From Hillary for America press:
Day two of the Republican Convention built on the litany of lies heard on day one and every day since the beginning of Donald Trump’s candidacy. Once again, there were too many to count, but here are a sample of the falsehoods told from the podium:
- FALSE CLAIM: Donald Trump Jr.: “Mark [Geist] was one of the men who received frantic phone calls from his buddies at the compound [in Benghazi]. Calls that pleaded for help. Calls that he and his team tried to answer. But calls that didn’t save all his friends, because Secretary Clinton’s State Department had ignored their requests for help, both on the night in question and even in the weeks and months leading up to the attack.”
TRUTH: Washington Post: “[S]ecurity decisions were made well below Clinton’s level and no evidence has emerged that Clinton was aware of the requests or decided not to provide the requisite level of security.”
- FALSE CLAIM: Donald Trump Jr.: “Hillary Clinton is a risk Americans can’t afford to take. She said she’ll issue executive orders to take away Americans’ guns. She wants to appoint judges who will abolish the Second Amendment.”
TRUTH: PolitiFact: False. “We found no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite. She has repeatedly said she wants to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.”
- FALSE CLAIM: Donald Trump Jr.: “Rather than being energy independent, our country will be forced to remain beholden to her buddies in the Middle East.”
TRUTH: Hillary Clinton has released a comprehensive plan to invest in modernizing our energy infrastructure to make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century and continue to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
- FALSE CLAIM: Donald Trump Jr.: “A president who will repeal and replace Obamacare without leaving our most vulnerable citizens without health care and who will do it without destroying Medicare for seniors, as Hillary Clinton has proposed.”
TRUTH: Hillary Clinton fought throughout her career to protect Medicare and has released plans to preserve and strengthen Medicare as president. The idea that she has put forth proposals that would destroy Medicare is ludicrous.
- FALSE CLAIM: Gov. Chris Christie: “In Syria, imagine this, imagine this, she called President Assad a ‘reformer.’”
TRUTH: Washington Post’s Josh Rogin: “Christie is wrong. Hillary did not call Assad a reformer. She referred to that Kerry did. Facts are stubborn things.”
- FALSE CLAIM: Gov. Chris Christie: “In Nigeria, Hillary Clinton amazingly fought for two years to keep an Al-Qaeda affiliate off of the terrorist watch list…. These Al-Qaeda terrorists abducted hundreds of innocent young woman two years ago. These schoolgirls are still missing today. And what was the solution from the Obama/Clinton team? A hashtag campaign! Now let’s figure it out, let’s decide. Hillary Clinton, as an apologist for an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria resulting in the capture of innocent young women, is she guilty or not guilty?”
TRUTH: This attack is very wrong on many levels:
- Hillary Clinton condemned the group’s unjustifiable use of violence in 2011 and worked to crack down on them as Secretary of State. She took the unprecedented step of designating their key leaders as terrorists.
- Boko Haram is not an Al Qaeda affiliate. Al Qaeda’s affiliate that is active in Nigeria, AQIM, has been on the terror list since 2002.
- Clinton’s State Department didn’t designate Boko Haram as a Foreign Terror Organization because experts, including George W. Bush’s ambassador to Nigeria, warned this would elevate the group and help them fundraise and recruit.
- The appalling 2014 attack, which Clinton swiftly and aggressively condemned, took place several months after Secretary Kerry’s State Department designated Boko Haram as an FTO – sadly, it did nothing to prevent the attacks.
- FALSE CLAIM: Gov. Chris Christie: “She said there was no marked classified information on her server. The FBI Director said that’s untrue.”
TRUTH: FactCheck.org: “[FBI Director Comey] said three emails had ‘portion markings’ on them indicating that they were classified, but they were not properly marked”
- FALSE CLAIM: GOP Co-Chairman Sharon Day: “She repeatedly plays the gender card. In fact, she boasts, ‘deal me in.’ Well, Mrs. Clinton, consider yourself dealt in. Because as a Senator, you paid women less than the men in your office.”
TRUTH: PolitiFact: Florida’s Sharon Day misleads on Hillary Clinton and gender pay gap: “The data show a median salary of $40,000 for both men and women receiving official Senate pay over those seven years (excluding Clinton’s pay, since all senators have the same salary set by law.) The median salary remains equal if you factor in non-Senate work, too.”
- FALSE CLAIM: Gov. Asa Hutchinson: “Hillary Clinton’s radical attempts at so-called ‘reform’ of the nation’s healthcare system would have been more destructive than even Obamacare has been.”
TRUTH: 20 million more Americans have health care as a result of the Affordable Care Act. As First Lady, Clinton worked with Democrats and Republicans to help expand health care to 8 million children. And as president, she’s vowed to strengthen and improve ACA, work with governors to expand Medicaid, and give states the opportunity to pursue a public option and a Medicare opt-in for adults over 55.
- FALSE CLAIM: Gov. Asa Hutchinson: “Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment, as you heard last night, left us four dead Americans in Benghazi.”
TRUTH: Huffington Post: “After spending more than two years and $7 million, the House Select Committee on Benghazi released a report Tuesday that found — like eight investigations before it — no evidence of wrongdoing by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or other members of the Obama administration.”
- FALSE CLAIM: Sen. Ron Johnson: “[Hillary Clinton] hatched her cover-up story and repeatedly lied to the American people” about what inspired the tragic attacks in Benghazi.
TRUTH: Washington Post Fact-Checker: There is “little support for [the] claim that Clinton told the American people that the attacks were because of a video. She certainly spoke about the video, but always in the context of the protests that were occurring across the Middle East.”
- FALSE CLAIM: NRA’s Chris Cox: “In case you’re wondering where Hillary Clinton stands. She said, quote, ‘the Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.’ Think about that. All the Supreme Court said was that you have the right to protect your life in your own home.”
TRUTH: FactCheck.org: “Clinton’s gun violence prevention proposal would impose restrictions, including a ban on semi-automatic ‘assault weapons,’ but it does not call for banning all guns…. Asked about Clinton’s remarks about the Second Amendment, Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin confirmed that Clinton was referring to the Heller case. He said Clinton ‘believes Heller was wrongly decided in that cities and states should have the power to craft common sense laws to keep their residents safe.’”
- FALSE CLAIM: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “Once a backer of the Keystone pipeline, last year [Hillary Clinton] opposed it.”
TRUTH: PolitiFact, after Clinton announced her opposition to the Keystone Pipeline: “Clinton said, ‘I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone.’… We rate Clinton’s position a No Flip.”
