Paradise News

Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: The missing facts from Nikki Haley’s claim about border crossings and deportations under Joe Biden

    Republican primary presidential candidate Nikki Haley has pledged to deport people who have come to the U.S. illegally under President Joe Biden’s administration, as her rivals characterize her as soft on immigration. 

    “The 8 million that have come in illegally, we have to send them back because you have to look at the fact that every time we allow them to come in, we’re incentivizing more to come,” Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, said in a Jan. 5 interview with Iowa PBS. “The idea that we’ve had 8 million and they only sent back 142,000 should scare everybody.”

    Haley, who is also South Carolina’s former governor, has made similar claims at CNN and Fox News town halls.

    During a Jan. 8 Fox News town hall, Haley repeated the 8 million figure and said “Biden sent back only 142,000 last year. That’s it.”

    Haley makes it sound as if 8 million people are now living illegally in the U.S. and only 142,000 have been deported, and that’s not so.

    Nationwide data up to November 2023 shows that immigration officials have encountered migrants 8.1 million times under Biden. But the data represents events, not people. 

    About 2.3 million people have been released into the U.S. under Biden’s administration, Department of Homeland Security data shows. Most of them are families, according to The Washington Post. About 356,000 children who crossed the border alone were also let in.

    Separately, DHS estimates that about 391,000 people have evaded border authorities. (The latest data DHS has published is for fiscal year 2021, which includes about four months of the Trump administration.) 

    How many people have been sent out after reaching the border? 

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 142,000 people in fiscal year 2023. These removals happened after an official court order and can include people who have been living in the U.S. for years before Biden’s administration. The total number of ICE removals under Biden’s administration so far is about 245,000. 

    But immigration officials also turn people away through border “returns” and “expulsions.” Returns happen when officials dispatch people to their home countries without legal penalties and without formal removal proceedings. Up through mid-May 2023, officials also expelled people under Title 42, a public health policy; this began under the Trump administration as a way to mitigate COVID-19’s spread.

    The Biden administration recorded about 2.5 million Title 42 expulsions through May 2023.

    There have been more than 3.6 million removals, returns and expulsions from February 2021, Biden’s first month in office, to September 2023, based on Department of Homeland Security estimates. 

    This data also represents events, not people. So, the same person can be expelled multiple times and each time would count as a separate expulsion. 

    Our ruling

    Haley said, “We’ve had 8 million” immigrants come to the U.S. illegally under Biden and they only sent back 142,000.”

    There have been 8.1 million encounters with migrants nationwide under Biden, but that number does not represent unique individuals. And not all who were stopped were allowed to stay in the U.S.

    The 142,000 refers only to ICE removals in fiscal year 2023. But that is not the only way migrants can be sent out of the U.S. There have been 3.6 million removals, returns and expulsions under Biden’s administration. This data also represents events, not people.

    Haley’s claim contains an element of truth in the numbers she cites but ignores additional data and critical context about immigration. We rate it Mostly False.



    Source

  • Fact Check: No connection between zombie deer disease and COVID-19 animal vaccines

    Social media users have created a false correlation between the rise of zombie deer disease cases and animal COVID-19 vaccines. 

    And some are blaming Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic foundation for it. 

    A Jan. 1 Instagram post caption claimed that “over 100 million American wildlife were vaccinated through a program funded by the Zuckerberg Charity Foundation,” misnaming the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative founded by Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, his wife. “Now, a chilling development known as the zombie deer virus is sweeping across 32 states, affecting deer with disturbing neurological symptoms.” 

    In November, Yellowstone National Park said a deer that died in the park the previous month had chronic wasting disease, also known as zombie deer disease. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said zombie deer disease has been detected in free-ranging deer, elk or moose in at least 31 states and three Canadian provinces, but it had nothing to do with COVID-19 vaccines. 

    The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    Chronic wasting disease is a fatal, progressive, neurodegenerative ailment affecting  deer, elk, reindeer and moose. Its symptoms include weight loss and stumbling. The disease is caused by “prions,” transmissible abnormal proteins that trigger other proteins to irregularly fold, causing brain damage , according to the CDC. According to the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the disease’s first case was discovered in 1967 in a deer in Colorado. 

    The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has partnerships with 42 organizations to respond to COVID-19. None of the partnerships include a program to vaccinate wildlife. Patricia Condon, a communications manager for the organization, said that it does “not fund such a program” and that all of its grants are publicly disclosed in a database on its website.

    An Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services spokesperson told PolitiFact via email that there is no approved COVID-19 vaccine for wildlife. 

    A Pfizer subsidiary, Zoetis, has made a COVID-19 animal vaccine for zoo animals. Christina Lood, a Zoetis spokesperson, said her company has donated the vaccine to licensed veterinarians but has not provided the vaccine to organizations that vaccinate wildlife.

    We rate the claim that the outbreak of zombie deer disease is connected to the vaccination of 100 million American wildlife False. 



    Source

  • FactChecking Trump’s Iowa Town Hall

    Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

    Summary

    While his GOP primary rivals were debating on CNN on Jan. 10, former President Donald Trump took questions from Iowans in a town hall that aired on Fox News. We found several false and misleading statements:

    • Trump falsely claimed that his administration “would have started to pay down our debt” by selling U.S. energy to Europe and Asia, if not for the COVID-19 pandemic. One budget expert called the idea “baffling.”
    • He stated definitely that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 originated in a lab, despite a lack of credible evidence.
    • Trump repeated many talking points we’ve fact-checked before, on taxes, immigration, the economy, abortion and military conflicts.

    We also fact-checked the debate between Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Iowa caucuses will be held Jan. 15.

    Analysis

    Trump’s Fantastical Debt Reduction Claim

    As we have written before, the amount of federal debt held by the public increased by $7.2 trillion during Trump’s four years in office, Treasury figures show. The total national debt — which includes debt the federal government owes itself — went up by $7.8 trillion. 

    During the town hall, Trump blamed COVID-19 for that increase and claimed that if not for the pandemic, his administration “would have started to pay down our debt” by selling energy to Europe and Asia.

    Trump, Jan. 10: We were ready to start supplying energy, selling energy to Europe, Asia. We would have started to pay down our debt. And then when COVID came along, we had to do a little bit of a course change.

    Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, called Trump’s remarks “baffling.”

    “Despite what Trump seems to be saying, the federal government doesn’t produce and sell energy. Private companies do,” Gleckman told us in an email. “So increased oil exports would have only a trivial effect on the budget deficit. … Any realistic additional tax revenue from this sector would barely move the deficit needle.”

    It’s true that the U.S. has been a net total energy exporter since 2019, and exports have been rising. Even so, the federal debt also has been rising. Energy exports were the highest on record in 2022, according to the Energy Information Administration, and yet the U.S. debt increased that year by nearly $1.4 trillion.

    Trump had a point that the economic impact of COVID-19 — including the relief bills he signed — increased the federal debt. But even before COVID-19, the debt and deficits were already rising and projected to go higher.

    On Jan. 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency for the “2019 novel coronavirus,” which would later become known as COVID-19. Prior to that, the federal public debt had increased by $2.79 trillion from Jan. 20, 2017, when Trump took office, through Jan. 30, 2020, the day before HHS declared COVID-19 a public health emergency.

    Likewise, pre-pandemic federal deficits increased from $665.4 billion in fiscal year 2017 to $983.6 billion in fiscal year 2019, which ended Sept. 30, 2019, according to the White House Office of Budget and Management. (See Table 1.1.)

    On Jan. 28, 2020, two days before the HHS declared a public health emergency, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its annual budget and economic outlook, which covered the fiscal years 2020 through 2030. The CBO estimated that the federal debt held by the public would increase every year over the 10-year projection period, rising from an estimated $17.85 trillion in fiscal year 2020 to $31.4 trillion in 2030.

    “We were absolutely not on course to start paying down our debt before COVID,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told us in an email. “In January of 2020, CBO projected deficits were on course to reach $1.3 trillion per year by 2025 and debt was going to continue to rise faster than the economy.”

    In an analysis released earlier this week, the CRFB did find that Trump’s tariff policies will reduce the federal debt by $445 billion over a 10-year period. But other Trump actions — including his signature tax cut legislation that he signed in December 2017 — will result in a net increase in the federal debt.

    The CRFB estimated that Trump’s laws and executive orders will add $8.4 trillion to the federal debt over a 10-year period.

    “Of the $8.4 trillion President Trump added to the debt, $3.6 trillion came from COVID relief laws and executive orders, $2.5 trillion from tax cut laws, and $2.3 trillion from spending increases, with the remaining executive orders having costs and savings that largely offset each other,” the CRFB said.

    Unsupported Theory on COVID-19 Origin

    Without prompting, Trump shared his thoughts on how SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, originated, stating definitively — despite a lack of evidence — that the virus came from a lab.

    “They were saying it came out of caves, bat caves, 2,000 miles away, came out of Italy, came out of France,” he said. “No, it came out of Wuhan, the labs.”

    Trump then elaborated on what he thought happened, adding that he didn’t think a lab release was intentional, but “done out of incompetence.” 

    “I believe that a scientist went out, said hello to his girlfriend, and that was the end of that,” he said. “She died, and then people started dying all over the place. But who knows? Who knows?”

    Trump is entitled to his opinion, but there isn’t credible evidence that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. On the contrary, several lines of evidence support the idea that the virus originated in bats and then spilled over to humans, most likely through an interaction with an intermediate animal on sale as part of the wildlife trade at a wet market in Wuhan, China. 

    This is similar to how other novel coronaviruses have infected people in the past. Papers published in July 2022 in the journal Science show that geographically, the earliest COVID-19 cases cluster around the market — even those with no known connection to the market — and that genomic data suggests slightly different versions of the virus spilled over twice — an unlikely occurrence if SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. Further, animals susceptible to the coronavirus, such as raccoon dogs, are known to have been sold in the market in late 2019.

    While a lab leak cannot be ruled out, it is based on speculation and has largely centered on suspicions of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A lab at the WIV specialized in studying coronaviruses, collecting viruses from bats in the wild and sometimes genetically manipulating them to understand how risky they might be. But there is no evidence the lab ever possessed a virus similar enough to SARS-CoV-2 to have created the virus, nor do many experts believe it is plausible that scientists could have engineered the virus. The lab head has stated that as of March 2020, antibody testing showed all lab members did not have evidence of prior infection with SARS-CoV-2.

    As for a specific scenario involving a girlfriend, there is little to corroborate those details. As PolitiFact reported, a Fox News report on an April 15, 2020, episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” floated the notion of an accidental lab leak from a worker “who then infected his girlfriend,” citing anonymous U.S. government sources.

    Earlier the same day, Fox News’ John Roberts asked Trump about the issue at a coronavirus briefing, saying that “multiple sources are telling Fox News” that a virology lab “intern was infected, who later infected her boyfriend, and then went to the wet market in Wuhan where it began to spread.”

    Neither story mentions the romantic partner dying, as Trump said, and more critically, no evidence has emerged that confirms any kind of spread from a lab. 

    As we’ve written, various versions of the “sick” lab workers rumor have circulated since 2020, in part fueled by a January 2021 “fact sheet” released by the Trump administration that said the government “has reason to believe” that several WIV workers became sick prior to the outbreak “with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”

    A declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released in June, however, explains that while several WIV researchers were “mildly ill” in the fall of 2019, “they experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with COVID-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to COVID-19.” The report says that this information, therefore, “neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins,” meaning whether it was a natural origin or came from a lab.

    U.S. intelligence agencies remain split on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, with four entities plus the National Intelligence Council landing on a natural origin, and the FBI and the Department of Energy concluding a lab origin is “most likely.” Two others are undecided. All agencies agree that the virus “was not developed as a biological weapon.”

    Repeats

    Trump repeated many claims that we have fact-checked before. Several are long-running talking points from his time in office:

    ISIS. According to Trump’s own administration, about half of the territory held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in Iraq and Syria had been regained under President Barack Obama. But Trump glossed over that, saying, “We beat ISIS, knocked them out. It was supposed to take four years. I did it in literally three months.” The final stronghold was retaken by the Syrian Democratic Forces in March 2019, more than two years after Trump was inaugurated.

    Taxes. The 2017 tax cuts were not “the biggest tax cuts in history.” There have been pricier tax laws in terms of percentage of gross domestic product and inflation-adjusted dollars.

    Southern border. Apprehensions of those trying to cross the U.S. southern border illegally have gone up substantially under President Joe Biden, but Trump was wrong to say his administration “had the best border in the history of our country.” After dropping in 2017, apprehensions then rose. The total number of apprehensions was higher during Trump’s presidency than either of Obama’s four-year terms.

    Economy. The country didn’t have “the greatest economy in history” under Trump. Economists look to real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth to measure economic health, and that figure exceeded Trump’s peak year of 3% growth more than a dozen times before he took office.

    Energy. The U.S. still relied on foreign sources of energy, including oil, under Trump, despite his claim that “we were energy independent.” He may be referring to other measures, such as producing more energy than the U.S. consumed or exports exceeding imports. But by those definitions, the U.S. has still been “energy independent” under Biden.

    Gasoline prices. Trump boasted that gasoline prices were “down to $1.87 a gallon” or “even lower” during his presidency. That’s correct: The average price of regular gasoline was as low as $1.77 in April 2020 during the pandemic, but finished at $2.38 before he left office. He wrongly said gasoline is now “at $4 and $5.” It peaked at $5 in June 2022, but the latest price is $3.07, according to the Energy Information Administration.

    Border wall. He said that “we built over 500 miles of wall.” There were nearly 500 miles — 458 miles to be exact — of “border wall system” built during Trump’s term. Most, 373 miles, was replacement barriers for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or outdated, according to a January 2021 Customs and Border Protection status report. 

    Inflation. Trump wrongly said that “Biden drove up the cost of energy. That’s what caused inflation.” Economists cite several reasons for an increase in inflation, first and foremost the unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. As for energy, the price of crude oil is set on the global market, not by presidents, and it began increasing toward the end of 2020 primarily, experts say, because the worldwide demand for oil began to exceed the international supply.

    Illegal Immigration. Echoing a whopper of a claim he has been making since last year, Trump said that “many” of the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. and others who may join them while Biden is in office “come from jails and prisons. Many of those people come from mental institutions and insane asylums.” Previously, Trump has claimed that countries around the world are “emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending their most heinous criminals to the United States.” Immigration experts told us there’s simply no evidence for that. One expert said Trump’s claim appeared to be “a total fabrication.” 

    Illegal Immigration, round two. Trump added in the town hall, “And many of those people are terrorists.” There’s also no evidence for that. Customs and Border Protection has said that encounters of people on the U.S. terrorist watchlist at U.S. borders “are very uncommon.” The CBP watchlist statistics, which include “known or suspected terrorists” and “additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States,” show that officials have encountered more people on the watchlist trying to enter at legal ports of entry on the northern border in recent years than those apprehended trying to cross the southern border illegally. There’s no data on watchlisted individuals who aren’t stopped by CBP.

    Iraq War. Trump dug up a popular 2016 campaign talking point, claiming that “I used to say, don’t go into Iraq. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” We found no evidence that Trump spoke against the Iraq War before it started. In fact, he gave a halfhearted endorsement for going to war six months before the conflict began. A few months after it started, he expressed concerns about the cost and direction of the war.

    Abortion. Trump claimed that Democrats favor abortion “even after birth.” That’s homicide, and it’s illegal.

    Afghanistan. He repeated the gross exaggeration that “Biden gave $85 billion worth of our military to Afghanistan so stupidly. Brand new tanks and planes and everything,” when the U.S. withdrew troops from the country. That figure — actually $82.9 billion — was the total amount spent on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund since the war began in 2001. But it wasn’t all for military equipment, and most of the equipment purchased in those two decades had become inoperable, relocated, decommisioned or destroyed.

    Wars. Trump made the inaccurate claim that he was “the only president in 72 years” who “didn’t have any wars,” a length of time that has grown since he claimed when leaving office that he was “the first president in decades who has started no new wars.” Even the latter assertion is debatable.

    President Jimmy Carter, who held office from 1977 to 1981, didn’t declare war or ask Congress for authorization to use force, as PolitiFact has pointed out.

    But does launching airstrikes count as “war”? As the Washington Post Fact Checker has noted, Trump ordered an airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. His national security adviser told reporters that was authorized under a 2002 resolution giving the president the authority to take actions against “the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

    Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

    Sources

    Robertson, Lori. “Biden Leaves Misleading Impression on U.S. Debt.” FactCheck.org. 13 Aug 2021.

    U.S. Treasury, “Debt to the Penny.” Access 11 Jan 2024.

    U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. energy facts explained.” Updated 9 Aug 2023.

    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Secretary Azar Declares Public Health Emergency for United States for 2019 Novel Coronavirus.” Press release. 31 Jan 2020.

    Congressional Budget Office. “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2020 to 2030.” 28 Jan 2020.

    Congressional Budget Office. “Table1-2. CBO’s Baseline Projections of Federal Debt.” 28 Jan 2020.

    Goldwein, Marc. Senior vice president and senior policy director, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Email to FactCheck.org.

    Gleckman, Howard. Senior fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Email to FactCheck.org.

    “How Much Did President Trump Add to the Debt?” Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 10 Jan 2024.

    White House. “Remarks by President Trump at Signing of H.R. 1, Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill Act, and H.R. 1370.” 22 Dec 2017.

    McDonald, Jessica. “The Facts – and Gaps – on the Origin of the Coronavirus.” FactCheck.org. 25 Jun 2021.

    Worobey, Michael et al. “The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Science. 26 Jul 2022.

    Pekar, Jonathan E. “The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2.” Science. 26 Jul 2022.

    Xiao, Xiao et al. “Animal sales from Wuhan wet markets immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Scientific Reports. 7 Jun 2021.

    McDonald, Jessica. “No ‘Bombshell’ On COVID-19 Origins, U.S. Intelligence Rebuts Claims About ‘Sick’ Lab Workers.” FactCheck.org. 29 Jun 2023.

    Czopek, Madison and Sara Swann. “Fact-checking Trump’s Iowa town hall: Wuhan scientist, wars, ‘no inflation’ and DeSantis on Fauci.” PolitiFact. 11 Jan 2024.

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    “Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesperson. 15 Jan 2021.

    “Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Office of the Director of National Intelligence. June 2023.

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    Robertson, Lori. “Trump’s ISIS Claim Goes to the Dogs.” FactCheck.org. 26 Nov 2019.

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    Gore, D’Angelo et al. “FactChecking Trump’s Presidential Bid Announcement.” FactCheck.org. 16 Nov 2022.

    Gore, D’Angelo. “Gasoline Prices Up Due to Global Supply-Demand Issues, Russian Invasion of Ukraine.” FactCheck.org. 1 Jul 2022.

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    Source

  • Fact Check: Trump ‘exonerated’ by Epstein docs? Here’s what they do (and don’t) say about the former president

    Soon after a federal court unsealed documents stemming from a lawsuit related to financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, some Donald Trump supporters trumpeted what they said was great news for the former president.

    “#BREAKING: Epstein documents confirm that Donald Trump did not visit Jeffrey Epstein’s home or island,” one viral Instagram post said Jan. 3. “Clears Trump of all wrongdoing,” read another.

    Former Trump security adviser Michael Flynn and conservative commentators Charlie Kirk and Benny Johnson each said Trump had been “exonerated” by the case files.

    But experts said the case files neither incriminate nor exonerate Trump, who is running to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024. Trump currently faces four indictments and 91 felony charges in cases across several states, but none of them involve Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

    Trump and Epstein — both powerful and affluent, with homes in South Florida and New York — had a social relationship at one time, according to photos and news articles.

    Flight logs released as evidence in the 2021 sex trafficking trial of convicted Epstein companion Ghislaine Maxwell show that Trump flew seven times in the 1990s on Epstein’s private jet, the Miami Herald reported. 

    In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that  Epstein was a “terrific guy.” But the men later fell out. In 2019, after Epstein was charged with sex trafficking minors, Trump told reporters: “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

    The documents released in January stem from Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit against Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on sex trafficking and other charges. 

    Giuffre’s case was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald went to court to gain access to the previously sealed records. U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York on Dec. 18 ordered the release of 150 names that had previously been named in court documents as Jane or John Does. The newly released documents include 250 records. 

    Although Trump is mentioned in some of these documents, the records provide neither a smoking gun that he was involved in wrongdoing nor that he was, as his supporters have claimed, “cleared.”

    “I think it would be premature to suggest that the information ‘exonerates’ him,” said Daniel Medwed, a Northeastern University law professor. The documents establish Trump as being in Epstein’s orbit but don’t in themselves implicate him in wrongdoing, Medwed said.

    Here’s what we know.

    Who is mentioned in the documents?

    The documents mention many high-profile figures besides Trump, including former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, magician David Copperfield and the late singer Michael Jackson.

    They also name victims, actual and potential witnesses and Epstein employees. 

    Being mentioned in the documents does not mean a person is accused of any wrongdoing. No list of Epstein clients has been released, contrary to some social media posts.

    What do the documents say about Trump?

    Trump is mentioned six times in the documents. One of those mentions shows him being accused of sexual wrongdoing, but the documents also call that accusation’s credibility into question. Here is a summary of the six mentions:

    • In a May 18, 2016, deposition, on Page 19 of 179, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Johanna Sjoberg, told attorneys she traveled with Epstein, Maxwell and Giuffre on Epstein’s plane and stopped in Atlantic City, (New Jersey,) where they “went to one of Trump’s casinos.” 

    The flight was headed to New York, but Sjoberg said the pilots told her they had to land      in Atlantic City because of a storm, Page 79 shows. She said when she relayed this to Epstein, “Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to’ —  I don’t recall the name of the casino but — ‘We’ll go to the casino.’” 

    Later in the deposition, on Page 113, an attorney asked Sjoberg whether she gave a massage to Trump. She replied no.

    •  In a 2009 video deposition, on Page 3 of 5, Epstein employee Juan Alessi testified that he once drove Maxwell to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, where Maxwell got a “facial or massage.” 

    He also said he saw Trump at Epstein’s home, but that Trump didn’t stay there, unlike other celebrities.

    “He would come, have dinner. He never sat at the table,” Alessi said on Page 5. “He eat with me in the kitchen.” When asked if Trump ever had received massages at Epstein’s home, Alessi said, “No, because he’s got his own spa.” 

    • In a 2016 filing by Dershowitz, on Pages 19 and 20 of 27, the former Harvard Law School professor said Epstein’s “little black book” of contacts and phone numbers included many celebrities, including Trump.

    Dershowitz also referred to testimony from an Epstein employee who said Trump visited Epstein’s residence frequently, but that he had little information about him. An attorney asked the employee, Alfredo Rodriguez, this question:

    “Assuming he’s a frequent visitor to Mr. Epstein’s home, and that he’s a friend of Mr. Epstein’s, and that his name is circled in this book, do you infer that he was engaged in criminal sexual abuse of minors?”

    “No,” Rodriguez replied. 

    • A footnote on Page 7 in a March 2017 filing from Epstein’s attorneys referred to several news articles and read: “Mr. Epstein’s name has been widely linked in the press with prominent individuals such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew. His personal appearance at the trial of this case would predictably be the focus of massive media attention, of both the mainstream and gutter variety.”

    • In a June 21, 2017 letter, an attorney for Dershowitz asked then-U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet to make public emails and attachments concerning Epstein accuser Sarah Ransome.

    Ransome’s allegations included that she had been forced to have sex with Dershowitz, a claim that Dershowitz denied. 

    “The Emails,” Dershowitz’s attorney wrote on Page 2 of 16, “will demonstrate that Ms. Ransome’s inflammatory, salacious, and defamatory testimony concerning the Intervenor and others is false and that the deponent is not credible.” 

    The unredacted emails showed that Ramsome corresponded with New York Post writer Maureen Callahan and called Trump a pedophile. She also said Trump had sexual relations with many of Epstein’s girls, including a friend of hers who had sex with Trump at Epstein’s New York mansion on “regular occasions.” But on Oct. 23, 2016, Ransome emailed Callahan again to retract all her claims about Trump and others. The relevant passages are found on Pages 4, 10 and 16 of the document.

    • In a Jan. 16, 2016, videotaped deposition released Jan. 9, Giuffre said Dershowitz had to have known what was going on at Epstein’s home because he visited frequently and saw all the young girls around. The relevant passages are found on Pages 153 and 154 of the 223-page document.

    “If you walked foot into Jeffrey Epstein’s house and you went in there and you continued to be an acquaintance of his, then you would have to know what was going on there,” Giuffre said.

    “So, Donald Trump was — in your mind, you believe — a witness to the sexual abuse of minors?” an attorney asked Giuffre.

    “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she responded. “That would have to be another assumption. I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein. I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself, so I don’t know.” Lawyers also asked Giuffre the same question about other public figures seen at Epstein’s home. 

    Do the documents mean Trump has been exonerated?

    Nothing in the new documents implicates Trump in a crime involving Epstein, but to say he’s been “exonerated” is a mischaracterization, legal experts told PolitiFact.

    “There is a difference between the failure of evidence to implicate a person as opposed to evidence that fully exonerates that individual,” Medwed said. 

    Dave Aronberg, a Democratic state attorney in West Palm Beach, Florida, said the documents neither incriminate nor exonerate Trump.

    “The documents provide bits and pieces of information without much context or corroboration,” he said. “Prosecutors aren’t moved by guilt by association, unless it’s backed by solid evidence.” 

    Some of the posts claiming Trump was exonerated shared a screenshot of a transcript in which a witness, Giuffre, testified to not seeing Trump at Epstein’s home or private island. 

    But that transcript was not among court documents released in January. It came from a 2,000-record batch  that was made public in 2019.

    Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct with women before. At least 19 women have alleged misconduct in recent years. Trump has not been criminally charged in any of those cases.

    In May, a civil court jury found Trump liable of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist and journalist, in 1996, and for defaming her. It awarded Carroll $5 million in a verdict Trump is appealing. Trump faces a second defamation lawsuit involving Carroll over comments he made in 2018.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.



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  • Fact Check: Documentos judiciales no dicen que el papa Juan Pablo II viajó a la isla de Jeffrey Epstein

    Un video en TikTok asegura que la Iglesia católica se verá envuelta en escándalo, alegando que el nombre del papa Juan Pablo II aparece en documentos judiciales vinculados a Jeffrey Epstein. Esto es engañoso.

    “Una muy mala noticia para la iglesia católica ya que el papa Juan Pablo II aparece en los documentos de Jeffrey Epstein”, dice el narrador del video. “El papa Juan Pablo II no aparece una vez, aparece varias veces en los vuelos hacia la isla Epstein”.

    Epstein, quien murió en prisión en 2019 mientras esperaba un juicio, fue acusado de abusar sexualmente a decenas de menores de edad. 

    Desde el 3 de enero se han publicado documentos judiciales de una demanda presentada en 2015 por Virginia Giuffre contra Ghislaine Maxwell, socia y ex novia de Epstein. 

    Maxwell fue condenada a 20 años de prisión por cargos que incluían tráfico sexual, conspiración y transporte de una menor para participar en actividades sexuales ilegales. 

    Los documentos incluyen correos electrónicos, descripciones de la casa de Epstein y declaraciones de víctimas o testigos. El video en TikTok da la falsa impresión de que el papa Juan Pablo II está implicado en el abuso de menores. No es así.

    Para empezar, los documentos no mencionan el nombre del papa Juan Pablo II.

    PolitiFact revisó los documentos y encontramos una mención amplia en la declaración de Giuffre ante la jueza.

    “Recuerdo que habían fotos por todas partes, y las que se me quedan grabadas son – había una foto de Ghislaine con el papa”, dijo Giuffre. 

    Más tarde la jueza le pregunta: “¿Y Ghislaine no estaba en toples en una foto con el papa, para que me quede claro?” 

    “Correcto”, respondió Giuffre.

    Captura de pantalla de las menciones al papa en los documentos publicados del caso Epstein. Fuente: CourtListener

    Giuffre no especifica a cual papa se refiere.

    Sin embargo, en un video de una redada policial realizada en 2005 en la mansión de Epstein en Palm Beach, Florida, se ven una serie de fotos. Una de esas imágenes muestra a Epstein y Maxwell con el papa Juan Pablo II. Esta es la misma foto que muestra el video en TikTok.

    Aún así, los documentos publicados no revelan un comportamiento criminal o inapropiado de parte del papa Juan Pablo II, ni dicen que él viajó a la isla de Epstein. Esta isla es Little St. James, que forma parte de las Islas Vírgenes de Estados Unidos, y que fue el lugar donde entre 2001 y 2018 Epstein llevaba a niñas para obligarlas a realizar trabajo sexual, según la denuncia presentada en 2020 por la ex fiscal general de las Islas Vírgenes, Denise N. George.

    Calificamos la declaración de que el papa Juan Pablo II aparece varias veces en los vuelos hacia la isla Epstein como Falsa. 

    Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

    Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.



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  • Fact Check: Fact-check: Haley calls out Florida’s property insurance, inflation rate in CNN debate with DeSantis

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley tried to highlight some weaknesses in Florida’s economic performance during a presidential debate against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    DeSantis often lists the ways Florida is the nation’s top-ranked state, from gross domestic product to education to entrepreneurship. (We fact-checked his list.)

    “But if he’s gonna talk about his economy, I think what we should say is, ‘Why does Florida have the highest property insurance in the country?’” Haley said in the Jan. 10 CNN debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “Why is it that (Florida) is named the American hot spot for inflation? Why is it that his state is now known to have the highest cost of living increases?”

    RELATED: PolitiFact fact-checks of the Iowa debate between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley on CNN

    The property insurance claim rates True, although recent legislation aims to drive down rates. But we wanted to look at the other economic statistics that cast Florida in a less-sunny light.

    The federal government doesn’t collect official data on inflation rates by state. But it does collect inflation statistics for a range of metropolitan areas, and the two Florida metro areas tracked in this way currently have inflation rates well above the national average.

    The Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area had a 7.7% inflation rate over the past year, and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area had a 7.1% inflation rate. 

    Both cities’ rates are twice as high as the 3.1% national inflation rate over the same period.

    Housing costs are driving this, experts say.

    “A lot of people are still coming to Florida because the economy is really strong, and many like the fact that we don’t have an income tax like in New York,” Amanda Phalin, an economist at the University of Florida, told CNN last July. “In places like Miami, we’re seeing a lot of real estate demand from non-Floridians or non-American investors — generally wealthy folks who want to have a nice home here.”

    Florida residents are also grappling with high insurance costs in a state with high hurricane risk. In 2022, Floridians paid the highest average home insurance premium at $6,000 a year, 42% higher than the 2022 national average premium. 

    In our past analyses of Florida’s economy, we found that Florida has performed better on some important economic statistics, such as employment and gross domestic product but less well on wages, income and poverty.

    Senior correspondent Amy Sherman contributed to this article.

    RELATED: Ron DeSantis said a NYC school displaced students to house migrants. Here’s what happened.

    RELATED: Debate fact-check: Ron DeSantis’ misleading claim that 8 million migrants have come in under Biden



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  • Fact Check: Nikki Haley said ‘DeSantisLies.com’ 16 times in Iowa debate. How accurate is the website?

    Four minutes into the Iowa Republican presidential debate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley directed viewers to a website her campaign started to counter what she called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “lies.”

    “You’re gonna find out tonight there’s going to be a lot of Ron’s lies that have happened,” Haley said  in the Jan. 10 CNN debate at Drake University in Des Moines. “So, what we’re going to do is rather than have him go and tell you all these lies, you can go to DeSantisLies.com.” 

    Haley referred viewers to the website 16 times during the two-hour debate’s feistier moments. 

    DeSantis, meanwhile, had the “greatest hits” and “videotape” of Haley’s “lies” ready to go on his campaign website, RonDeSantis.com. But he didn’t bring it up nearly as often.


    Screenshot via website

    The DeSantisLies website lists what it calls 21 “documented lies,” from “Confucius Institutes” to “Social Security.” Many of the topics can be traced to published fact-checks by PolitiFact and other media outlets. (Thanks for the web traffic.) However, we didn’t always rate the statements “false,” as Haley’s website does, and we use the word “lie” only once a year.

    Here’s a fact-checker’s review of Haley’s fact-checking website. While some of the 21 claims on DeSantisLies.com feature independent fact-checks of false or misleading information, others serve more to distinguish political differences between the candidates. 

    RELATED: Fact-checking the 2024 Iowa debate between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley on CNN

    Tax Increases

    One of Haley’s first references to the website was when DeSantis claimed Haley tried to raise South Carolina’s gasoline tax when she was governor. “Bless his heart — DeSantisLies.com — we have never raised a tax,” she said. “I have never raised the tax at all.” 

    The website repeats a more nuanced version of the statement: “Haley never supported a net tax increase.” It says any proposed increase she supported was paired with a proposed tax cut.  

    PolitiFact rated the claim that Haley “raised taxes” Mostly False. (She linked to our story.) When she was a South Carolina state legislator, she co-sponsored a 2006 bill that raised the sales tax by 1 cent while also cutting property taxes — a change that a university researcher said would lower overall taxes for most homeowners. But people who do not own property did not benefit from the tax cut.

    As governor, Haley proposed coupling an increase in the gasoline tax with an income tax cut, but it didn’t pass while she was in office. 

    Transgender surgeries

    Haley name-dropped the website again when DeSantis attacked her for saying the “law should stay out of” gender-affirming care for minors.

    In defense, Haley pointed to her website: “The first thing I’ll say is, again, DeSantisLies.com, because I have never said anything related to the transgender stuff he says.”

    That isn’t accurate. In a June CBS interview, Haley said when determining what care should be available for transgender youth, the “law should stay out of it, and I think parents should handle it.” She followed up by saying, “When that child becomes 18, if they want to make more of a permanent change they can do that.”

    Haley’s website describes DeSantis’ claim as more black and white, writing that “DeSantis falsely claims Nikki Haley supports gender-changing surgeries for minors,” and she links to a May ABC News appearance during which she said that minors shouldn’t be allowed to have a “gender-changing procedure” and opposed “taxpayer dollars” funding one. 

    In the CNN debate, Haley reiterated that “we shouldn’t have any gender transitions before the age of 18.” 

    Border wall 

    When the topic turned to immigration, DeSantis claimed Haley opposed the border wall in 2016. “She ridiculed it when Donald Trump was for it and I’m telling you, you need a wall.”

    Haley replied, “I said you can’t just build a wall,” referring again to the website. “You have to do more than build a wall. It was having the wall and everything else. You can’t trust what Ron’s saying.”

    Haley’s right. We rated a statement similar to DeSantis’ from former President Donald Trump False.

    Haley didn’t oppose Trump’s border wall. In 2015, she said border security required more than a border wall and that technology, infrastructure and funding were also necessary. On the 2024 campaign trail, Haley has said she wants to finish building a border wall.

    Retirement Age 

    During the debate, DeSantis borrowed another misleading attack by Trump to hit Haley on Social Security. “She said recently that the age of Social Security is way too low,” DeSantis said. 

    We rated Trump’s similar claim by Half True. But to Haley, the attack is another “lie.”

    “When I said the retirement age was too low, again where he’s lying, it’s because if you go — and you can go to DeSantisLies.com — I said it’s too low if we’re gonna look at those in their 20s,” Haley replied.

    During an Aug. 24 Bloomberg Markets interview, Haley said the U.S. retirement age, when Americans can collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, is “way too low.” She said it should be raised in line with longer life expectancy. And she made clear that she didn’t support changing the age for current beneficiaries or those nearing retirement.

    Not all “fact-checks” 

    The website also features “lies” that never came up during the debate. Some are claims we have fact-checked, such as one from a pro-DeSantis PAC that “Nikki Haley argues in support of bringing Gaza refugees to America.”

    That’s False. Haley said many people in Gaza want to be free of terrorist rule, and that America’s “always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists.”

    Some examples on DeSantisLies.com veer closer to opinion, prediction and political rhetoric rather than checkable statements — such as the “lie” that DeSantis “​​will take on the big spenders in Washington,” or that “Haley always caves to the left.” These are broad statements or promises that we would not fact-check.

    PolitiFact Staff Writer Loreben Tuquero contributed to this report.

    RELATED: Ron DeSantis said a NYC school displaced students to house migrants. Here’s what happened.

    RELATED: Fact-check: Haley calls out Florida’s property insurance, inflation rate in CNN debate with DeSantis

    RELATED: Debate fact-check: Ron DeSantis’ misleading claim that 8 million migrants have come in under Biden

    RELATED: Who’s right on life expectancy, Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley? Both 



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  • Fact Check: Fact-checking Trump’s Iowa town hall: Wuhan scientist, wars, ‘no inflation’ and DeSantis on Fauci

    While his leading Republican competitors tangled on a Des Moines, Iowa, debate stage across town, former President Donald Trump shared attention-grabbing anecdotes and recycled claims in his own town hall.

    The Jan. 10 event hosted by Fox News five days before the Iowa caucuses covered a wide range of topics, including foreign policy, COVID-19 and the economy. Moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum joined voters — many of whom said they would be caucusing for Trump — in asking what they could expect from another Trump term. But the Republican frontrunner focused more on the past, invoking his presidential record and strong poll numbers while attacking his campaign opponents, including President Joe Biden.

    Here are four claims that stood out.

    “I think (COVID-19) was done out of incompetence. That’s what I think, I believe that. A scientist went out, said hello to his girlfriend and that was the end of that. She died and then people started dying all over the place.”

    Trump was referring to the theory that the COVID-19 virus originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China. U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided over the virus’s likely origin. But we wondered about the origin of the girlfriend anecdote.

    A government report declassified in June 2023 said the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies pointed to natural exposure to an infected animal as the likely source of COVID-19, whereas the Energy Department and the FBI say a lab-related incident was the likely cause.

    When we asked Trump’s campaign about the account that it was spread by a scientist to a girlfriend, it referred us to Trump’s website for evidence. We found no mentions of “Wuhan” or “COVID-19” on the site.

    But our searches led us to one unsourced account that sounded similar: 

    In April 2020, Fox News reported that unnamed sources said COVID-19 likely originated from a Wuhan lab leak and “because of risky practices, the virus got out, infected a lab worker, who then infected his girlfriend.”

    “But if you go back and look at the record, you will see that the biggest fan of Dr. Fauci was Ron DeSanctimonious. He was a big fan. He said, ‘I go by’ — exactly quote — ‘I go by what Dr. Fauci said.’” 

    Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke highly of Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert and then-director of the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases. We didn’t find DeSantis using the exact quote Trump recounted, but he did say something similar.

    The Trump campaign pointed us to a June 1 CNN article that explored some of DeSantis’ March 2020 praise for Fauci, who helped lead the national response to COVID-19. At the time, DeSantis said that Fauci was “really doing a good job,” CNN reported. When he was asked about the timeline for the coronavirus pandemic and recovery on March 14, 2020, DeSantis said, “I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci.” 

    DeSantis later changed his tune on Fauci, however. In 2021, DeSantis started selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” merchandise, while opposing measures meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus — mask mandates and stay-at-home orders. In 2022, DeSantis called Fauci a “little elf” who should be chucked “across the Potomac.”

    Trump, like DeSantis, frequently criticized Fauci. But he, too, praised Fauci at times. On Jan. 29, 2020, Trump formed a White House Coronavirus Task Force that included Fauci and others who the administration described as “subject matter experts” and “some of the Nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases.” Trump featured Fauci in a 2020 campaign ad, in which he used a Fauci statement out of context to suggest Fauci was complimentary of Trump’s pandemic response. And on his last full day in office, Trump awarded presidential commendations to Fauci and 51 others, though he later said he didn’t know who had given the commendation.

    “I had no wars. I’m the only president in 72 years — I didn’t have any wars.”

    During Trump’s four years as president, he did not seek authorization from Congress for use of military force, or a formal declaration of war against any other country. But under the Trump administration, the U.S. was involved in several wars, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

    Trump’s campaign directed us to Trump’s campaign website, where we found a January 2023 Wall Street Journal opinion article written by Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. In that piece, Vance praised Trump for “not starting any wars” as president and endorsed Trump’s 2024 run. 

    But we reported in 2021 that, as president, Trump deployed U.S. armed forces in foreign countries under the broad authorization to use force that was granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He oversaw aerial attacks in several countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

    Trump is also not the first president to avoid starting a war in 72 years. President Jimmy Carter, who was in office from 1977 to 1981, did not formally declare war on another country, seek authorization from Congress to use force or engage U.S. armed forces in a new sustained armed conflict with a foreign power.

    “We had no inflation” during the Trump administration.

    This is inaccurate. Trump made a similar claim in a 2022 speech at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

    Inflation was low under Trump, but at no point did the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index record “no inflation.”

    During Trump’s presidency, inflation rates hovered around 2% and then dropped at the start of COVID-19 pandemic when the economy was in a free-fall. The lowest recorded inflation under Trump was 0.1% in May 2020.

    At the pandemic’s onset, much of the country’s economic activity stopped amid initial shutdowns, and demand for goods and services cratered. So Trump claiming credit for little to no inflation glosses over the fact that rates were low not because of economic strength, but rather widespread economic distress.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.



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  • FactChecking the Haley-DeSantis GOP Debate

    Summary

    There were several disputes between Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the fifth Republican primary debate, the first of the 2024 election cycle to include only two candidates. We refereed some of those arguments and set the facts straight on other claims:

    • DeSantis said that in South Carolina, Haley “tried to raise the gas tax” and “proposed a tax on groceries.” Haley said she’d accept an increase in the gas tax only if the state’s income tax was reduced by a greater margin. She also once said she’d support resurrecting the grocery tax if the overall sales tax was reduced and corporate income taxes eliminated.
    • DeSantis misleadingly claimed that President Joe Biden “let in 8 million people” across the southern border, saying, “They all have to go back.” Many of them have already gone back.
    • Haley touted a Wall Street Journal poll that showed her beating Biden by 17 points in a general election between the two candidates, but she left the false impression that “every one” of such polls had her up by that much.
    • The candidates tangled over Syrian refugees who came to South Carolina when Haley was governor. DeSantis claimed that Haley “did bring Syrian refugees” to South Carolina, but Haley opposed the resettlement of Syrian refugees in her state.
    • Each candidate failed to adequately explain the other’s position on Social Security and the retirement age. DeSantis also incorrectly said life expectancy was “collapsing.” Life expectancy at birth actually rose between 2021 and 2022, after drops driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
    • On transgender issues, DeSantis accused Haley of killing a 2016 bathroom bill when she was governor and changing her position on what medical care should be legally available to minors, but he overstated both claims.
    • DeSantis said Haley “opposed the border wall in 2016” and “ridiculed” Trump for proposing it. But in calling for a more comprehensive approach, Haley said then that “just” building a wall was not going to solve illegal immigration.
    • DeSantis disagreed that he had issued a statement similar to Haley’s in response to the killing of George Floyd. We’ll let readers decide.

    The Jan. 10 debate in Des Moines, Iowa, was hosted by CNN. During the first hour, former President Donald Trump was participating in a town hall, also in Des Moines, that aired on Fox News.

    Analysis

    Tax Disputes

    Haley objected when DeSantis said that she “tried to raise the gas tax” in South Carolina.

    “What we said is, if you want to raise the gas tax, you have to reduce the income tax by five times that amount,” Haley shot back. She’s right.

    Haley opposed a stand-alone tax increase on gasoline, but did propose an infrastructure plan that would have raised the gas tax only if state legislators also voted to cut income taxes for residents.

    In a 2015 article, South Carolina’s Post and Courier reported that Haley’s plan “aims to raise the tax on gasoline by 10 cents a gallon over three years while reducing the state income tax from 7 percent to 5 percent over 10 years.” The article noted that the proposal had the support of Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes higher taxes.

    Ultimately, no such plan was approved while Haley was governor.

    Haley also pushed back when DeSantis claimed that she “proposed a tax on groceries” for South Carolinians.

    “We don’t have a grocery tax in South Carolina,” she said.

    The state’s sales and use tax rate on unprepared food items was eliminated in 2007, as Haley indicated. But DeSantis appears to be referring to reporting that Haley later considered implementing a 2.5% grocery tax in exchange for cutting sales taxes overall, as well as eliminating income taxes on corporations.

    The Free Times reported that Haley, then a gubernatorial candidate, indicated “she would probably favor a reinstated tax on groceries as part of broader tax reform that would simultaneously lower the overall sales tax rate and wipe out the corporate income tax in South Carolina.”

    DeSantis Misleads on Illegal Immigration

    In speaking about illegal immigration, DeSantis claimed that Biden “let in 8 million people just in four years. They all have to go back.” That’s misleading. Many of them have already gone back.

    Since Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. Border Patrol had more than 6 million encounters with people trying to cross the southwest border illegally, through November, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website. In addition, the Republican-controlled House Homeland Security Committee released a report in October that estimated that under Biden there have been 1.7 million “gotaways” — which are people who cross the border illegally without being apprehended.

    Combined, the two figures are close to the 8 million number cited by DeSantis.

    But, as we have written before, the number of border encounters includes those immediately expelled under Title 42, a public health law the Trump administration began invoking at the southwest border in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The policy did not end until May 11, 2023. The CBP data show that from January 2021 through May 2023, there had been about 2.5 million people who were immediately expelled under Title 42.

    Also, as we have written, the CBP data represent the number of encounters, not people, and there are individuals who have been apprehended multiple times trying to cross the border illegally. The most recent recidivism rate available was 27% in fiscal year 2021, which is through Sept. 30, 2021.

    In an article earlier this month, the Washington Post wrote that the actual number of migrants apprehended at the southern border and released into the United States to await immigration court proceedings under Biden is about 2.3 million. That figure is based on a Department of Homeland Security report.

    “The DHS data released Friday show more than 4 million border-crossers have been expelled to Mexico, returned to home countries or otherwise removed from the United States over the past three years,” the Post reported.

    Haley-Biden Polls

    In her closing remarks, Haley left the false impression that in “every one” of the hypothetical head-to-head general election polls, she defeats Biden “by 17 points.” That margin is from a Wall Street Journal poll, but other polls don’t put her ahead of Biden by that much. And some show Biden slightly ahead of Haley.

    In an average of recent polls, she does better against Biden than either DeSantis or Trump, but the margins for all are small.

    “We can’t go through another nail-biter of an election,” Haley said. “And if you look at the polls right now, going against Joe Biden. In every one of those head-to-head polls, Ron doesn’t beat Joe Biden. Trump is head-to-head. On a good day he might be up by 2 points. I defeat Biden by 17 points.”

    The Wall Street Journal poll, conducted Nov. 29 to Dec. 4 among 1,500 registered voters, showed Haley beating Biden by 17 points, when voters were asked which of those two politicians they would vote for if the 2024 general election were held that day. That spread includes those who said they would “definitely” and “probably” vote for either Haley or Biden. In the hypothetical matchup between DeSantis and Biden, the candidates were tied. Trump was ahead of Biden by 4 points.

    RealClear Polling’s average of recent head-to-head polls shows Haley leading Biden by 3.3 percentage points, while the average for DeSantis has him trailing Biden by 0.3 percentage points. Trump is up by an average of 1.2 points. Most polls have a margin of error of 2% to 3%.

    Besides that sizable 17-point spread in the Wall Street Journal poll, Haley bests Biden by 6 points in a Fox News survey and by 10 in a poll by The Messenger/Harris X. Biden is up by 5, however, in an Economist/YouGov survey. RealClear Polling’s list shows DeSantis beating Biden by 2 points at most in recent polls, and one December survey had Trump up by 6.

    Syrian Refugees

    In an exchange on Syrian refugees, Haley said that as the governor of South Carolina “we fought [President Barack] Obama on Syrian refugees.” DeSantis shot back, “She did bring Syrian refugees, and she got criticized for that” — to which Haley responded, “That is not true.”

    Never Back Down, a super PAC that supports DeSantis, previously told us in an email in October that Haley supported Obama’s resettlement of refugees in South Carolina in the spring of 2015 “until she was pressured by members of her own party into reversing her position in November following the Paris terrorist attacks.” But the April 22, 2015, story that the super PAC sent to us said Haley was “asking that those being brought to Spartanburg not come from Syria, given her constituents’ fears over who may be connected to terrorist groups,” and quoted her as saying “hopefully can bring in somebody other than Syrians.”

    After the Paris terrorist attack in November 2015, Haley sent a letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry asking the Obama administration not to send any Syrian refugees to the United States. We can’t say whether GOP pressure prompted the correspondence. In her letter, she cited the Paris attack that killed 130 people and wounded 494 others, and news reports that one of the attackers falsely declared himself to be a Syrian refugee.

    “I have concerns with the vetting process of refugees from conflict-zones, specially Syria,” Haley wrote. She went on to say, “Therefore, until I can be assured that all potential refugees from Syria have no ties to terrorist organizations, I am requesting that the State Department not resettle any Syrian refugees in South Carolina.”

    More than half of the governors opposed having Syrian refugees resettled in their states. But as American University law professor Stephen I. Vladeck told CNN at the time: “Legally, states have no authority to do anything because the question of who should be allowed in this country is one that the Constitution commits to the federal government.”

    In fiscal year 2016, which started Oct. 1, 2015, and ended Sept. 30, 2016, South Carolina received 38 Syrian refugees, according to State Department data. In fiscal year 2017, which was from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, South Carolina received another 11 refugees from Syria. Haley left the governor’s office in January 2017.

    Scuffle Over Social Security 

    In a back-and-forth on Social Security, both Haley and DeSantis left out important details when characterizing the other’s position on the issue.

    “She said recently that the age of Social Security is way too low,” DeSantis said of Haley.

    “He voted to raise the retirement age to 70 three different times,” Haley responded.

    Both statements are technically true, but require context. As Haley explained later in the debate, she does support raising the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits to address concerns about the program’s solvency — but only for people who are currently in their 20s. 

    The former South Carolina governor announced her stance back in March, although she did not specify what the increased age would be. “What you would do is, for those in their 20s coming into the system, we would change the retirement age so that it matches life expectancy,” she told Fox News at the time. 

    Haley confirmed in the debate that in her view, people in their 20s “should plan on their retirement age being increased” to better match life expectancy, but again declined to specify an age.

    Haley is correct that in the past, DeSantis has supported raising the retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits. As we have written, as a member of Congress, DeSantis voted for three nonbinding budget proposals in 2013, 2014 and 2015 that called for increasing the full retirement age to 70 and indexing it for life expectancy. Full retirement age, or when someone is eligible for full Social Security benefits, is currently 66 or 67. The proposal would not have changed the minimum retirement age, which is 62.

    But DeSantis no longer backs that position. In March, a few months before announcing his presidential run, he said in an interview on Fox News, “We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans.”

    Haley did allude to this shift, arguing earlier in the debate that DeSantis had changed his mind on Social Security and retirement age. “So now suddenly, he’s going to tell you because he’s running for president, he’s not going to do it,” she said. “You can’t trust him.”

    In a Fox News interview in July, DeSantis appeared to entertain some changes to Social Security for people in their 30s or 40s. But during the debate — as he did in previous face-offs — DeSantis said he would not raise the retirement age “in the face of declining life expectancy.”

    “The problem now in the last five years is life expectancy is going down,” he said, repeating a misleading claim from an earlier debate. “So I don’t see how you can raise the retirement age when our life expectancy is collapsing in this country. That’s a huge problem in and of itself.”

    Life expectancy in the U.S. is not “collapsing.” Between 2019 and 2021, life expectancy did drop 2.4 years, largely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that trend is already starting to reverse: According to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in November, life expectancy at birth for 2022 was 77.5 years — an increase of 1.1 years from the year prior.

    Moreover, as we’ve noted before, what’s relevant for Social Security is life expectancy at retirement age — not birth — and the relative size of the working population compared with the retired population.

    “Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the ‘baby boom’ generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security’s future financial condition,” an archived agency webpage reads.

    In 2022, an average 65-year-old is expected to live another 18.9 years — generally longer than in previous decades.

    Transgender Issues

    DeSantis again scuffled with Haley over her record on transgender issues. He brought up 2016 legislation related to bathrooms and cherry-picked a statement by Haley on gender-affirming medical care for minors.

    We’ll address the history of the bathroom bill first.

    “When she was governor of South Carolina, they had a bill to protect girls from men going into the bathroom. She killed it and she’s bragged about it for years that that happened,” DeSantis said.

    “When it comes to the bathroom bill, I will say, first of all, that was 10 years ago,” Haley said. “We had a handful of kids that may have had that issue. And what I made very clear at that time in the state is: girls go into girls bathrooms, boys go into boys bathrooms, and if there are any other exceptions, they use a private bathroom.”

    As PolitiFact explained after the Dec. 6 Republican primary debate, it’s true that a bill had been proposed in 2016 in South Carolina to restrict public bathroom usage based on biological sex assigned at birth. But Haley’s role as governor in its failure isn’t clear.

    North Carolina had passed a similar bill that year (although it repealed the main provisions the following year after backlash), and several other states considered similar legislation.

    Haley told reporters at the time that she didn’t think the bill was necessary.

    The bill died in committee, so it was never presented to Haley to veto or sign into law.

    Later, in 2022, she claimed on Fox News that she had “strong-armed and said, ‘we are not going to have that in South Carolina,’” because it’s better to have a school work with parents to offer transgender children private bathrooms.

    So, it’s true that she didn’t support the bathroom bill, but it’s unclear how much she influenced its failure.

    As for Haley’s position on medical intervention for minors, DeSantis misled, as he did during the December debate. “She said she’s against the surgeries for minors,” DeSantis said. “That wasn’t what she said this summer. She was asked about it … and she said the law should stay out of it.”

    “I have never said that we should have any gender operations or surgery,” Haley responded.

    When Haley was asked on the June 5 episode of “CBS Mornings” what the law should allow for treatment of transgender youth, she answered: “I think the law should stay out of it and I think parents should handle it. This is a job for the parents to handle and then, when that child becomes 18, if they want to make more of a permanent change, they can do that.”

    In a May 3 interview, Haley specifically said, “You shouldn’t allow a child to have a gender-changing procedure until the age of 18 when they are an adult.”

    Haley on Border Wall

    DeSantis accused Haley of flip-flopping on the need to build more border wall, claiming that in 2016 she ridiculed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for proposing it. Haley said she never opposed the wall and she was making the point that it was only part of the solution to illegal immigration.

    “Nikki Haley also opposed the border wall in 2016,” DeSantis claimed. “She, she ridiculed it when Donald Trump was for it. And I’m telling you, you need a wall. You can’t trust politicians to do this. If the wall’s there, it’s a physical fact of life.”

    As she did repeatedly in the debate, Haley responded by directing readers to desantislies.com.

    “I said you can’t just build a wall, you have to do more than build a wall,” Haley said. “It was having the wall and everything else. You can’t trust what Ron’s saying.”

    The website Haley directed viewers to includes a video of the comment in question, which Haley made at a National Press Club luncheon on Sept. 2, 2015, in discussing a comprehensive solution to illegal immigration.

    “If you notice, they’re all saying, ‘We want to secure the borders.’ That’s a big deal,” Haley said. “What does that mean to you in terms of your commitment to work with Congress to actually secure the border? Don’t say you’re just going to build a wall, because a wall’s not going to do it. You’ve got to have commitment of ground troops, equipment, money, all of that, to bring it together. Then you’re being serious about tackling illegal immigration.”

    During her presidential campaign, Haley has advocated building more border wall. During a trip to the border in April 2023, Haley pointed to fencing built by the Trump administration and said, “We need to finish what we started.”

    Response to George Floyd Killing

    As he has on the campaign trail, DeSantis criticized Haley for a statement she made after the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.

    “Nikki Haley and I have a disagreement on the BLM stuff too, because she tweeted during this period of time that the death of George Floyd should be, quote, personal and painful for each and every American,” DeSantis said. “But people in Iowa had nothing to do with that, or Florida or South Carolina. She was virtue signaling to the left. She was accepting the narrative and she was trying to impress people who were never going to like us.”

    Haley said she found DeSantis’ comment “interesting” because he put out “a tweet that was very similar.” To which DeSantis replied, “That’s not true.”

    We’ll let readers decide how similar their statements were in the days after Floyd, a Black man, was killed after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on Floyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis for about nine minutes. Chauvin was subsequently convicted of murdering Floyd.

    DeSantis was referring to a message Haley posted on X, then known as Twitter, on May 30, 2020.

    “It’s important to understand that the death of George Floyd was personal and painful for many,” Haley wrote in her post. “In order to heal, it needs to be personal and painful for everyone.”

    Haley also wrote, “Bad cops need to be held accountable and punished swiftly. They need to be made examples of and procedures should change but don’t underestimate the many good officers out there trying to keep all of us safe. Let’s fix the problems but not with more bad. Don’t add to the tragedy.”

    Shortly after their debate exchange, Haley’s team posted on X that DeSantis was “trying to rewrite history on George Floyd.” The post included a video of DeSantis saying, “So when I saw the video of that cop murdering George Floyd, I was just absolutely appalled by what I saw.” DeSantis said he was immediately assured by Florida law enforcement officials that it went against state training to put a knee on a suspect’s neck like that. DeSantis called for “swift accountability not just for the officer who had the knee but the other ones that didn’t do anything. I think everyone agrees that that’s just totally intolerable what happened.”

    That mirrors a statement DeSantis put out on June 1, 2020, saying: “Florida has zero tolerance for violence, rioting & looting. George Floyd’s murder was appalling & the MN perpetrators need to be brought to justice, but this cannot be used as a pretext for violence in our communities.”

    Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

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  • Fact Check: Who’s right on life expectancy, Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley? Both

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sparred over whether to raise the Social Security retirement age during a CNN Republican presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

    Haley said life expectancy is longer today, so the age to start collecting Social Security benefits should be older than the current 65 years old. She said people in or near retirement should be protected from a retirement age increase. But people in their 20s should be told that “we’re going to change the retirement age to reflect life expectancy.”

    DeSantis said he wouldn’t raise the age, citing an erosion in life expectancy over the past few years. 

    “The problem now in the last five years is life expectancy is going down,” DeSantis said. “So I don’t see how you can raise the retirement age when our life expectancy is collapsing in this country.”

    PolitiFact readers asked us whether U.S. life expectancy is decreasing. We found that both candidates can point to data that supports their position.

    Haley is right that life expectancy has risen significantly since Social Security was created in the 1930s.

    In 1940, U.S. men had a life expectancy of about 54 years and women 61 years.

    By 2021, U.S. men had a life expectancy or 73.5 years and women just above 79 years. 

    Despite this, the Social Security retirement age has barely budged. In 1983, a new law phased in an increase to 67 years. (It’s possible to collect benefits earlier, but the amount is discounted.)

    DeSantis also is correct that during the past few years, U.S. life expectancy has retreated for the first time in generations. 

    Life expectancy decreased in 2020 and 2021. Analysts suggest that the coronavirus pandemic played a major role, as have “diseases of despair” including drug overdoses and suicides.

    There also is evidence that the life expectancy of lower-income Americans, who are reliant on Social Security to meet their basic needs, has not increased similarly to higher-income Americans.

    Preliminary data for 2022 shows an overall small uptick in life expectancy after two straight years of declines.

    While discussing life expectancy Haley called DeSantis hypocritical about his stance on not raising the retirement age. 

    “He hasn’t answered the fact that he voted to raise the retirement age to 70, three different times,” Haley said. 

    As a Florida congressman, DeSantis voted in 2013, 2014 and 2015 for three nonbinding budget proposals that called for raising the retirement age and slowing future Social Security spending. The House didn’t pass the proposals, but even if it had, they would not have become law.

    RELATED: Fact-checking the 2024 Iowa debate between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley on CNN

    RELATED: Ron DeSantis said a NYC school displaced students to house migrants. Here’s what happened.

    RELATED: Fact-check: Haley calls out Florida’s property insurance, inflation rate in CNN debate with DeSantis

    RELATED: Debate fact-check: Ron DeSantis’ misleading claim that 8 million migrants have come in under Biden



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