Fact or fiction? Taking a closer look at the Democratic debate

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

The terror attacks in Paris were front and center last night in Iowa, where the three candidates for the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nomination held their second debate.

The debate began with a moment of silence for the victims of Friday night's terrorist attacks in Paris.

When the candidates started talking, the group that carried out the attacks was topic number one.

MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), Presidential Candidate: And ISIS, make no mistake about it, is an evil in this world.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), Presidential Candidate: It cannot be contained. It must be defeated.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders blamed supporters of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, including then-New York Senator Hillary Clinton, for the instability that followed inside Iraq.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), Presidential Candidate: I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region completely and led to the rise of al-Qaida and to ISIS.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley criticized Clinton's handling of the Middle East when she was President Obama's secretary of state.

MARTIN O’MALLEY:

Libya is now a mess. Syria is a mess. Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess.

We need to be much more far-thinking in this new 21st century era of nation state failures and conflict. It's not just about getting rid of a single dictator.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Clinton defended the administration's decision to participate in the European-led coalition that deposed former Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi four years ago, saying Libyans have since elected moderate leaders.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON:

Now, there has been a lot of turmoil and trouble, as they have tried to deal with these radical elements, which you find in this arc of instability from North Africa to Afghanistan.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

On domestic policy, Clinton's rivals disagreed with her on how high the federal minimum wage should go.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:

It is not a radical idea to say that, if somebody works 40 hours a week, that person shouldn't be living in poverty.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Sanders and O'Malley support $15 an hour. Clinton supports $12.

Joining me now from Washington to fact-check some of last night's debate, as she has before on the NewsHour, is Angie Holan from PolitiFact.org.

So, Angie, let's start with the assertion by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders about today's income tax rates compared to where they were back in the '50s. He was asked how high he would raise the top rate, and here's what Sanders said.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:

We haven't come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent. But it will be…

I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Sanders got a lot of laughs for that, but how did that fact-check out? A 90 percent tax rate under Eisenhower, is that right?

ANGIE HOLAN, Editor, PolitiFact:

That is right. We rated it true.

Now, there are a few things to be said about this. First off, we're talking about marginal income tax rates. So, this is the tax rate that a person's last dollar of income is taxed at. During the Eisenhower days, the tax rates were that high, 92 percent.

And it was on people who made quite a bit of money in that time. When we adjusted for inflation, we're talking about people being taxed at over $1.7 million of income.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

So, if you compare that to people earning an equivalent amount today, what would — what kind of numbers are we talking about for today's earners?

ANGIE HOLAN:

Right. Today, the top tax bracket is about 39.6.

And for individuals, it's people who make just over $413,000. So, it's a little bit different than today. It's — they were higher then.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

OK, so a true for Senator Sanders there.

Let's listen next to something former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about stagnant American wages.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON:

I have made very clear that hardworking middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase. In fact, wages adjusted for inflation haven't risen since the turn of the last century.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

You and your colleagues rated this as only half-true. Why is that?

ANGIE HOLAN:

Right. Well, literally, when we looked at the government statistics, she wasn't quite right.

The median weekly wage is now is about $340 a week. Back in 1999, they were $315 a week, so there has been a slight increase.

However, we didn't say she's completely wrong, because this is a real trend of wages stagnating since the 1970s. She would have been better off if she had widened her time frame a little bit.

And the other thing is, the increase that we have seen since 1999 is very small. So, we gave her a half-true on this.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

So, stagnant maybe is not the best adjective to be using for this?

ANGIE HOLAN:

Yes, it barely budged or maybe a very small increase. It was a small increase, and there is a real problem with wage stagnation over many decades.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

OK, great. So, finally, former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley, he takes a shot at Donald Trump.

And then he dared journalists to come out and check one of his statements about Mexican immigration. Let's listen to what he said.

MARTIN O’MALLEY:

The fact of the matter is — and let's say it in our debate, because you will never hear this from that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump — the truth of the matter is…

The truth of the matter is, net immigration from Mexico last year was zero. Fact-check me. Go ahead. Check it out.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

OK, he dared you. Net immigration last year from Mexico was zero. Is that true?

ANGIE HOLAN:

We rated it mostly true. Now, there is some uncertainty.

When he says net immigration, what we're talking about are the people who came from Mexico minus all the people who left the United States. It's arrivals minus departures.

Now, we don't have a direct measure of this. We have some indirect measures that kind of tell us where the situation might be. And, mostly, that's by estimating the population of people in the United States who were born in Mexico.

Now, that number has been flat for many years. There was a tiny uptick last year.

But it's not clear that that means that that overall trend has stopped of very low numbers of immigration. Basically, it is kind of staying flat when you do that arrivals vs. departures.

So, we said he was mostly true. The experts we spoke with said, yes, immigration is just — from Mexico is staying flat. But, again, there's some uncertainty. It's complicated, how they measure it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

All right, Angie Holan from PolitiFact, thank you very much.

ANGIE HOLAN:

Thanks for having me.