So what were the biggest exaggerations, embellishments and spins made by the candidates in the second Republican presidential debate? Here’s a few:
Donald Trump insisting he didn’t push for casino gambling in Florida, after being pushed by former Gov. Jeb Bush to explain how the businessman once pursued special interests:
Mallory Horne, a former Florida statehouse speaker and Senate president, was hired by Mr. Trump to lobby on behalf of his gambling interests in the state, according to a report by CNN. The Associated Press and The Washington Post both ran stories making similar assertions about Mr. Trump’s push to legalize casinos in Florida.
“Mr. Trump never asked Jeb Bush personally to approve casino gambling,” Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement issued after the debate.
Sen. Ted Cruz, lamenting George W. Bush’s appointment of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, claiming that “Obamacare would’ve been struck down three years ago and the marriage laws of all 50 states would be on the books” had his choices of Edith Jones and Mike Luttig been appointed:
History shows, however, Mr. Cruz supported Justice Roberts’ nomination. In a 2005 National Review article, the Florida senator lobbied the Senate to confirm Justice Roberts “swiftly” because he wouldn’t “substitute his own personal policy views for the clear dictates of the law.”
After being called out by Mr. Bush for his support of Mr. Roberts at the time, Mr. Cruz responded, “It is true that after George W. Bush nominated John Roberts, I supported his confirmation. That was a mistake and I regret that.”
Donald Trump claiming “I never went bankrupt, by the way,” in response to an attack by Carly Fiorina claiming he filed for bankruptcy four times:
Mr. Trump personally never filed for bankruptcy. His companies did, however. Four times. Trump Taj Mahal in 1991, Trump Castle Associates in 1992, Trump Hotel & Casino Resort in 2004 and Trump Entertainment Resorts in 2009.
Ms. Fiorina, while challenging Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama to watch an undercover Planned Parenthood video, describing scenes from the video featuring a “fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says ’we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain’”:
The third video by the Center for Medical Progress includes an interview with a technician at a biotechnology company which partnered with Planned Parenthood describing how a supervisor “just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think. She gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face [to get to the brain]. I can’t even describe what that feels like.”
The imagery used in the video was from stock footage, however, and not of the actual event being described.
Mr. Trump claiming the U.S. is the only country “dumb enough, stupid enough” to have birthright citizenship while defending his plan to end the practice:
The U.S. is among 30 countries who grant birthright citizenship; however, “of advanced economies, Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens,” according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration reduction.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, in his argument against the recreational use of marijuana, claiming that New Jersey has medical marijuana laws, which he has “supported and implemented”:
New Jersey’s medical marijuana law was signed before Mr. Christie entered office. In 2013, however, he did expand it to allow qualified children to take edible forms of cannabis, among a few other patient options. A year after that, he argued medical marijuana was little more than “a front for legalization.”
• Kelly Riddell can be reached at kriddell@washingtontimes.com.
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