional setbacks, I had to wonder whether just acknowledging who I was was going to be the ultimate career ending setback,” he said.
“So I just came out,” he said, diving back into the story of his 2015 coming out in a local South Bend newspaper article.
“They reelected me with 80 percent of the vote,” Buttigieg said, in a familiar stump speech. “What I learned is that trust can be reciprocated.”
Adam Edelman3h ago / 10:40 PM EDT
Fact check: Booker on the problem of child lead poisoning in America
“There’s over 3,000 jurisdictions in America where children have more than twice the blood lead levels than Flint, Michigan,” Booker said.
This is accurate, according to studies published in the past few years.
A 2016 analysis by Reuters of lead testing results across the U.S. found almost 3,000 neighborhoods with lead poisoning rates in children at least double of those in Flint. Reuters continued conducting their analysis into 2017, and an updated study published that year found that the number had increased to more than 3,800.
Jane C. Timm3h ago / 10:33 PM EDT
Fact check: Booker says majority of gun deaths occur in urban areas
“The majority of homicide victims come from neighborhoods like mine,” Booker said, referencing his Newark, New Jersey, home during a discussion on gun violence.
This is true. According to data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2015-2016, 63 percent of firearm homicides occurred in a metropolitan area.
Jonathan Allen and Ben Kamisar3h ago / 10:32 PM EDT
Biden struggles with Iraq answer
Biden has had a long time to think about his role in the Iraq war, from his vote to authorize it more than 15 years ago to the prominent part he played in the Obama administration’s drawdown of troops as vice president.
But he struggled to give a cogent answer when he was asked whether it was a mistake to pull out of Iraq when the U.S. did because the rise of ISIS required troops to be deployed back to the region.
He even appeared to claim that “we predicted” the major problem that precipitated sending troops back in.
“It was later, when we came into office, that Barack, the president, turned to me, and said ‘Joe,’ when they said we have a plan to get out, he turned to the whole security and said ‘Joe will organize this. Get the troops home,'” Biden said.
“My son spent a year in Iraq and I understand. And we were right to get the combat troops out. The big mistake that was made, which we predicted, was we would not have a circumstance where the Shia and the Kurds would not work together to keep ISIS from moving in.”
Allan Smith and Jason Abbruzzese2h ago / 11:34 PM EDT
Biden fumbles a point
The former vice president started off well, but his last couple answers have been tough to follow.
In an answer on what he would do about injustices that stem from slavery, he starts talking about education but somehow ends up talking about social workers going over to homes in lower-income communities to teach parents how to be better parents, essentially, adding that they would do things like keep the “record player on” at night so young children would hear and learn more words.
There was a point in there, somewhere, but unfortunately for Biden, the answer in total was jumbled — to put it lightly.
Benjy Sarlin3h ago / 10:29 PM EDT
Sanders: ‘We are going to cancel all student debt in this country’
Sanders talked up his plan to cancel all $1.6 trillion in student debt in the country.
“We are going to cancel all student debt in this country and we are going to do that by imposing a tax on Wall Street,” he said. He’s the only one willing to go that far for now. Warren has a plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for households making under $250,000 that she estimates would knock out $640 billion of debt.
Both plans speak to an explosion in student loan debt over the last decade, but they’re controversial within the party, with critics warning they’d reward too many well-off Americans and breed resentment in others who don’t qualify for benefits. Many in the field have proposed alternative approaches like tying debt forgiveness to public service and making it easier to refinance loans at lower rates.
To read about every candidate’s individual plans for student debt and college affordability, check out our issues page.
Jane C. Timm3h ago / 10:19 PM EDT
Fact check: Are 30 million people uninsured in America?
“Right now, 30 million Americans don’t have coverage,” Harris said of the state of health care in the U.S. Thursday night.
This is mostly true. The Census Bureau released data this week that found that 27.5 million people were uninsured for all of 2018, while another 10.6 million reported they had health care for less than the entire year. The number of uninsured Americans rose from 2017.
Adam Edelman3h ago / 10:16 PM EDT
Fact check: Sanders on job losses in America due to NAFTA, China
Sanders said the effects of NAFTA, combined with the effects of granting “permanent normal trade relations” status to China, often referred to as PNTR, cost the U.S. 4 million jobs.
“Joe and I strongly disagree on trade. I helped lead the opposition, the NAFTA, the PNTR, which cost this country over 4 million good-paying jobs,” Sanders said of Biden’s views.
This appears to be true, according to several reputable analyses. As NBC News’ Carrie Dann reported in February during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, job losses resulting from NAFTA tend to be overstated — but one major study found that more than 850,000 jobs were displaced by the pact.
Robert E. Scott of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute found that about 851,700 U.S. jobs were displaced by the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico between 1993 (shortly before NAFTA was implemented) and 2014. That’s a data point that was cited by Sanders during his 2016 campaign, when he frequently decried job losses due to NAFTA. (Other studies, however, have found the job losses to be far less.)
When it comes to granting PNTR status to China, which President George W. Bush formally granted in 2001 after China entered the World Trade Organization, U.S. job losses have been larger, according to studies.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service wrote in 2018, citing a 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute, that “growth in the U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated or displaced 3.2 million U.S. jobs (three-fourths of which were in manufacturing).”
If you add the 851,700 figure with the 3.2 million figure, you would see a figure that approximates the 4 million figure that Sanders referred to Thursday night.
Jane C. Timm3h ago / 10:02 PM EDT
Fact check: Does the U.S. spend twice as much on health care as ‘any other major country on Earth?’
“Let us be clear Joe, in the United States of America, we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians and any other major country on Earth,” Sanders said on Thursday.
Overall, this claim is exaggerated. The U.S. actually spent more than twice as much per capita on health care as Canada, but the nation isn’t spending twice as much as “any other major country on Earth.”
The U.S. spends $10,586 per capita on health care, according to data from the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It’s twice as much — or more — per capita on health care as many other countries, but not all of them. Switzerland, for instance, pays $7,317 per capita. The U.S. also far outspends countries like Russia, which spends $1,514 on health care per capita.
Jane C. Timm4h ago / 9:42 PM EDT
Fact check: Biden says Obama didn’t put people in cages
“Comparing [Obama] to the president we have is outrageous, number one. We didn’t lock people up in cages, we didn’t separate families, we didn’t do all of those things,” Biden said, defending the Obama administration’s record on immigration after a question about deportations.
Biden is half right. The Obama administration did detain people in cage-like structures, earning criticism from activists. Last year, Democratic activists circulated photos of children inside chain link fenced spaces in an attack on President Donald Trump, only for onlookers to later realize the photos were from 2014.
Biden is correct to say that the Obama administration did not separate families as a policy. The Obama administration detained whole families together, while the Trump administration made it a policy last year to detain children, including babies and toddlers, without their parents, leaving other children to tend to them and sometimes losing track of their parents.
Jane C. Timm4h ago / 9:33 PM EDT
Fact check: Would Biden’s health care plan leave 10 million uncovered?
“The problem with your plan is that it leaves 10 million people uncovered,” Castro said during Thursday’s debate, criticizing Biden’s health care proposal.
This is mostly true, according to the text of Biden’s own plan. His plan estimates that his expansion of the Affordable Care Act would insure “more than an estimated 97 percent of Americans.”
There’s an estimated 327 million people living in America; 3 percent of the population is approximately 10 million. Estimates on the number of non-citizens vary and it’s unclear how Biden’s proposal would affect immigrant communities in practice, which could change these numbers. Still, Biden has said he wants to give everyone a chance to be covered.
Adam Edelman4h ago / 9:59 PM EDT
Fact check: Klobuchar says three gun control bills are waiting ‘on Mitch McConnell’s desk’
Klobuchar poked at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for inaction on gun control measures, saying that the Kentucky Republican has three bills on his desk right now: “Universal background checks, closing the Charleston loophole, and passing my bill to make sure domestic abusers don’t get AK-47s.”
This is true — but all three bills face an unclear, if not flat-out bleak, fate in the GOP-controlled Senate.
In February, the Democratic-controlled House passed a law closing the “Charleston loophole,” which allows the sale of a firearm if a background check is not completed within three days. It’s a loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to obtain the weapon he used to murder nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
In March, the House passed a bill that would expand background checks for gun purchases to include buys made at gun shows, online and other private sales. And in April, the House voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act with new language that would close the so-called boyfriend loophole. Under current law, it is illegal for spouses or ex-spouses who have been convicted of abuse or who are under a restraining order to buy a gun. But the law doesn’t apply to romantic partners who aren’t legally married.
Source: NBC News>
