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Former Member

Fact-checks from the second presidential debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off in their second debate, on the heels of a leaked tape of Trump’s lewd remarks about hitting on women in 2005.

The debate, the only one in which undecided voters ask the candidates questions directly, with Trump defending his explicit comments as "locker room talk." Trump said he was "embarrassed" by them before pivoting to how he will deal with ISIS.

Here are claims Clinton and Trump have made, fact-checked.

Trump: The Clinton campaign started the birther movement.

As PolitiFact and multiple fact-checkers have reported, this is False. Trump invoked Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton advisor, who reportedly told a reporter to look into President Barack Obama’s birthplace. But Blumenthal denies this and the reporter has said he has no evidence. There’s still no smoking gun to tying birtherism to the Clinton campaign.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Trump: Clinton "failed" to bring jobs to upstate New York.

In her 2000 Senate campaign, Clinton promised to 200,000 jobs to upstate New York. The region did not add those jobs. We rated Trump’s claim Mostly True.

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Trump: Obamacare premiums are going up 65 percent.

Trump previously floated rates of 35 to 55 percent. We rated that Half True. Some insurance plans in the federal exchange will see price hikes at the levels that Trump had previously suggested. But he was cherry-picking the high end of premium changes to come. Estimates for the national average are far below Trump’s figures, ranging from 4.4 percent to 13 percent.

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Clinton: There is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using

There’s no evidence that anyone successfully hacked Clinton’s email servers, but they certainly were not impervious to attack. It’s possible that a sophisticated hacker gained access but left no trace. Read our fact-sheet on the Clinton email controversy.

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Trump: Clinton and Obama won’t use the words "radical Islamic terrorism."

Trump is right that Clinton and Obama prefer to avoid those words. They say using the term would actually bolster the narrative the terrorist are pitching: a war between Islam and the West led by them,

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Trump: Clinton wants a single-payer health care plan.

This is not accurate. Clinton has vowed to defend and build upon the Affordable Care Act, but has consistently resisted a single-payer option.

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Clinton: There is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using

There’s no evidence that anyone successfully hacked Clinton’s email servers, but they certainly were not impervious to attack. It’s possible that a sophisticated hacker gained access but left no trace. Read our fact-sheet on the Clinton email controversy.

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Trump: The Clinton campaign started the birther movement.

As PolitiFact and multiple fact-checkers have reported, this is False.Trump invoked Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton advisor, who reportedly told a reporter to look into President Barack Obama’s birthplace. But Blumenthal denies this and the reporter has said he has no evidence. There’s still no smoking gun to tying birtherism to the Clinton campaign.

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Trump: Clinton "failed" to bring jobs to upstate New York.

In her 2000 Senate campaign, Clinton promised to 200,000 jobs to upstate New York. The region did not add those jobs. We rated Trump’s claim Mostly True.

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Trump: The Clinton campaign started the birther movement.

As PolitiFact and multiple fact-checkers have reported, this is False.Trump invoked Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton advisor, who reportedly told a reporter to look into President Barack Obama’s birthplace. But Blumenthal denies this and the reporter has said he has no evidence. There’s still no smoking gun to tying birtherism to the Clinton campaign.

FM

Trump: Clinton wants a single-payer health care plan.

This is not accurate. Clinton has vowed to defend and build upon the Affordable Care Act, but has consistently resisted a single-payer option.

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Clinton: What Donald Trump says about Muslims is used by ISIS for recruiting.

When we looked into this claim in May 2016, at least two terrorist groups — Al Shabaab, an al-Qaida affiliate, and ISIS — have featured Trump in recruiting videos. We rated it True.

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Trump: I was against the war in Iraq.

False. There is no evidence that Trump opposed the war prior to the 2003 invasion. In 2002, asked if America should go to war, Trump said, "I guess so."

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Trump: The United States is "just about the highest in the world" when it comes to tax rates.

This is Mostly False. The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, but in terms of taxes overall, Trump’s claim is inaccurate. America is slightly behind the middle of the pack when it comes to the taxed revenue portion of gross domestic product.

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Clinton: Trump’s tax plan would disadvantage middle class families compared to the wealthy.

Under  Trump’s tax plan, the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers would receive an income bump of between 0.8 percent and 1.9 percent, compared to 5.4 percent to 9.3 percent for the top 10 percent of taxpayers and between 10.2 percent and 16.0 percent for taxpayers in the top 1 percent. Clinton’s claim is accurate.

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Clinton: Parents and teachers are worrying about the "Trump Effect," an increase in bullying and harassment in schools.

The Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed teachers who reported an increase in bullying and harassment, particularly of immigrant and Muslim children. These teachers, unsolicited, cited Trump’s campaign rhetoric. While the "Trump Effect" is a term of the survey’s authors and the survey is based on anecdotal reports, experts say this is consistent. We rated Clinton’s claim Mostly True.

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