The second Republican debate is history.
But the non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact are still unraveling the some of the heated rhetoric from the marathon session aired on CNN.
Abbreviated versions of our debate fact-checks are below. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/ or http://www.politifact.com/.
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Trump and Walker budget clash
The CNN moderators aimed to get the Republican presidential candidates to go head-to-head in the debate, and the contenders complied. Frontrunner Donald Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got into verbal tussle over who had a worse fiscal track record. Walker charged that Trump had taken four projects into bankruptcy.
Trump fired back that Walker had ruined his state’s budget.
“You were supposed to make a billion dollars in the state,” Trump said. “You lost 2.2 (billion). You have, right now, a huge budget deficit. That’s not a Democratic point. That’s a point. That’s a fact.”
Actually, that rates Mostly False.
Wisconsin is required by law to have a balanced budget. As such, it can’t really have a deficit.
Now there was, in early 2014, a projection of a $1 billion surplus heading into the 2015-17 budget period. That eventually became a $2.2 billion shortfall — the difference between expected revenues and the amount of money being requested by state agencies. But the shortfall was never a deficit — and some of the surplus was consciously spent by Republicans in tax cuts.
Bush and Trump on casinos
Trump also got into a fight with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush when Bush talked about casino gambling in Florida.
Here is part of their testy exchange:
Bush: “He wanted casino gambling in Florida — “
Trump: “I didn’t — “
Bush: “Yes, you did.”
Trump: “Totally false.”
Bush: “You wanted it, and you didn’t get it, because I was opposed to — “
Trump: “I would have gotten it.”
Bush: ” — casino gambling before — “
Trump: “I promise, I would have gotten it.”
Bush: ” — during and after. I’m not going to be bought by anybody.”
Trump: “I promise, if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.”
Later, Bush added, “When he asked Florida to have casino gambling, we said no.”
Trump: “Wrong.”
Actually, Bush is largely right. His claim rates Mostly True.
We couldn’t find that Trump directly petitioned the state for gambling, but there’s a pile of evidence that Trump was pursuing a deal to operate casinos on tribal land in Florida. And at the same time, Trump gave money to Bush and the state party during Bush’s 1998 race for governor.
Trump said it was “totally false” that he sought casino gambling and failed, but Bush has the better part of this fight.
Huckabee on the Iran deal
There was more than Trump Wednesday, and large parts of the debate focused on Iran.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Iran is getting a sizeable award for the nuclear deal with the United States — to the tune of $100 billion.
“We’ve just now given over $100 billion (to Iran),” Huckabee said. “The equivalent in U.S. terms is $5 trillion.”
That rates Half True.
Huckabee’s $100 billion figure is one of the most commonly cited estimates of how much the Iranian economy will reap from sanctions relief under the Iran deal, though no one is fully certain of the amount. But he gives a misleading impression of the transaction by implying the United States is giving the money to Iran when it would just unfreeze the assets.
Immigration and ‘amnesty’
On one of the biggest issues in the 2016 Republican primary — immigration — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was nothing if not consistent.
Cruz, angling to be the primary field’s most hard-line candidate against illegal immigration, said, “A majority of the men and women on this stage have previously and publicly embraced amnesty. I am the only candidate on this stage who has never supported amnesty.”
That was similar to something he said at the first debate, held in Cleveland and aired by Fox News in August — that “a majority of the candidates on this stage have supported amnesty. I have never supported amnesty.”
The claim rates Mostly True.
It’s important to note that many GOP candidates have changed their position on what to do about undocumented immigrants already in the United States. It’s also important to note that the definition of “amnesty” isn’t hard and fast. So what Cruz may consider amnesty might not be what any of these candidates considers to be amnesty.
Still, as far as we can tell, Cruz is the only one on the CNN debate stage who has never plainly supported something like a path to citizenship or some other form of legal status.
Trump, meanwhile, erred in the debate by saying that Mexico doesn’t have “birthright citizenship.”
Mexico does offer birthright citizenship, even if it’s not an exact copy of the American model. Trump’s claim rates False.
Birthright citizenship in the United States was first established by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, primarily to grant legal status to emancipated slaves. The amendment stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Mexican Constitution says the Mexican “nationality” is obtained by birth if the person is born “within the Republic’s territory whatever their parents’ nationality might be,” among other circumstances.
Anyone born on Mexican soil is considered Mexican by nationality, regardless of whether their parents are Mexican. No one in Mexico, even if a person’s parents are Mexican, is considered a “citizen” by the country’s Constitution until he or she turns 18.
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