FactChecking the Las Vegas Democratic Debate

Summary

Many of the factual disputes centered on disagreements among the candidates:

• Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said the stop-and-frisk policy that was “in place” when he became mayor “got out of control” and so “we cut 95% of it.” That’s true if comparing the number of stops in the first quarter of 2012 with the last quarter of 2013, but the stops rose 600% in his first 10 years in office. They were twice as high in the year he left office than when he began.
• Former Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, wrongly said: “The reason that stop and frisk changed is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on.” Actually, the decline started well before the Obama administration’s intervention.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren falsely accused Bloomberg of “blaming African Americans and Latinos” for the 2008 housing crash. Not true. Bloomberg’s 2008 remarks blamed Wall Street and Congress among others. Rivals have criticized his mention of “redlining,” but he described banks lending to borrowers who weren’t creditworthy, not any racial group.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders said CEOs in the health care and pharmaceutical industries “are contributing to Pete’s campaign,” referring to former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. True, but some also contributed to Sanders. Neither candidate got much.
• Biden said that Bloomberg called the Affordable Care Act a “disgrace,” to which Bloomberg said, “I was in favor of it. I thought it didn’t go far enough.” After the ACA became law in 2010, Bloomberg did call it a “disgrace” that did not “fix the big health care problems in this country.” But in 2009, he said he supported Obama’s “push to enact comprehensive health care reform,” and urged Congress to include a public option.
• Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar argued over the senator’s voting record. Klobuchar has disavowed a 2007 vote to declare English as the national language. Her voting support of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees has declined over the past year, though it’s still higher than Sanders’ or Warren’s.
• Buttigieg referred to Amazon and Chevron as “paying literally zero” in federal taxes “on billions of dollars in profits.” That’s based on an analysis from last year, though the companies’ actual tax returns aren’t public and reports suggest it may not be “literally zero.”