Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the Libertarian candidate for president.
They all took a recent ride on the AJC Truth-O-Meter, courtesy of PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia.
Want to see how they fared? Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Want to comment on our rulings or suggest one of your own? Just go to our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/politifact.georgia). You can also follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/politifactga).
Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, August 17th, 2016, during a campaign rally in Cleveland:
“I am the only candidate who ran in either the Democratic or the Republican primary who said from the very beginning (that) I will not raise taxes on the middle class.”
Fifteen of the 17 Republican presidential candidates signed pledges not to raise taxes on anyone, which includes the middle class.
Thirteen of those candidates signed the vow last year; the other three inked such a pledge earlier in their careers. Trump wasn’t one of them, but Clinton specifically mentioned the primary field.
And that makes the claim both inaccurate and ridiculous.
We rated Clinton’s claim, again, Pants on Fire.
Donald Trump on Wednesday, August 10th, 2016, during a speech in Sunrise, Fla.:
Says Barack Obama “founded ISIS. I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.”
There’s a credible critique that Obama’s and Clinton’s foreign-policy and military decisions helped create a space in which ISIS could operate and expand.
But Trump explicitly rejected this formulation, saying he literally means Obama is “the founder of ISIS” and Clinton is the “co-founder.”
In reality, the founder of ISIS was a terrorist. It is run by terrorists. Obama has said destroying ISIS is his “top priority.”
All this makes Trump’s statement a ridiculous characterization. He’s doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on it in various venues and has reinforced that he meant his words to be taken literally.
And after the fallacy was reported, Trump said he was just being sarcastic.
We rated Trump’s statement Pants on Fire.
Joe Biden on Monday, August 15th, 2016, during a speech in Scranton, Pa.:
Says military commanders have said that if Donald Trump were elected, “they would not follow his orders.”
Biden has a point that retired military officials have spoken out against Trump.
But he exaggerated when he described them as “military commanders.” The current active leadership has not spoken out against Trump.
We rate Biden’s statement Mostly False.
Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on Friday, August 5th, 2016, in a Medium post:
“Most Americans support” the legalization of marijuana.
All the polling since the start of 2014 — 14 polls in all — shows that legalization leads the status quo.
Twelve of those 14 polls showed an absolute majority level of support.
We rated Johnson’s statement True.
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