Truth checking the CNN presidential debate



CNN
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President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump confronted off throughout CNN’s presidential debate in Atlanta Thursday evening.

Under are some reality checks of their claims.

FACT CHECK: Trump’s claims about his earlier feedback about US navy members killed in motion 

Trump denied that he had used the phrases “suckers” or “losers” to explain members of the US navy who had been killed in motion, after Biden pointed to the remarks to criticize his predecessor’s report for veterans.

Biden touted his go to to a World Battle I cemetery, the place he stated Trump “refused to go” and advised a four-star normal it’s as a result of “they’re a bunch of losers and suckers.”

Trump claimed the comment was “made up” by Biden.

Information First: The Atlantic journal, citing 4 unnamed sources with “firsthand data,” reported in 2020 that on the day Trump canceled a go to to a navy cemetery in France the place US troops who had been killed in World Battle I are buried, he had advised members of his senior employees, “Why ought to I’m going to that cemetery? It’s crammed with losers.” The journal additionally reported that in one other dialog on the identical journey, Trump had referred to marines who had been killed within the area as “suckers.” 

John Kelly, who served as Trump’s White Home chief of employees and secretary of Homeland Safety, has stated on the report that in 2018 Trump did use the phrases “suckers” and “losers” to check with servicemembers who had been killed in motion. Kelly advised CNN anchor Jim Sciutto for Sciutto’s 2024 e book that Trump would say: “Why do you individuals all say that these guys who get wounded or killed are heroes? They’re suckers for going within the first place, they usually’re losers.”

There isn’t a public recording of Trump making such remarks, so we will’t definitively name Trump’s denial false. However the account of Trump’s feedback doesn’t solely relaxation on unnamed sources from the article in The Atlantic.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Kaanita Iyer 

FACT CHECK: Trump falsely claims “all people” wished abortion again to go the states 

Former President Donald Trump repeated his frequent declare that “all people” wished Roe v. Wade overturned and the facility to set abortion coverage returned to particular person states.

Information First: Trump’s declare is fake. Ballot after ballot has proven that almost all Individuals – two-thirds or practically two-thirds of respondents in a number of polls – want Roe would have been preserved.

For instance, a CNN ballot performed by SSRS in April 2024 discovered 65% of adults opposed the Supreme Court docket’s resolution to overturn Roe. That’s practically equivalent to the results of a CNN ballot performed by SSRS in July 2022, the month after the choice. Equally, a Marquette Legislation Faculty ballot in February 2024 discovered 67% of adults opposed the choice that overturned Roe.

A NBC Information ballot in June 2023 discovered 61% opposition amongst registered voters to the choice that overturned Roe. A Gallup ballot in Could 2023 discovered 61% of adults referred to as the choice a nasty factor.

Many authorized students had additionally wished Roe preserved, as a number of of them advised CNN when Trump made an analogous declare and stated, “all authorized students, either side, wished and, the truth is, demanded be ended: Roe v. Wade” in April.

“Any declare that every one authorized students wished Roe overturned is mind-numbingly false,” Rutgers Legislation Faculty professor Kimberly Mutcherson, a authorized scholar who supported the preservation of Roe, stated in April.

“Donald Trump’s declare is flatly incorrect,” one other authorized scholar who didn’t need Roe overturned, Maya Manian, an American College legislation professor and college director of the college’s Well being Legislation and Coverage Program, stated in April.

Trump’s declare is “clearly not” true, stated Mary Ziegler, a legislation professor on the College of California, Davis, who’s an professional on the historical past of the US abortion debate. Ziegler, who additionally didn’t need Roe overturned, stated in an April interview: “Most authorized students most likely monitor most Individuals, who didn’t need to overturn Roe. … It wasn’t as if authorized students had been by some means outliers.”

It’s true that some authorized students who help abortion rights wished that Roe had been written in another way; the late liberal Supreme Court docket Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one in all them. However Ziegler famous that though “there was a cottage business of authorized students form of rewriting Roe – ‘what Roe ought to’ve stated’ — that isn’t saying Roe ought to’ve been overturned. These are very various things.”

You may learn extra right here.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

FACT CHECK: Biden falsely claims he’s the one president this decade who doesn’t have any “troops dying anyplace on this planet” 

President Joe Biden claimed that he’s the one president this decade “that doesn’t have any … troops dying anyplace on this planet, like he did,” referring to former President Donald Trump.

“Reality is, I’m the one president this century, that doesn’t have any, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anyplace on this planet, like he did,” Biden stated.

Information First: Biden is incorrect. US service members have died overseas throughout his presidency, together with 13 troops killed in a suicide bombing throughout the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

13 US service members — together with 11 Marines, one Military particular operations soldier, and one Navy corpsman — had been killed within the suicide bombing on the Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul. Three US troopers had been additionally killed this 12 months at a small US outpost in Jordan in a one-way drone assault launched by Iran-backed militants. And two US Navy SEALs died in January off the coast of Somalia whereas conducting a night-time seizure of deadly assist being transported from Iran to Yemen.

Different US service members have additionally died overseas in coaching incidents, together with 5 US troopers who died in a helicopter crash within the japanese Mediterranean Sea in November 2023 throughout a routine refueling mission, and eight US airmen who died in a CV-22 Osprey crash in November 2023 off the coast of Yakushima Island, Japan.

From CNN’s Haley Britzky

FACT CHECK: Biden on help from the Border Patrol union

President Joe Biden stated the Border Patrol union endorsed him, after which appeared to make clear and stated the group “endorsed (his) place.”

Information First: That is deceptive. The Nationwide Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol brokers, backed a bipartisan border deal reached by senators that included a number of the hardest safety measures in current reminiscence, however didn’t endorse Biden. The deal failed within the Senate.

In a submit on X, the union swiftly responded to the president Thursday: “To be clear, we by no means have and by no means will endorse Biden.”

From CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez

FACT CHECK: Trump on the Nationwide Guard in Minneapolis 

Former President Donald Trump stated that he deployed the Nationwide Guard to Minneapolis in 2020 throughout the unrest that adopted the homicide of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

“After they ripped down Portland, after they ripped down many different cities. You go to Minnesota, Minneapolis, what they’ve achieved there with the fires everywhere in the metropolis – if I didn’t carry within the Nationwide Guard, that metropolis would have been destroyed.”

Information First: That is false. Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, not Trump, deployed the Minnesota Nationwide Guard throughout the 2020 unrest; Walz first activated the Guard greater than seven hours earlier than Trump publicly threatened to deploy the Guard himself. Walz’s workplace advised CNN in 2020 that the governor activated the Guard in response to requests from officers in Minneapolis and St. Paul – cities additionally run by Democrats. 

From CNN’s Holmes Lybrand and Daniel Dale

FACT CHECK: Trump on the European Union’s commerce practices 

Former President Donald Trump, complaining concerning the European Union’s commerce practices, claimed that the EU doesn’t settle for US merchandise, together with American automobiles. “They don’t need something that we now have,” Trump stated Thursday. “However we’re presupposed to take their automobiles, their meals, their all the things, their agriculture.”

Information First: It’s not true that the European Union gained’t take American merchandise, together with American automobiles, although some US exports do face EU commerce obstacles and although US automakers have typically had a tough time gaining reputation with European customers.

The US exported about $368 billion in items to the European Union in 2023 (whereas importing about $576 billion from the EU that 12 months), federal figures present. In line with a December 2023 report from the European Car Producers’ Affiliation, the EU is the second-largest marketplace for US car exports — importing 271,476 US autos in 2022, valued at practically 9 billion euro. (A few of these are autos made by European automakers at vegetation within the US.) The EU’s Eurostat statistical workplace says that automotive imports from the US hit a brand new peak in 2020, Trump’s final full 12 months in workplace, at a price of about 11 billion euro.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Ella Nilsen 

FACT CHECK: Trump falsely claims Iran “had no cash for Hamas” throughout his presidency 

Former President Donald Trump claimed that when he was president, Iran “had no cash for Hamas” and no cash “for terror.”

“Do you wanna know why? As a result of Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anyone do enterprise with them. They ran out of cash. They had been broke,” he stated. “They’d no cash for Hamas, they’d no cash for something. No cash for terror. That’s why you had no terror, in any respect, throughout my administration. This place, the entire world is blowing up below him.”

Information First: Trump’s declare that Iran had “no cash for Hamas” and “no cash for terror” throughout his presidency is fake. Iran’s funding for such teams did decline within the second half of his presidency, largely as a result of his sanctions on the nation had a serious destructive affect on the Iranian economic system, however the funding by no means stopped solely, as 4 specialists advised CNN earlier this month.  

Trump’s personal administration stated in 2020 that Iran was persevering with to fund terror teams together with Hezbollah. The Trump administration started imposing sanctions on Iran in late 2018, pursuing a marketing campaign often called “most stress.” However Trump-appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated himself in 2020 that Iran was persevering with to fund terror teams. “So that you proceed to have, despite the Iranian management demanding that extra money be given to them, they’re utilizing the sources that they should proceed funding Hezbollah in Lebanon and threatening the state of Israel, funding Iraqi terrorist Shia teams, all of the issues that they’ve achieved traditionally – persevering with to construct out their capabilities even whereas the individuals inside their very own nation are struggling,” Pompeo stated in a Could 2020 interview, in keeping with a transcript posted on the State Division’s web site.

Trump may have pretty stated that his sanctions on Iran had made life tougher for terror teams (although it’s unclear how a lot their operations had been affected). As a substitute, he continued his years-old follow of exaggerating even professional achievements.

You may learn a extra detailed reality examine from earlier in June right here.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

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