Tag Archives: sanctuary cities

TV News highlights: sanctuary cities, cabinet wealth, and more

By Katie Dahl

In our weekly highlights reel of fact-checked TV appearances by public officials, we feature our fact-checking partners’ reports on sanctuary cities, what Roger Stone knew about the Podesta emails, the financial wealth of Trump’s cabinet, the loss of U.S. factories as a result of China joining the World Trade Organization, and the percentage of the Texas state budget spent on Medicaid.

Claim: 80% of Americans oppose sanctuary cities (depends on the question)

On March 27, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new policy: the U.S. Department of Justice would start holding back funding from cities–known as “sanctuary cities–that don’t enforce immigration law. In doing so, he cited public opinion polling: “According to one recent poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that cities that arrest illegal immigrants for a crime should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities.” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has also used this statistic.

Providing context, Michelle Ye Hee Lee wrote for The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, “There’s no perfect polling question, and we recognize sanctuary policies and immigration detainers are not easily distilled into one question.” She noted that other polls show that “when specifically asked about pulling federal funding from sanctuary cities” just 42 percent of Americans agreed. She also pointed out that the 80 percent figure comes from a poll using an opt-in Web panel sample, “which we often warn readers against relying on” unless other measures have proven it accurate over time.

Claim: Roger Stone predicted John Podesta would be a victim of a Russian hack (no evidence)

At a hearing on March 20, Rep. Adam, Schiff, D., Calif., said, “Is it a coincidence that Roger Stone predicted that John Podesta would be a victim of a Russian hack and have his private emails published, and did so even before Mr. Podesta himself was fully aware that his private emails would be exposed?”

Writing for FactCheck.org, Robert Farley reports that one of these assertions is not established fact: “There is nothing in the public record so far that proves Stone, a political operative and longtime Trump associate, predicted the Podesta email hack…”

“Stone says his Aug. 21 tweet about Podesta—that it would soon be Podesta’s ‘time in the barrel’ — had nothing to do with hacked emails, though. Two days prior, Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, quit the campaign amid media reports about prior business dealings with Russia-aligned leaders in Ukraine. Stone said he was aware that Podesta also had business ties to Russia, and that journalists were beginning to look into those. That’s what prompted the tweet, he said.”

Claim: Trump cabinet worth more than 100 million Americans (mostly true)

While talking about the president’s budget proposal and calling into question his campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D., N.Y., claimed that “if you add up the net wealth of his cabinet, it has more wealth than a third of the American people total–close to 100 million people.”

PolitiFact’s Jana Heigl reported that although “[i]t is impossible to calculate the exact net wealth of Trump’s cabinet… It also doesn’t really matter how rich Trump’s cabinet members exactly are.” According to Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of Berkeley, “‘The bottom one-third of American households ranked by wealth own approximately nothing.’” Heigl added that it’s “‘because some either have a very low or even negative net wealth, due to high debt.’” She concluded “‘it does not take a lot to ‘have more wealth than a third of the American people,’ like Schumer claimed, Zuchman added.”

Claim: U.S. lost 60,000 factories since China joined WTO (mostly true)

During a speech in Louisville, Ky., President Donald Trump claimed: “Since China joined—that’s another beauty—the WTO in 2001, the U.S. has lost many more than 60,000 factories.”

Lauren Carroll reported for PolitiFact that “the United States has, in fact, lost more than 60,000 factories since 2001, when China joined the WTO and became a bigger player in the world economy. And quite a few economists believe opening up trade with China has had a significant and negative effect on American manufacturing, though it’s not a universal view.” However,  economic historian Bradford DeLong with the University of California, Berkeley, told PolitiFact, “about one-tenth of factory closures over the past decade or so have had to do with China, but that would have happened whether or not China joined the WTO.”

Claim: Texas spent close to 1/3 its budget on Medicaid last year (mostly true)

While advocating the passage of the American Health Care Act, Rep. John Cornyn, R., Tex., said,  “We know that the states and the federal government spend an awful lot of money on Medicaid. In Texas, for example, my state spent close to a third of its budget on Medicaid last year, a third of all state spending.”

According to a report from the Texas Legislative Budget Board, as reported by PolitiFact’s W. Gardner Selby, “the 2016-17 Texas budget devoted $61.2 billion in funds from all sources, including state and federal aid, to Medicaid… and that amount over the two years running through August 2017 accounted for 29.3 percent of $209.1 billion in All Funds appropriations.” If you narrow the view to Texas funds spent on Medicaid, “22 percent of state funds alone was appropriated for Medicaid.”

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This week’s TV news highlights with fact checks

by Katie Dahl

As part of a new regular feature, the Internet Archive presents highlights from our national fact checking partners of TV news segments aired over the past week. These include President Donald Trump’s assertion that the number of police officers killed on the beat has increased; his latest attack on the press; his claim that sanctuary cities breed crime; the proposition that Nordstrom’s decision to drop Ivanka Trump’s apparel line was political;  several Trump statements from his Super Bowl interview with O’Reilly, and background on the silencing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D., Mass., on the floor of the Senate. 

Claim: Number of officers shot and killed in line of duty increased (true)

Trump earned a rare “Gepetto’s checkmark” for truthfulness from The Washington Post’s Fact Checker when he told a gathering of law enforcement that, The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56 percent from the year before.” Reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee wrote, “Trump’s grim statistic seemed too remarkable to be correct:…But the figure is solid. Last year was a notable year in police deaths, largely because of the number of police officers who were fatally shot in ambush attacks across the country.”

Claim: press doesn’t want to report on terrorism (wrong)From our Trump Archive: in describing “radical islamic terrorist” attacks around the world, President Trump claimed the “very very dishonest press doesn’t want to report” them. The fact-checkers at PolitiFact found no evidence for this assertion, rating the claim as “Pants on Fire”: “The media may sometimes be cautious about assigning religious motivation to a terrorist attack when the facts are unclear or still being investigated. But that’s not the same as covering them up through lack of coverage.” Reporters at FactCheck.org called Trump’s claim “nonsense.”

Claim: Sanctuary cities breed crime (no evidence)

Also from the Trump Archive: in an interview on FOX News, host Bill O’Reilly asked for Trump’s reaction to news that officials in California are discussing whether to become a sanctuary state. Trump responded that he is opposed to sanctuary cities, saying they “breed crime.” PolitiFact reporter Allison Graves wrote that there isn’t much research on the impact of sanctuary cities on crime, but that at least one recent study shows no effect on crime rates. Michelle Ye Hee Lee gave the claim “three Pinocchios” from The Washington Post’s Fact Checker: “Trump goes too far declaring that the cities “breed crime.” He not only makes a correlation, but also ascribes a causation, without facts to support either.”

 

Claim: Putin’s a killer (experts say yes)

In the Super Bowl interview, O’Reilly pressed President Trump about his respect for Putin, saying “Putin’s a killer.” Trump’s response was “We got a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?” PolitiFact’s Graves reported on O’Reilly’s assertion that Putin is a killer, writing that “the political climate in Russia is responsible for a sizable amount of journalists murders in the country…. Many of the perpetrators are thought to be government and military officials and political groups.”

Claim: Three million undocumented immigrants voted illegally in November elections (no evidence)

Trump continued his unsubstantiated claim that three million undocumented immigrants voted illegally in the November election. When pushed on the need for evidence, Trump was undeterred, saying “[m]any people have come out and said I’m right. You know that.” PolitiFact repeated its finding that there is no evidence for this kind of voter fraud: “Trump’s claim is undermined by years of publically available information such as a report that found just 56 cases of noncitizens voting between 2000 and 2011.”

Claim: Nordstrom’s decision to drop Ivanka Trump’s apparel line was political (No evidence)

After Nordstrom dropped his daughter Ivanka Trump’s apparel line, President Trump attacked the decision as political. His press secretary, Sean Spicer, followed at a news conference saying, “[T]his is a direct attack on his policies and her name.” Reporting for The Washington Post Fact Checker, Lee cited an internal company email from November 2016, which states the company would continue to sell the brand as long as it was profitable. Then on February 2, Nordstrom announced it was dropping the line, because of “poor sales.” Lee gave the claim “four Pinocchios.”

Explainer: what is “Senate rule XIX” (rarely invoked)

During a Senate floor debate about the nomination of then Sen. Jeff Sessions, R., Ala., to be attorney general, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D., Mass., as she read from a letter by Corretta Scott King. In doing so, he cited an obscure rule, known as Senate rule XIX, which reads: “[N]o Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.” PolitiFact reporter Louis Jacobson provided a useful primer on the rule, including statistics on how often it’s been invoked in Senate history: most likely, only twice, once in 1915 and another tie in 1952.

Katie Dahl is a research associate with the TV New Archive.