A Rapid-Fire Republican Debate

Our fact-checking team was up late Wednesday night for the latest Republican presidential debate, sorting out some of the rapid-fire accusations candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis made about each other’s past record or positions. 

As political commentator and author Chris Cillizza observed, “If you like candidates dropping every page of their opposition research book on their opponent, you LOVED this debate!” 

When candidates publicly contest claims made by an opponent during a debate, we often take that as a cue to step in to help our readers untangle the rhetoric. That happened numerous times Wednesday night. 

More than a dozen times during the debate, Haley directed viewers to DeSantisLies.com, a website the Haley campaign created to combat distortions it says DeSantis has told about Haley’s record. But as we found, Haley was also guilty of some of the same kinds of distortions. 

In all, we tackled eight misleading or incomplete claims about the candidates’ past positions on taxes, immigration, Social Security, a border wall, transgender issues, and even statements each issued after the killing of George Floyd. 

The debate was hosted by CNN in Des Moines just five days ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. 

With former President Donald Trump once again declining to participate, the debate ended up being the first head-to-head affair of the GOP primary season. Republican candidates Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson all failed to qualify for the debate, and Christie dropped out of the race hours before the debate began. 

For more about the debate, read our story, “FactChecking the Haley-DeSantis GOP Debate.”
 

Reader: How many police officers were killed during the January 6th riot [at the U.S. Capitol]?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: We wrote a story about this subject when Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Capitol attack resulted in “almost 10 dead.”

As we wrote, “Ocasio-Cortez’s statement that the Capitol attack resulted in 'almost 10 dead' includes five police officers, none of whom died at the scene on Jan. 6.” Our story details the deaths of the five officers, including one stroke victim and four suicides.

For more, read "How Many Died as a Result of Capitol Riot?"

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Trump Shares Bogus Claim About Haley’s Eligibility to Serve as President": Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and as a natural born citizen is eligible to serve as U.S. president. But social media posts — including one shared by former President Donald Trump — falsely claim she is ineligible because her parents weren’t American citizens when she was born. 
• "FactChecking Trump’s Iowa Town Hall": While his GOP primary rivals were debating on CNN on Jan. 10, former President Donald Trump took questions from Iowans in a town hall that aired on Fox News. We found several false and misleading statements.
• "Post Misrepresents NFL Response to Oct. 7 Attack on Israel": NFL teams paid tribute to the victims in Israel of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack by holding moments of silence before games during the following week. But a recent social media post falsely claimed the NFL encouraged players “to kneel for Israel before every game.” An NFL spokesperson called the claim “patently false.”
• "Kimmel Not Named in Unsealed Epstein Documents": Court documents that include names of people associated with accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein are being unsealed, but late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has not been implicated. The suggestion that Kimmel would be among the names came from football player Aaron Rodgers, who had no evidence to support the claim.
• "Debunking Bogus Claim of ‘Bipartisan’ Support for Mayorkas Impeachment Hearings": Legislators often tout support for some piece of legislation as bipartisan, even if only a few members from the opposing party back it. But in an announcement about committee hearings to investigate the possible impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, one Republican is taking claims of bipartisanship to absurd new lengths.
• "Faulty Science Underpins Florida Surgeon General’s Call to Halt mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination": The COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, according to multiple studies. Despite this, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo issued a statement on Jan. 3 calling for a halt in the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
• "Posts Make Baseless Claim About Deadly Iowa School Shooting": A sixth-grade student was killed, five people were injured and the 17-year-old gunman took his own life during a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, on Jan. 4. Social media posts baselessly labeled the incident a “false flag” event timed to draw attention away from the release of documents related to sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates.
• "Pro-Haley PAC Misattributes Quote to DeSantis": A TV ad from a political action committee that supports Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accuses Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of “lying” — but then the ad goes on to make one false and another exaggerated claim about him.

• "El llamado a detener la vacunación de ARNm contra el COVID-19 del cirujano general de Florida se basa en ciencia defectuosa": Las vacunas contra el COVID-19 han salvado millones de vidas. A pesar de esto, el cirujano general de Florida, el Dr. Joseph Ladapo, emitió una declaración el 3 de enero haciendo un llamado a detener el uso de las vacunas de ARNm contra el COVID-19, fabricadas por Pfizer/BioNTech y Moderna. 
• "Publicación difunde información engañosa sobre caso de aborto en Texas": Kate Cox pidió que le permitieran tener un aborto en Texas para “proteger su vida, salud y fertilidad futura”, tras recibir el diagnóstico de que su bebé probablemente no sobreviviría, según los documentos que interpuso ante un tribunal. Una publicación popular en Instagram tergiversó el caso específico de Cox y también incluyó afirmaciones engañosas sobre la trisomía 18, el trastorno que afecta su embarazo.
• "Prepublicación de un estudio realizado en Yale registró experiencias de pacientes, pero no demostró que las vacunas causen un nuevo síndrome": La prepublicación de un estudio realizado en Yale describió síntomas crónicos de la vacunación contra el COVID-19 informados voluntariamente por 241 miembros de un grupo en línea. El artículo, que no ha sido revisado por pares, no mostró la frecuencia de estos síntomas en la población general ni si fueron causados por las vacunas, limitaciones que las populares publicaciones en línea no dejan en claro.