Fact check of the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

ByChuck Goudie and Ross Weidner and Barbara Markoff WLS logo
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
I-Team Truth Squad: The first debate
The ABC7 I-Team fact checks the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

HEMPSTEAD, New York (WLS) -- Never before have so many candidate claims over the months been so widely documented, and Monday night social media sites were jammed with people fact-checking what Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton said.

The I-Team Truth Squad was in high gear analyzing what they both said.

"In Chicago, they've had thousands of shootings, thousands, since January 1st. In fact, they've had 4,000 since Barack Obama became president," Trump said.

Those stunning statements from Trump about Chicago are true, although for months Trump had been saying there were 5,000 Chicago murders since President Obama took office.

"When we talk about your business, you've taken business bankruptcy six times," Clinton said.

This statement from Secretary Clinton is mostly true according to financial experts. There were six bankruptcies, but Trump wasn't personally responsible for all of them.

Then there was this odd statement from Trump.

"No wonder you've been fighting ISIS for your entire adult life," Trump accused.

That is false. Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. ISIS re-branded from Al Qaeda in 2013.

"Just go to her website, she tells you how she'll fight ISIS on her website. I don't think General Douglas McArthur would like that too much," Trump said.

That is mostly false. Clinton's website restates current U.S. policy and general counter-terror strategies that are already public.

Finally, the candidates bickered about debate fact-checking.

"We have taken the homepage of my website, HillaryClinton.com, and we've turned it into a fact checker so if you want to see in real time what the facts are, go and take a look," Clinton said.

"And take a look at mine," Trump interjected.

Clinton's website was doing real-time fact checking. Trump was reposting press releases.

After some pre-debate wrangling concerning the role of the moderator, Lester Holt of NBC did some on-the-spot fact-checking on the Iraq War and whether Trump opposed or supported it. While Trump now says he's been a staunch opponent of the invasion, his public statements show he wasn't nearly as solid as he now claims.

Fact check of the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at Hofstra University