It was 90 nonstop minutes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all over the airwaves Monday night, and the claims came thick and fast from both candidates.
They talked about everything from Clinton's claim that Trump's tax plan will add trillions to the national debt; whether the debt has been doubled under President Obama; if more black men have been killed by guns than the next nine causes combined.
PolitiFact Florida checks up on the truth of those claims, among others:
Clinton: "Independent experts have looked at what I've proposed and looked at what Donald's proposed, and basically they've said this, that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion." According to the free-market oriented Tax Foundation, Trump’s revised tax plan would reduce federal revenue between $4.4 trillion and $5.9 trillion on a static basis or $2.6 trillion to $3.9 trillion. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s plan would add $5.3 trillion. Clinton’s claim is True. Trump: The Obama administration "has doubled" the national debt in eight years. PolitiFact Virginia rated a previous version of this claim Half True. While Trump’s figure is correct, he leaves out some key points. First, Obama is not the only one responsible for the added debt; Congress has to approve as well. Second, the recession that began before Obama took office in 2009 cut government revenues and led to some of the higher debt incurred during the president’s term. Clinton: "The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men, more than the next nine causes put together." As long as you define "young" as being between the ages of 15 and 24, Clinton’s statement is True, according to CDC data Trump: "You will learn more about Donald Trump by going down to the Federal Election Commission" to see the financial disclosure form than by looking at tax returns. The financial disclosure form Trump is referring to is legally required and extensive. But we found little evidence to support Trump’s argument that the financial disclosure allows observers to "learn more" than they would from a tax form. Tax filings include additional financial information that are not found on other financial disclosures. His claim rates False.
