Tag: United States

MANCHESTER, N.H. — During a visit to New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would be a commander-in-chief who unreservedly supports allies, such as Israel, and takes dramatic steps to oppose groups harming Americans.

“We are being invaded by these cartels,” referring to drug traffickers in Mexico, DeSantis said during an Oct. 13 address at the “Politics & Eggs” speaker series at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “They are bringing poison in and they’re killing our people. So as commander-in-chief, you have the right to respond when American lives are being taken”

DeSantis also criticized the field’s front-runner, former President Donald Trump, for missing the GOP’s First in the Nation two-day summit sponsored by the New Hampshire Republican Party. All other candidates attended.

“Republicans need to stop making excuses,” DeSantis said. “We’re not going to get a mulligan on the 2024 election. We’re either going to get the job done, we’re going to be able to chart a better path for this country, or we’re going to continue to dig ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole.”

If Trump wins the nomination, DeSantis said, “I think you’re gonna see down-ballot effects that are going to make holding the House very difficult.”

DeSantis also said Trump shouldn’t be criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israeli security lapses in the wake of the Hamas attacks.

With Israel now at war against Hamas in Gaza, “that is not how you treat an ally,” DeSantis said. “It’s not how I would treat an ally.”

Here are a few things DeSantis said in Manchester, along with our fact-checks. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses an audience at St. Anselm College as part of the “Politics & Eggs” speaker series. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)

Economy

Inflation “was government-induced by (Joe Biden’s) response to COVID, which was a total disaster, by borrowing and printing trillions and trillions of dollars, acting like that wasn’t going to cause disruptions in the economy.”

Biden’s economic response accelerated inflation, but there were other factors, too.

Economists say the Biden-backed 2021 American Rescue Plan Act worsened inflation by putting more money in Americans’ hands after the pandemic began to wane; this meant too much money was chasing too few goods.

However, COVID-19-related labor market disruptions and supply-chain difficulties are what initially drove up inflation. The war in Ukraine, which started in February 2022, led to a spike in gasoline prices and increased inflation, too. 

In Florida, “we have the second lowest per-capita tax burden in the entire country.”

Some analyses say this.

There are different ways of calculating a state’s tax burden. One ranking that backs up DeSantis’ assertion was conducted by USAFacts, a nonprofit organization that reports on government data. Using 2020 data, the organization ranked Florida as the second lowest tax burden state.  

One Florida’s tax rates are relatively low, but a leading measurement of state-by-state tax burdens — published annually by the Tax Foundation — ranked Florida as having the 11th-lowest tax burden of any state. Alaska and Wyoming ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

But regardless of the method, Florida ranks relatively low for its tax burden in the commonly cited studies.

Drugs

“I think (Florida is) the only state in the country that actually had a decline in overdose deaths outright.”

We asked DeSantis’campaign where he got the data, but did not hear back.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida had a slight increase in overall overdose deaths between 2020 and 2021, from 7,231 to 7,827. 

The large majority of states also saw increases in the same period, with the exception of Hawaii and Maryland, which saw nominal decreases; and Nebraska, which showed the same figure.

“We had a situation in Florida, a family was renting an Airbnb unit, and an 18 month old baby was crawling on the carpet. There happened to be residue from fentanyl from the previous tenant, and the baby died just by coming in contact with that fentanyl.”

That’s what a March lawsuit alleges.

Enora Lavenir, a 19-month-old visiting Wellington, Florida, died Aug. 7, 2021, at an Airbnb rental where her family was staying.

The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the toddler died of acute fentanyl toxicity, NBC News reported when the lawsuit was filed. The family, which was visiting from France, filed a wrongful death lawsuit that said the Florida property had a history of being used for parties. 

NBC News reported that a sheriff’s incident report showed investigators interviewed the prior renter, who said cocaine and marijuana were used during his stay, but not fentanyl. The sheriff’s office said the death is listed as accidental and the case is closed.

Attorneys for the prior renter and the property owner, who were named in the suit, told NBC they denied fault, alleging negligence by the parents or others who were at the property, such as cleaners.

Florida “finished third and fourth, respectively, in fourth grade reading and fourth grade math.”

This is accurate, according to the 2022 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. 

Known as the nation’s report card, the NAEP tests fourth and eighth graders on key academic subjects. The 2022 report, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic, found that Florida’s fourth graders placed third and fourth in the U.S. in average scores for reading and math. 

DeSantis said the results are because his administration is “fully invested in parental choice.” However, the fuller picture shows that some of these test results have worsened since he’s been governor, while others stayed the same. 

In 2017, the year before DeSantis won his first term, Florida’s fourth graders had an average reading score of 228. In 2019, that dropped to 225, where it remained in the 2022 assessment.  The NAEP notes that changes above or below .05 are “statistically significant.” These scores are considered below “proficiency” — but are above the national average, which dipped to 216 in 2022. 

For math, Florida fourth graders in 2017 had an average score of 246. This stayed the same in 2019, but dropped to 241 in 2022. These levels are also considered below proficiency, but are higher than the national average.

In all, Florida fared better than many other states. The report showed significant declines in math and reading proficiency that affected students in every state and region, with academic progress believed to be largely derailed over disruptions from the pandemic. 

“Florida currently ranks No. 1 for economy by CNBC. No. 1 for education by U.S. News and World Report.”

He’s right about CNBC, and partially right on the U.S. News and World Report assessment.

In July, CNBC ranked Florida first in states that are “running the best economies.”

U.S. News and World Report ranked Florida No. 1 for higher education, but 14th for pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. Florida’s combined rating for the two categories ranked 10th overall among states.

The higher education rankings were based on several factors, including the share of citizens holding college degrees, college graduation rates, the cost of in-state tuition and fees and the burden of student debt.

PolitiFact Copy Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this report.

Una publicación en Facebook declara especulaciones alarmistas de que Estados Unidos lanzó el primer ataque hacia el Medio Oriente después del ataque de Hamas a Israel.

“Estados Unidos lanza el primer ataque hacia Medio Oriente, Joe Biden furioso por los atentados del grupo Hamas en Medio Oriente sobre la ciudad de Israel ha decidido realizar un ataque aéreo”, dice el video del 8 de octubre.

El narrador de la publicación añadió: “La flota de aviones alcanzó sus objetivos y destruyó bases militares de Hamas”.

La publicación fue marcada como parte del esfuerzo de Meta para combatir las noticias falsas y la desinformación en su plataforma. (Lea más sobre nuestra colaboración con Meta, propietaria de Facebook e Instagram).

El presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, dijo el 10 de octubre que Israel tiene el apoyo de los Estados Unidos para defenderse del grupo militante Hamas. Pero no hay evidencia de que Biden haya autorizado un ataque hacia el Medio Oriente en defensa de Israel. 

Un portavoz de la Oficina del Secretario de Defensa de los Estados Unidos le dijo a PolitiFact el 12 de octubre que el video en Facebook es falso. 

PolitiFact encontró que la publicación en Facebook es originalmente de otro usuario que crea contenido satírico. En la parte izquierda del video se nota el logo de TikTok y el nombre del usuario @newkasnews. El video en TikTok también tiene etiquetas como #humor, #humortiktok y la biografía del perfil dice: “Nuestras noticias aveces son verdad”.

Al hacer una búsqueda de imagen inversa, encontramos que varias de las imágenes en la publicación son escenas ficticias del video juego, Arma 3. Pavel Křižka, el manager de relaciones públicas de Bohemia Interactive, la compañía que desarrolló el juego, le confirmó a PolitiFact que las escenas de acción en el video fueron producidas en Arma 3. 

La compañía también dijo el 10 de octubre que las imágenes estaban siendo usadas para representar falsamente conflictos bélicos de la vida real.

 

(Screenshot de publicación en TikTok).

“Si bien es halagador que Arma 3 simule los conflictos bélicos modernos de una manera tan realista, ciertamente no nos complace que pueda confundirse con imágenes de combate de la vida real y usarse como propaganda de guerra”, dijo Křižka.

Calificamos la publicación que dice que “Estados Unidos lanza el primer ataque hacia Medio Oriente” después del ataque de Hamas a Israel como Falsa. 

Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

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

A recent Instagram post worries about the possibility of “World War Three” as the Israel-Hamas war causes death and suffering in the Middle East. 

“U.S. Navy pilots arrive in Palestine,” reads the text above a video in the post, which shows about a dozen aircraft flying in tight formation. 

This 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.)

After Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the United States started moving warships and aircraft to the region to help the country. The Pentagon has also ordered warplanes to bolster squadrons at bases throughout the Middle East, The Associated Press reported. But this video doesn’t show U.S. Navy pilots arriving in Palestine, according to the Pentagon. 

“This is false,” a spokesperson for the U.S. defense secretary’s office told PolitiFact. 

We looked for, but couldn’t find, where this video originated. However, an archived version of a  deleted TikTok post appears to show a still of the video and suggests it was fabricated. 

“BREAKING,” the TikTok post said. “A large Israeli offensive is underway in retaliation for Hamas attacks.” 

The post used hashtags including #virtualreality #shorts #edit #cinematic and said “Filmed with Digital Combat Simulator.”

We rate this post False.

 

NASHUA, N.H. — On the closing day of a summit sponsored by the New Hampshire Republican Party, two more presidential candidates — Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and former Vice President Mike Pence — sought support in the crucial early primary state.

Scott and Pence spoke at the First in the Nation Summit in Nashua, delivering 20-minute speeches for an audience packed with party officials and Republican voters. 

The only major candidate not to speak was President Donald Trump.

Scott leaned heavily on his personal story, describing growing up in poverty in South Carolina to a single mother who worked long hours as a nurse’s aide. He also described being partly raised by a grandfather who had little formal education. 

“I didn’t know if the American dream would work for me,” he said.

Scott said his upbringing shaped his outlook. 

“There’s this drug called victimhood that is devastating our country,” he said, offering veiled criticism of Trump by saying that “there are people who believe that grievance is our way forward.”

Pence focused on curbing federal spending, saying that he — unlike President Joe Biden or Trump — would tackle entitlement spending in programs such as Social Security and Medicare for people younger than 40, suggesting raising the retirement age, means-testing for benefits and letting Americans invest a invest portion of their pay instead of having to pay payroll taxes on it.

Pence said he strongly supports Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, but the comment received only a trickling of applause. Support for Ukraine divides Republicans across the country.

“If you don’t see a growing axis between Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, you’re just not paying attention,” Pence said.

We fact-checked several of the candidates’ claims. Earlier, we fact-checked claims by candidates former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy during the summit’s first day.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., addresses the First in the Nation summit Oct. 14, 2023, in Nashua, N.H. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)

Economy and budget

Pence: “Runaway spending has caused the worst inflation in 40 years.”

Inflation did hit 40-year highs, though year-over-year inflation has since fallen near historical norms.

Inflation was under 2% when Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. It then rose sharply, peaking at about 9% in June 2022, which was the highest in about 40 years. It has since fallen to 3.7% for September. That’s much closer to the Federal Reserve Board’s target rate of 2%.

Also, economists say that higher federal spending designed to target the coronavirus pandemic accelerated inflation, but did not cause it; inflation emerged earlier because of supply chain difficulties during the pandemic.

Pence: “75% of federal spending is in entitlements. … (In the House budget battles) they’re nickel and diming with about 10% of the budget.

His numbers are in the ballpark. 

Entitlements — a type of spending that Congress does not have to reauthorize every year, and that includes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits paid to older and low-income people and people with disabilities — account for about 67% of federal spending.

The type of spending Congress has to approve annually — which includes funding for federal departments and agencies — amounts to 25.6% of federal spending. About 11.5% of that amount covers defense spending; the other 14% covers spending for everything other than defense.

Pence: “We’re a year away from spending more on the national debt than on national defense.”

This outcome is expected during the next few years, not quite as soon as Pence said.

Congressional Budget Office projections from February 2023 show that net interest is projected to exceed defense spending starting in fiscal year 2029.

Scott: “Our current interest-only payment (is) $572 billion, not touching the principal. Interest only.”

It’s even higher. For fiscal 2022, the most recent full year, the Office of Management and Budget reported that the U.S. paid almost $661 billion in net interest costs.

Scott: After President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was enacted in 2017, “we saw unemployment rates go to the lowest in the history of the country for minorities” and “a 70-year low for women.”

The economy is so sprawling that it’s hard to gauge how much the tax cuts factored in reaching those initial lows under Trump. But Scott has a point on the correlative data.

The Black unemployment rate reached a record low of 5.4% in September 2019; the Hispanic rate hit a record low of 4% the same month; and the rate for women reached a 67-year low of 3.4% in February 2020.

The rates have fallen further under Biden. The Black rate fell to 4.7% in April 2023; the Hispanic rate fell to 3.9% in September 2022; and the rate for women fell to 3.3% in April 2023. 

Scott: “Biden in his first act passed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, and the only thing missing was COVID relief.”

This might be a rhetorical exaggeration by Scott, but the package included numerous provisions targeted at reducing COVID-19’s spread. 

The 2021 American Rescue Plan clarified that COVID-19 vaccines and administration were covered free for people on Medicaid, and it provided $250 million for states to aid Medicaid-certified nursing facilities with COVID-19 cases among residents or staff, according to KFF, a health policy think tank.

It also included extended unemployment insurance when COVID-19 was keeping some businesses from hiring, and it provided emergency aid to small businesses to rehire or retain workers and to buy the health and sanitation equipment needed to keep workers safe from the virus. 

Foreign policy

Scott: The U.S. agreement to trade Iranian hostages in exchange for unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds could aid Hamas because “money is fungible.”

None of that money would have gone directly to Hamas before it attacked Israel on Oct. 7, because the funds — oil revenue that was frozen in South Korea — has not been disbursed and can be unfrozen only for humanitarian purchases. (The U.S. is considering refreezing the funds because of to the Hamas attack.)

Still, experts say the fungibility argument is plausible.

“The safeguards in place are surely good enough to make sure only legitimate goods are purchased using those funds,” said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Middle East-focused think tank. “But nobody can say what’s then done with those goods.”

Matthew Kroenig, a Georgetown University government and foreign service professor, said, “If you had a large end-of-year bonus payment coming your way, might you start spending more money in the meantime? Of course. Money is fungible.”

This is especially true in a country with a highly centralized economy and government, Levitt added. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an influential military branch within Iran, “controls so much of the Iranian economy, there’s no way to have comfort (that) the goods aren’t sold and some funds go to underwrite militancy.”

Amid false claims that a CNN team staged a rocket attack near the Israel-Hamas border, a recent Instagram post suggests that they weren’t even there. 

“A long honored tradition at CNN to absolutely fake being somewhere they ain’t,” the Oct. 11 post said.

The post shared an image of Clarissa Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, taking shelter on the roadside.

“CNN staging a dramatic live reporting of a barrage of rockets by them,” text above the image says. “They cut off the footage when 2 men casually walking on the sidewalk with flipflops get into the camera view.” 

This 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.)

We asked CNN about the post, and a spokesperson said Ward and her team were near the border “when a barrage of rockets flew close to their position.” (This echoes CNN’s description of the Oct. 9 footage on its website.)
“Their location was close to the place where Hamas militants had first breached the border wall and begun firing at vehicles, resulting in multiple casualties,” said Jonathan Hawkins, CNN’s vice president of communications. “The team was reporting on the aftermath of the weekend’s assault and the ongoing situation close to the border.” 

Ward said as much in the broadcast. About two and a half minutes into the clip on CNN’s site, two men walk by, one wearing flip-flops, but the video doesn’t “cut off” as the post claims. Ward continues to describe the scene for another minute. 

Hawkins said Ward was still reporting from Israel on Oct. 12 but declined to disclose her exact location. 

We found no credible evidence to doubt this. 

We rate this post False.

A video recirculating on social media suggests that recent violence in Israel and Gaza is staged. 

The footage shows about 10 people surrounding and carrying what looks like a stretcher. When an air siren sounds, the people scatter, dropping the stretcher and leaving it in the street. As the camera zooms in, the person who’d been on the stretcher, covered in a wrap and presumably a corpse, throws off the cover, stands and  runs off. Someone off camera laughs. 

“How radical Israeli build narrative,” an Oct. 11 X post sharing the video said. “A dead boy suddenly comes alive hearing an air raid siren. #Gaza_under_attack #Hamas #Israel.” 

“Everything seems to be fake,” reads the text over a version of the video shared on Instagram Oct. 11. 

This 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.)

A reverse-image search of several stills from the video revealed it predates the current violence in the Middle East. 

It’s been online since at least March 2020, and several posts connect it to COVID-19. 

One September 2021 Facebook post also suggests the clip was filmed in Jordan. BBC News reviewed 2020 reports that said “it showed a group of boys in Jordan trying to avoid strict COVID-19 restrictions by pretending to hold a funeral.” (The BBC fact-checked another claim in 2021 that the video showed a fake funeral in Gaza.) 

We rate claims the video is related to the current violence in Israel and Gaza False.