On Sept. 16, CNN hosted the GOP Debate between the Republican presidential candidates. The following statements were made by candidates throughout the GOP debates, and the verdicts were decided by The Current staff upon after heavy research of reputable sources. Full transcripts of the debates can be found online at Time.com, CNN.com and other news sources.
- “[Saudi Arabians] are not accepting any of the people, any of the migrants that have been—the refugees that are being pushed out of Syria. Saudi Arabia is not accepting one.”—Rand Paul on Syrian Refugees
- According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there are currently 4,086,760 registered Syrian refugees. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both stated that Saudi Arabia has refused to allow Syrians to formally resettle in the country. Numerous sources, including UNRA and Al Jazeera, have reaffirmed that the only countries to officially accept refugees are Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. A UN official reported that Saudia Arabia is unofficially housing 500,000 Syrians, although it hasn’t specified their arrival date or refugee status.
- VERDICT: Formally, this statement is true. Registered refugees have not been accepted. Informally, this statement is complicated. If there are refugees in Saudi Arabia, it is unclear when they got there and if they are seeking shelter from the Syrian Civil War.
- “I was named U.S. Attorney by President Bush on Sept. 10, 2001.”—Chris Christie, when asked about his opinion on Dr. Carson’s statement that U.S. shouldn’t have gone to Afghanistan after 9/11.
- On Sept. 10, records show Christie was notified that he was the choice for U.S. Attorney; however, it wasn’t until Dec. 7, 2001 that the White House formally named him to the position. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Dec. 20 of that year and sworn into office on Jan. 17, 2002.
- VERDICT: False
- “If a high school kid asks me a question in Spanish, a school—by the way, a voucher program that was created under my watch, the largest voucher program in the country, where kids can go to a Christian school, and they ask me a question in Spanish, I’m going to show respect and answer the question in Spanish.”—Jeb Bush, in a response to Trump on why it’s acceptable to speak Spanish as part of assimilation.
- Florida became the first state in the U.S. to house a statewide voucher program in 1999. Under the program, students could receive vouchers of up to $3,389 to attend private and parochial schools.
- VERDICT: True
- “There have been numerous studies, and they have not demonstrated that there is any correlation between vaccinations and autism.”—Ben Carson, on vaccinations and their relation to autism
- As of this year, the Centers for Disease Control report there is no link between vaccines and autism. A 2013 study by the CDC showed that vaccines do not cause autism because the ingredients within the vaccines do not link to the genetic disorder. The claim that the two were connected originated in 1998 when a now discredited study stated that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines link to autism. The lead researcher was later found to have been compensated for the research by a law firm that was hoping to sue the makers of the vaccine.
- VERDICT: True
- “We won’t know [if Iranians cheat] under this agreement. There are several facilities in Iran they designate as military facilities that are off limit all together. Beyond that, the other facilities, we give them 24 days’ notice before inspecting them. That is designed to allow them to hide the evidence. And most astonishingly, this agreement trusts the Iranians to inspect themselves.”—Ted Cruz, on the Iran Deal
- According to the Iran Deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency is allowed access to any military site in Iran, although specific access is determinant in side deals between Iran and the IAEA. The 24-day window for notice of inspection is activated if Iran and the IAEA do not agree on access to a particular site. As soon as IAEA requests access to a site, there are 14 days to arrange access or address the concerns. If concerns aren’t met, the U.S., Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany, who are all members of the deal, have a week to address the issue. Iran then has three days to comply with their decision. Iranians will be allowed to help inspect areas, but along with inspectors from other countries who will closely monitor the inspections themselves.
- VERDICT: As far as self-inspections, Cruz was false; however, it is hard to completely understand all stipulations of the 24-day notice without the full text of the documents.
- “Despite the fact that we are the most generous country in the history of the world in allowing people to come here legally, we have people still coming illegally.”—Marco Rubio, on immigration
- The United States is ranked number one in the world for the number of immigrants accepted into the country. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, there are approximately one million immigrants moving to the U.S. each year; however, when compared to the overall size of the U.S. population, those immigrants only make up approximately 0.4 percent of the population.
- VERDICT: True, but misleading.
- “Anyone who has watched [the video tape from Planned Parenthood]—I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”—Carly Fiorina, on Planned Parenthood
- Last month, The Center for Medical Progress, a non-profit organization of citizen journalists, released a video where a former worker for StemExpress, a biomedical research company, said she saw a full-formed fetus’s heart beating after it was aborted in a Planned Parenthood clinic. The video shows an apparent fully-formed fetus on an operating table with its legs twitching; however, this particular clip Fiorina referenced is not footage recorded by CMP. It was taken by another anti-abortion group and was added to the video. Both videos were heavily edited, and neither video explains where the fetus clip was shot, so it is unclear whether it was a Planned Parenthood clinic.On July 14, Planned Parenthood released a statement that all tissue donations are done with “…full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards.” They stated the only costs associated with tissue donation are for transport, which is a practice standard across the medical field. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, also announced in a video statement that donated tissue goes toward lifesaving researching, including treatment development for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
VERDICT: There is a video of this particular scene Fiorina mentioned, but an accurate verdict cannot be made based on the evidence available.
- Last month, The Center for Medical Progress, a non-profit organization of citizen journalists, released a video where a former worker for StemExpress, a biomedical research company, said she saw a full-formed fetus’s heart beating after it was aborted in a Planned Parenthood clinic. The video shows an apparent fully-formed fetus on an operating table with its legs twitching; however, this particular clip Fiorina referenced is not footage recorded by CMP. It was taken by another anti-abortion group and was added to the video. Both videos were heavily edited, and neither video explains where the fetus clip was shot, so it is unclear whether it was a Planned Parenthood clinic.On July 14, Planned Parenthood released a statement that all tissue donations are done with “…full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards.” They stated the only costs associated with tissue donation are for transport, which is a practice standard across the medical field. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, also announced in a video statement that donated tissue goes toward lifesaving researching, including treatment development for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
- “In 1950, there were 16 workers for every retiree. How many are there today? There are three. In 20 years, there is going to be two, and you’re going to have 80 million Baby Boomers like me retiring en masse, wanting a Social Security check and their Medicare bills paid. We’re going to need more legal immigration. Let’s make it logical. Let’s pick people from all over the world on our terms, not just somebody from Mexico. Let’s create a rational, legal immigration system because we have a declining workforce.”—Lindsey Graham, on migrant workers
- According to Social Security data from 1950 to 2014, the number of workers per Social Security beneficiary has decreased from 16.5 workers to 2.8 workers. The projection for the year 2040 is 2.1 workers.
- VERDICT: True
