The final four GOP presidential hopefuls have wrapped up their Miami debate.
But those non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact are still on the job, trying to make sense of it all.
Summaries of what we have discovered so far can be found below.
Donald Trump said this: Common Core is “education through Washington D.C.”
The education standards were unveiled in 2010 after state school officials, nonprofits, teachers and experts settled on broad education goals.
Washington was not a player in that game.
President Obama has given states that have the education standards a leg up when applying for grant money.
We rate Trump's statement False.
Ted Cruz said this: Donald Trump “has said he wants to be neutral on Israel and the Palestinians.”
Trump has repeatedly said he believes he must approach the two sides with neutrality in order to be a good negotiator.
But Cruz is omitting Trump’s comments and actions that have shown support for Israel.
We rate this statement Half True.
Ted Cruz also said this: “I opposed TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and have always opposed TPP.”
The record shows that Cruz took no position on the treaty itself until the full text became public. Then he said he opposed it.
However, when Cruz first supported granting the president the key authority to finalize the TPP, he spoke positively about the concept of the trade deal.
His statement glosses over his initial backing of the idea of the trade treaty.
We rate this claim Mostly True.
Marco Rubio said this: Foreign aid "is less than 1 percent of our federal budget."
Most reports put the amount of foreign aid in the ballpark of what Rubio said.
It has been consistently in the single digits or less.
We rate this claim True.
Donald Trump said this: “GDP was zero essentially for the last two quarters.”
Economic growth in the last two quarters of 2015 was modest: 1 percent and 2 percent. But that’s not zero.
We rate Trump's claim False.
About the Author
