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The POLITICO Wrongometer

Our policy reporters truth-squad the 2016 presidential debates.

  1. “He actually advocated for the actions we took in Libya and urged that [Muammar] Gaddafi be taken out after actually doing some business with him one time.” — Clinton

    Trump has said he made “a lot of money” in a deal with the former leader of Libya, but he has shifted his position on whether the country should have been invaded and its leader removed. At one point Trump said Gaddafi should have remained in power, but earlier this year he reversed his position and said he would have authorized “surgical” shots to take him out.

  2. “By the way, my tax cut is the biggest since Ronald Reagan — I'm very proud of it.” — Donald Trump

    Donald Trump’s tax cut would actually be even larger than Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut. Trump's latest revision of his tax plan is estimated to cost between $4.4 trillion and $5.9 trillion, according to the Tax Foundation, or an annual average of $440 billion annually.

    By comparison, Reagan's 1981 tax cuts reduced taxes by an average $200 billion annually (in 2012 dollars), according to the Treasury Department. Some of those tax cuts were later rescinded when they ballooned the deficit. George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cut had an average cost of $91.5 billion annually, according to a 2013 Treasury analysis, while his 2003 cuts cost $84 billion annually.

  3. “[Trump is] someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers.”— Hillary Clinton

    “I never said that.” — Donald Trump

    Trump did make such a claim. In a 2004 interview with NBC’s “Dateline,” Trump said pregnancy is “a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband, it's certainly an inconvenience for a business. And whether people want to say that or not, the fact is it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business.”

  4. “When I was really young, I went into my father's company, we along with many, many, many other companies, throughout the country, it was a federal lawsuit, were sued. We settled the suit with zero — no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do. But they sued many people.” — Donald Trump

    Trump is correct to state that he and his father never admitted wrongdoing, though they did submit to a court order changing their rental practices — only after accusing the Justice Department of “gestapo tactics” and a failed countersuit against the government agency.

    Trump is also correct that his family business was not the only one sued for discriminatory practices. But he is disingenuous in claiming his suit was unexceptional. It was, and still is, one of the biggest lawsuits ever brought by the Justice Department for housing discrimination against black people.

  5. “I figured you'd ask the question tonight, of course. 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, that's not true. Look, it's true. Sydney 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.” — Trump

    The Republican got flogged earlier this month when he tried to pin the origins of the Barack Obama birther controversy on Clinton. But that didn’t stop him from doubling down Monday, again claiming incorrectly that Clinton and her campaign first spread the rumor in 2008 that Obama was not born in the U.S.

    To make his case, Trump referenced a McClatchy story quoting its own former Washington D.C. bureau chief saying he had been urged to pursue the birther story in 2008 by Clinton loyalist Sidney Blumenthal. Trump also cited comments by Patti Solis Doyle, the Clinton 2008 campaign manager, who told CNN that an Iowa campaign worker did pass on an email about the birther controversy.

    But it’s much less simple as that.

    Blumenthal has denied pushing the birther rumors in his meeting with the McClatchy editor, and the editor and his reporters were less definitive in follow-up interviews with POLITICO as to exactly what they were urged to pursue by the Clinton operative. As for Solis Doyle, she did admit in the CNN interview earlier this month that she fired a volunteer who passed along a birther email. But she also insisted in the same program that the email was “so beyond the pale of the campaign Hillary wanted to run.”

  6. “We pay approximately 73 percent of the cost of NATO. It's a lot of money to protect other people. But I’m all for NATO.” — Donald Trump

    Trump is wrong, the U.S. doesn’t pay 73 percent of NATO’s operational budget. The United States pays just over 22 percent of the cost of NATO’s spending. Trump is confusing the numbers. President Barack Obama has also urged other NATO member-states to up their defense spending.

  7. "In Palm Beach, Florida, tough community, a brilliant community, a wealthy community. Probably the wealthiest community there is in the world…” — Donald Trump

    In fact, Palm Beach is nowhere near the wealthiest city in the U.S., let alone the world. The median household income for Palm Beach County in 2015 was $52,878, only slightly higher than the national average. Nerdwallet.com, which ranks the wealthiest cities in the U.S., didn’t even have Palm Beach in its top 100. The top city was Palo Alto, Calif. with a median income of $151,370.

  8. “Donald supported the invasion of Iraq” — Clinton

    “Wrong.” — Trump

    Trump was supportive of the Iraq invasion as far back as 2002, according to interviews the Donald did with Howard Stern, which were first uncovered by BuzzFeed. Stern asks Trump if he agreed with the Bush administration trying to sell the war. He said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

    The argument between Clinton and Trump then spilled over into a clash of words between Trump and moderator Lester Holt. Holt insisted Trump had supported the war, referencing the Stern interview.

    Trump then claimed he'd had arguments with Fox News televsion host Sean Hannity, in which he argued against the war. He also said the argument that he supported the war was a media "lie."

    He also cited a 2004 Esquire interview that mentioned his criticism of the Iraq invasion as proof of his opposition. That interview took place after the start of the war, and Esquire has since attached a note to the article arguing that Trump is misrepresenting its contents.

  9. “I was endorsed by ICE”— Donald Trump

    No, Donald Trump was not endorsed by an entire government agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was endorsed this week by a union of ICE employees, but that’s not the same. The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council has never endorsed a candidate for president.

    Trump is right that their endorsement of him was a first, but a union is an independent body distinct from the agency where its members work.

  10. "It's fair to say, if we're going to talk about mayors, that under the current mayor, crime [in New York City has] continued to drop, including murders." — Hillary Clinton

    "You're wrong." — Donald Trump

    What really happened to New York’s murder rate since Mayor Bill de Blasio took over in 2014? New data from the FBI, released Monday, find that there were 352 murders in New York City in 2015, a rate of 4.1 murders per 100,000 people. That’s up from 333 murders last year, a rate of 3.9 murders per 100,000 people.

  11. “‘Stop and frisk’ was ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out black and hispanic young men…” — Lester Holt

    “No, you’re wrong. It went before a judge who was a very against police judge. It was taken away from her and our mayor, our new mayor, refused to go forward with the case. They would have won an appeal.” — Donald Trump

    On August 12, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled the controversial police tactic unconstitutional. The Bloomberg administration appealed, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals suspended the order and sent it back to be tried under a new judge. But the court denied the city’s motion to vacate Schneidlin’s decision. Eventually, the de Blasio administration dropped the appeal.