The presidential debate: checking the facts
Many of you will have watched the presidential debate, and even for those of you who have not, you will likely have seen the key points and moments, and heard comments given by both sides. As one could probably guess from the rest of the election, many of the comments given by both Trump and Clinton are quite simply false, some of them blatantly so. Neither candidate is innocent, so to help you, the reader, to separate truth from fiction, here are a few of the falsehoods perpetrated by the candidates.
Probably the most obviously false claim given was Trumps claim, directed at Clinton, that “You have been fighting ISIS all your adult life”. This is clearly false, as the organization that later became ISIS was founded in 1999, while Clinton is 68. For most of Clinton’s life, ISIS did not exist.
One notable false claim given by Clinton was her denial that she had called the trans pacific partnership the “gold standard” of trade deals. She in fact said exactly that, when promoting the deal in a speech in Australia.
Another claim, by Trump this time, denying that he had stated that climate change was a “hoax” that was started by the Chinese. Trump did in fact say this several times, to include an infamous tweet, although he claims that that was a joke. Given the number of times he made the claim, it is safe to say that both the claim that climate change is a hoax, and the claim that he did not make that claim, are false.
There are many more instances where statements made during the debate and elsewhere do not match the facts, too many, in fact to come close to listing them all. However, I hope that this will help remind you, the reader, of the importance of checking statements made by politicians before you believe them, regardless of which side you support. There are, of course, a number of fact checking sites that you can use to verify a claim that you are not sure of. Those sites would not exist if not for a very good reason.
Sources: BBC news: http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37480990
Factcheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/factchecking-the-first-debate/
The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/09/27/fact-checking-the-first-clinton-trump-presidential-debate/
