We highlight four claims we fact-checked from the Jan. 14 Democratic debate in this video.
- Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed that the “wealthy are the only ones doing well, period.” But weekly paychecks for rank-and-file workers have been rising, and at a faster rate under President Donald Trump than when Biden was vice president.
- In defending his 2002 vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, Biden claimed the Bush administration “said they were not going to go to war” and only sought weapons inspections. But days before the vote, President George W. Bush said, “I hope this will not require military action, but it may.”
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she was the only person “on this debate stage” who answered “Iran” in the first debate when asked “what we saw as the biggest threat.” True, but there was only one candidate on stage last night — Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who was also in that first debate with Klobuchar.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders overstated a statistic on health care spending when he said “workers” were “paying on average 20% of their incomes for health care.” The figure would be 12.7% based on the spending number for a family of four that his campaign cited.
For more on these claims and others from the debate, see our story “FactChecking the January Democratic Debate.”