FactChecking the First GOP Debate

Summary

We found false and misleading claims on abortion, crime, climate change and more.

• Several candidates claimed that Democrats support allowing abortions “up to the moment of birth,” but what Democrats support is an exception for bans on abortion after fetal viability if the mother’s health is at risk.

• Former Vice President Mike Pence claimed a fetus is “capable of feeling pain” at 15 weeks of gestation, but research indicates it would be much later than that, around 24 weeks.

• Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy blamed the closure of mental health institutions for “a spike in violent crime.” But there isn’t evidence that the shuttering of such facilities measurably increased crime. Most violence is committed by people without mental illnesses.

• Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley claimed Ramaswamy would “stop funding Israel.” Ramaswamy did propose winding down military aid, but claimed it wouldn’t be necessary under certain conditions.

• Ramaswamy said “the climate change agenda is a hoax” and causes more deaths than “actual climate change.” The U.N. climate panel has said that the “evidence is now ‘unequivocal’ that humans are causing global warming,” and the World Health Organization has called climate change “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.”

• Also on climate change, Haley said China and India — and not the U.S. — is “where our problem is.” But the U.S. emits more carbon dioxide than India and emits more CO2 per capita than both countries.

• Pence wrongly claimed that the Trump/Pence administration “reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%.” Border apprehensions went up over the administration’s term.

• Sen. Tim Scott revived a false narrative that the Department of Justice labeled parents complaining at school board meetings “domestic terrorists.”

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that “crime is at a 50-year low in Florida.” The rate has been declining for decades, and experts have cautioned that the 2021 data cannot be compared to prior years due to a new method of crime reporting.

• Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said that there are conservative legal scholars who believe Donald Trump “may be disqualified under the 14th Amendment from being president again, as a result of the insurrection.” That’s true, but there are other legal scholars who disagree.

• DeSantis boasted that in Florida “we eliminated critical race theory from our K through 12 schools,” but there is little or no evidence that it was being taught in public schools anyway.

The debate, which also included former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, was held on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee and hosted by Fox News.

Analysis

Abortion

DeSantis, Scott and Hutchinson all misleadingly claimed that Democrats support allowing abortions “all the way up to the moment of birth,” as DeSantis put it. Pence claimed that a fetus is “capable of feeling pain” at 15 weeks of gestation, but that’s unproven.

We’ll start with the first claim., Democrats in Congress support legislation that would bar states from prohibiting abortion after a fetus is viable outside the womb in cases where the patient’s life or health is at risk. Republicans object to the health exception, claiming the bill would allow abortion on demand at any point in a pregnancy.