Both of the statements made this week by two Republican presidential candidates in Florida came up half true on the Politifact Florida Truth-O-Meter.
First up for consideration, Jeb Bush in officially announcing that he is running for president, brought up a statement made by political rival Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In Bush's words, "Secretary Clinton insists that when the progressive agenda encounters religious beliefs to the contrary those beliefs, quote, 'have to be changed.' That’s what she said and I guess we should at least thank her for the warning."
Clinton delivered the https://youtu.be/pVTiAJ1e9SM" style="line-height: 1.5;">keynote address at this year's Women in the World Summit. She said, "Yes, we’ve cut the maternal mortality rate in half but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we’ve passed don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed."
Josh Gillen of Politifact Florida said they determined Bush's statement to be half-true because he took Clinton's words out of context. Gillen said, "She's talking about these ideas, in order for women across the planet really, to have access to proper healthcare and maternal medicine, and the right to not be abused by their partners, these are the things that are gonna have to change. He (Bush) is making it sound like she is attacking religious beliefs in general."
Politifact Florida also considered an Op-Ed that U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, also a presidential hopeful, wrote for USA Today on The National Security Agency bulk metadata collection program. In that editorial, Rubio said "There is not a single documented case of abuse" of the bulk metadata collection program.
Josh Gillen said Politifact Florida's assessment of this claim honed into the question of whether there was a "single documented case of abuse." Which he said boiled down to the question of what "abuse" means. Gillen said proper procedures weren't necessarily followed in collecting the data. But it was found there was no "intentional" abuse.
Gillen said if there were malicious cases- the problem is, "we just don't know about them."
