CNN  — 

The Facts First team spent the night fact-checking candidates’ claims from the stage in Detroit.

Wednesday’s debate featured heated exchanges between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California over health care and criminal justice reform. Several candidates, including businessman Andrew Yang and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, debated the effects of US immigration policies. Many were challenged on their records, including Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey on his time as Newark mayor.

Here are the facts.

Rates of suicides, overdoses, depression and anxiety

Andrew Yang said “suicides, drug overdoses, depression, anxiety” are at “record highs.” He added, “It’s gotten so bad that American life expectancy has declined for the last three years.”

Facts First: Yang is overstating things. While it’s true that these rates have risen recently, it’s impossible to say they’re at record levels. It is true that life expectancy declined over a three-year period.

America’s suicide rates are at the highest level since World War II, according to research by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, that rate was 14 suicides per 100,000 people, which was 33% higher than the rate in 1999. However, the suicide rate in 1932, during the Great Depression, was even higher at 17.4 per 100,000 people.

While overdose deaths increased between 1999 to 2017, provisional data posted by the CDC earlier this month suggest overdose deaths fell slightly last year – down to an estimated 68,000 from about 70,000 the year before.

As for depression and anxiety, mental health is harder to quantify, though studies do indicate an uptick in recent years, particularly depression.

A study published in the journal Psychological Medicine found depression rose “significantly” among Americans age 12 and older from 2005 to 2015.

A BlueCross BlueShield study found, “Diagnoses of major depression have risen dramatically by 33 percent” between 2013 and 2016.

Life expectancy decreased between 2014 and 2017 – falling from 78.9 to 78.6, according CDC figures. Last year, the CDC director called the decline in life expectancy a “wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable.”

-Curt Devine

Harris’ prosecutorial record for raising cash bail costs

Tulsi Gabbard questioned Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor in California, accusing her of keeping a “cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.”

Facts First: It’s true that, as a prosecutor, Harris advocated for higher bail amounts as a way to fight what she said was a public safety issue, supporting raising cash bail costs for gun-related crimes shortly after being elected San Francisco’s district attorney in 2004. But she also introduced legislation as a senator in 2017 to “reform or replace the practice of money bail.”

Speaking at a May 2004 event, audio of which was first reported by the Free Beacon, Harris argued the city’s low bail meant people came to commit cheaper crimes in San Francisco.

That same year, San Francisco’s Superior Court drastically increased cash bail costs for weapon-related felony charges. The cost doubled and even tripled in some cases.

In 2017, however, as a senator, Harris introduced legislation along Sen. Rand Paul to encourage changes or replacement of the cash bail system, which requires those awaiting trial to put up a specified amount of money to be released from jail.

“It’s long past time to address bail reform across the country,” Harris said in a February 2019 tweet. “Too often, poor people sit in jail because they don’t have the money to pay bail, while someone with the same offense but money in their back pocket gets out. This is a serious injustice.”

In her book “The Truths We Hold,” Harris also writes that she knew, as a prosecutor, that lower-income families were affected by the cash bail system.

-Kay Guerrero

Al Qaeda since 9/11

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said that al Qaeda “is stronger today than 9/11.”

Facts First: The FBI says that the threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates is “still present and active,” but it is difficult to determine if Gabbard is right that al Qaeda is “stronger” today than it was on 9/11.

The terror group is currently fighting in more countries around the world than it was 18 years ago and has recruited tens of thousands of fighters since that time, according to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations and the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Al Qaeda currently maintains a global network of regional affiliates that are “integrated in the group’s deliberative and consultative processes,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations, which says those subsidiaries have allowed al Qaeda to expand its power and influence around the world.

In January, Trump’s outgoing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, “Al Qaeda is showing signs of confidence as its leaders work to strengthen their networks and encourage attacks against western interests.”

But most accounts of progress in the war against al Qaeda suggest the group has been operationally weakened, pointing to its failure to carry out a mass casualty attack against the US since 9/11 and the killing of senior leaders, most notably Osama bin Laden in 2011, according to the Rand Corporation.

-Zachary Cohen

Hyde Amendment

Kamala Harris said, “On the Hyde amendment, you made a decision for years to withhold resources to poor women to reproductive health care and including women who were the victims of rape and incest.”

Facts First: Biden’s votes supporting the Hyde Amendment until 1994 most likely resulted in blocking some low-income rape and incest victims from accessing abortions.

The Hyde amendment, enacted in 1977, bans federal funds from being used to pay for abortions, which largely impacts people on Medicaid, the public health care program for low-income Americans.

However, exceptions for instances of rape or incest were added in a 1994 appropriations bill, which allowed Medicaid recipients to have some abortions paid for. (An exception for when the woman’s life is in danger already existed prior to that.)

Biden said in 2010 that he had supported Hyde “for the entirety of the time it’s been around.”

But in June 2019, Biden changed his stance and came out against Hyde, pointing to a slew of Republican states that have passed laws this year restricting abortion. “If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” he said at the time.

-Caroline Kelly

How much the federal government has cut in taxes

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said: “Since 2001, we have cut $5 trillion worth of taxes. Almost all of that has gone to the wealthiest people in America. We have made the income inequality worse not better through the policies of the federal government.”

Facts First: It’s true that the US has cut taxes by roughly $5 trillion since 2001, and it is also true that most of it has benefitted wealthy Americans. On top of that, it’s true that income inequality in America has risen although tax cuts are only part of the story.

According to a July 2018 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, federal tax changes between 2001 and 2018 reduced revenue by $5.1 trillion, “with nearly two-thirds of that flowing to the richest fifth of Americans.”

The wealthiest fifth of households received tax cuts equal to 4.8% of their income by 2018, more than other groups. The poorest 20% of people received the least amount of tax relief, at 3.4%, according to the ITEP.

And according to a 2018 report by Economic Policy Institute, income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s.

By the end of 2025, the amount of taxes cut will grow to $10.6 trillion, with almost $2 trillion having gone to the richest 1%, the ITEP report says.

-Anneken Tappe

Harris visit to Homestead, a Florida facility

California Sen. Kamala Harris said, “I went to a place in Florida called Homestead, and there’s a private detention facility being paid for by your taxpayer dollars that houses 2,700 children,” Harris said.

Facts First: Harris is accurately describing the capacity of the housing facility, though numbers fluctuate and have dropped to less than 700 children as of July 28.

Late last month, Harris, along with a slew of other Democratic candidates, visited the Homestead facility, which is near Miami, Florida, the site of the previous Democratic debates. On June 25, days before Harris’ visit, just over 2,300 children were being housed at Homestead, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The influx facility, which was also used under former President Barack Obama, houses unaccompanied migrant children who have been apprehended at the southern border and are turned over to the HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is charged with their care. As of July 14, the average length of stay was 36 days, according to HHS.

As of July 22, there were just under 1,000 unaccompanied children at Homestead, according to HHS. As of July 28, that number was “approximately” 650.

The facility gained national attention after some Democratic candidates tried to enter the facility last month and claimed it was emblematic of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. The administration says that “no children at Homestead are there due to” Trump’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation of thousands of families. (Trump signed an executive order ending the policy in June 2018.)

-Kay Guerrero and Priscilla Alvarez

Biden’s vote against child care tax credit in 1981

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for voting against expanding the child care tax credit in 1981 and said that he advocated against women working outside the home.

“When the Senate was debating middle class affordability for child care he wrote an op-ed,” Gillibrand said. “He voted against it – the only vote. But he wrote an op-ed that he believed that women working outside the home would ‘create the deterioration of family.’ He also said that women who were working outside the home were quote avoiding responsibility.”

Facts First: This needs context. Her claim about his vote is correct, yet she mischaracterized what he said.

Biden did vote against expanding the child care tax credit, but only for families making more than $30,000 ($88,00 today) in 1981. His quotes used by Gillibrand were about parents, not specifically mothers.

Biden was in fact the only senator in 1981 to vote against a bill expanding the child care tax credit to people earning more than $30,000 ($88,000). At the time he said that he thought it helped subsidize well-off families and parents instead of benefiting those who truly needed it. He never wrote that women working outside of the home created the deterioration of the family or avoided responsibility for their children.

“I consider it legitimate and necessary for the government to encourage single parents on limited incomes to get off of welfare and into the job market, or to help families of modest means to adequately provide the material necessities of child-rearing,” Biden wrote. “But what I do not accept as legitimate Is social policy that encourages a couple making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or more a year to evade full responsibility for their children by granting them a tax credit for day-care expenses. I do not believe it fair to ask a family of marginal income, choosing to provide the primary care for their children, to subsidize an upper income family’s day care.”

In a 1981 floor speech on the matter, Biden added he had no problem with women working.

“I have no objection to the fact that if a mother and a father want to get together and say, ‘Hey, by the way, Joe, you take care of the child and I am going to pursue my career,’ that is fine. That is a personal decision, and I am all for it,” Biden said.

-Andrew Kaczynski

Number of prisoners freed due to Harris policy

Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized California Sen. Kamala Harris for her leadership during her tenure as San Francisco District Attorney.

Biden said that her staff urged her to turn over information to defense attorneys that could help their clients. “She didn’t do that. She never did it. What happened, along came a federal judge and said ‘enough’ and he freed 1,000 of these people. If you doubt me, Google, 1,000 prisoners freed, Kamala Harris.”

Facts First: It appears that Biden misspoke. He got the ballpark number correct but his characterization of what happened is off. Harris opted not to make a policy change favored by her staff early in her tenure. Years later, that decision led to roughly 1,000 cases being dismissed or dropped. There is no evidence to back up Biden’s claim that 1,000 people were released from prison.

In 2005, Harris’ staff recommended she implement a policy to disclose evidence that could help a defendant’s case, including misconduct by law enforcement, to ensure fair trials for criminal defendants, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Five years later, according to news reports an estimated 1,000 drug cases were dropped or dismissed by San Francisco prosecutors after it became public that a crime lab technician stole cocaine evidence, tainting multiple cases. The same lab technician was also convicted of domestic violence, which wasn’t reported to defense lawyers and could have made her an unreliable witness.

-Nathan McDermott

Climate crisis

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said to former Vice President Joe Biden, “Your argument is not with me, it’s with science. And unfortunately your plan is just too late. The science tells us we have to get off coal in 10 years. Your plan does not do that. We have to have off of fossil fuels in 15.”

Fact First: Inslee is exaggerating the timeline.

The science that Inslee was referring to likely comes from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s report published in 2018. The report argued that the world needs to urgently cut emissions. It did not set a specific year as a deadline or say that we only have 10 years to fix our problems, there is no specific tipping point, though some politicians and media outlets have characterized it as such.

Instead, the report explains there needs to be a 45% cut in human-caused carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, as compared to 2010 levels. If it doesn’t the planet could warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052. The international community considers 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming to be catastrophic.

These are all estimates based on the best science. Any level of warming is dangerous and risks increase as the temperature does. At the current rates, the world could easily go far beyond the 1.5 degree goal by 2052.

-Jen Christensen

Sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine

Former Vice President Joe Biden defended his criminal justice record by saying that he has tried since 2007 to “totally” eliminate the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine, which disproportionately affected African Americans.

Facts First: Biden is right that he introduced in 2007 a bill to treat crack and powder cocaine equally, but he did not mention he supported legislation 21 years earlier that created the disparity in the first place.

In 2007, Biden introduced a bill that would undo the 100-to-1 powder-to-crack ratio set into law by another bill he co-sponsored in 1986. That earlier bill established the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence for people convicted of distributing 500 grams of powder cocaine or five grams of crack.

Biden’s 2007 bill did not pass, but the Obama administration did sign into law in 2010 legislation to reduce the ratio to 18 to 1.

And in 2018, President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, which makes the reform retroactive, helping those convicted of crack offenses before 2010.

-Alex Rogers and Jeremy Herb

Cory Booker’s record as Newark mayor

While defending his record as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, against attacks from former Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker claimed that the leader of New Jersey’s American Civil Liberties Union “has said that I embraced reforms not just in action but in deeds.”

Facts First: This is true, but lacks important context.

Booker was mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and in his last year the head of ACLU-NJ did “commend” Booker and the city’s police director for issuing “one of the most comprehensive policies in the nation requiring the tracking and public reporting of the police department’s stop-and-frisk practices.”

But the reforms came, in part, following a 96-page complaint made by the ACLU against Newark’s police department in 2010. The complaint led to a three-year investigation from the Department of Justice into the department. The DOJ released a report in 2014 which found “reasonable cause to believe” police officers had stolen from civilians and – among other things – engaged in a “pattern of unconstitutional stops and arrests” that disproportionately affected black people.

Booker is leaving out this critical background in touting the praise from the ACLU.

-Holmes Lybrand

Robots displacing more workers than immigrants

Andrew Yang said: “If you go to a factory here in Michigan, you will not find wall-to-wall immigrants, you will find wall-to-wall robots and machines. Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.”

Facts First: Yang is right that robots have displaced more workers than immigrants.

Many studies have shown that immigrants generally create more net jobs in the US, although there may be some displacement and wage stagnation in low-skilled industries where more immigrants compete directly with native-born Americans.

But all kinds of manufacturing industries in America, from steel to tractors, have incorporated technology that reduces the number of people needed to create a given amount of stuff. The automotive sector accounts for about half the US’ robot shipments, according to the Robotics Industry Association, though non-automotive industries have been catching up fast. And many economists, including those at Oxford Economics and McKinsey, project that automation will displace millions of jobs in manufacturing down the line.

However, manufacturing employment in Michigan has been steadily rising since the bottom of the Great Recession, and now stands at 635,000 jobs — 14% of total employment in the state. And according to the pro-immigration American Immigration Council, in 2015, 94,152 of those jobs were occupied by immigrants, a share that was higher than immigrants’ percentage of the overall population.

-Lydia DePillis

Obama did not sign DACA into law

Former Vice President Joe Biden was the target of multiple attacks, from protesters and from others onstage, about the deportation record of President Barack Obama. Biden defended his former boss against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio by saying Obama “came up with the idea for the first time ever of dealing with the DREAMers. He put that into law.”

Facts First: That’s false. Obama didn’t put it into law – and that’s a hugely important point.

The “DREAMers” are undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children and there has long been bipartisan support to give a pathway to legal status. The DREAM Act was a bill written by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. It never became law despite multiple efforts – but the name stuck.

But there was not enough support to put it into law. And when a comprehensive immigration plan failed in congress, Obama instead used executive authority to give DREAMers temporary protection with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

If they met certain requirements, signed up for the program and stayed out of trouble, he promised they could stay in the country. But it was a temporary fix and not ever put into law.

So when Donald Trump came into office, he moved to end DACA. Trump says he supports a legal status for DREAMers, but has said Congress must pass a law giving it to them. His effort to end the DACA program is currently stalled in the courts.

So no, Obama did not put anything for the DREAMers into law. And that’s part of the point of his record on immigration that frustrates immigration advocates.

-Z. Byron Wolf

Profits in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries

While criticizing former Vice President Joe Biden’s health care plan, California Sen. Kamala Harris said, “Let’s talk about the fact that the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies last year alone profited $72 billion, and that is on the backs of American families.”

Facts First: Harris was in fact understating the profits of these industries. Ten of the largest US-based drug companies alone made $69 billion in profits last year. Health insurance companies made $23 billion.

The profits of the top US drug companies were as follows: Johnson & Johnson ($15.3 billion), Pfizer ($11.2 billion), Amgen ($8.4 billion), Merck ($6.2 billion), AbbVie ($5.7 billion), Gilead ($5.5 billion), Bristol-Myers Squibb ($5 billion), Biogen ($4.4 billion), Celgene ($4 billion), Eli Lilly ($3.2 billion).

Not all of these profits came from the companies’ operations in the United States.

A report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the health insurance industry generated net earnings of $23.4 billion in 2018.

-Daniel Dale

US law allowing for family separations

Several candidates criticized the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border, citing a long-standing US law that can result in such action.

Facts First: This is true – and the law has been a flashpoint in the immigration debate.

Last year, the Trump administration implemented its controversial “zero tolerance” policy, using a section of US law to criminally prosecute all adults who illegally crossed the southern border. The policy led to the separation of thousands of families, given that children can’t be held in federal jail with adults. The policy—and the section of the code at the center of it—have become a flashpoint in the immigration debate.

Democratic candidates remain divided over the law, referred to as Section 1325, with some wanting to instead make crossing the border illegally a civil offense, instead of a criminal offense.

Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro shot the issue into the national dialogue at the last round of debates and hammered in on his position Wednesday night.

“The only way that we’re going to guarantee that we don’t have family separations in this country again is to repeal section 1325 of the immigration nationality act,” Castro said Wednesday. “That is the law that this President, this administration is using to incarcerate migrant parents and then physically separate them from their children.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden added: “The fact of the matter is, when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they’re seeking asylum. People should have to get in line. That’s the problem. And the only reason this particular part of the law is being abused is because of Donald Trump. We should defeat Donald Trump and end this practice.”

-Priscilla Alvarez

Biden’s health care plan leaving out 10 million Americans

Sen. Kamala Harris attacked former Vice President Joe Biden’s health care plan, saying it “leaves out almost 10 million Americans.”

Facts First: Harris is right.

Biden’s plan – which builds on the Affordable Care Act by creating a government-backed health insurance option and increasing Obamacare’s federal subsidies – would insure more than an estimated 97% of Americans, according to his plan.

That means out of the population of 327 million in the country, roughly 10 million would be left without any health insurance.

However, it’s unclear exactly who would be uninsured. But under Biden’s plan, families buying coverage on the Obamacare exchanges would spend no more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance – a sum that might be too pricey for some Americans.

-Donna Borak and Tami Luhby

The current high cost of health care

Attacked by former Vice President Joe Biden for the high cost of her “Medicare for All,” plan, California Sen. Kamala Harris said that America already spends trillions on health care.

“We are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America,” she said. “Over the next 10 years, it’s probably going to be $6 trillion.”

Later on, she said that the US is on its way “in just a handful of years of literally spending 20% of our economy, one out of every $5 spent on health care.”

Facts First: This is true. If anything, Harris underestimated the numbers. According to the most recent data, America spends $3.5 trillion on health care, which equates to nearly 1 in 5 dollars of total GDP.

The nation shelled out $3.5 trillion on health care in 2017, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That’s expected to rise to nearly $6 trillion in 2027.

Health care spending accounted for 17.9% of the economy in 2017,according to the report. It’s expected to hit 19.4% by 2027.

-Tami Luhby

Democrats voting for a pathway to citizenship

Sen. Michael Bennet said that all Democrats voted to back a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people and spending $46 billion on border security.

Facts First: This is true. All Senate Democrats and 14 Republicans voted for the Senate immigration bill that passed in 2013.

Bennet was one of eight senators — four Republicans and four Democrats — who became the bipartisan group known as the “gang of eight” that hammered out an immigration compromise bill in 2013. The legislation, which included a pathway to citizenship, passed the Senate, 68-32, and Bennet is correct that all 54 Senate Democrats voted for it, along with 14 Republicans. A majority of Republicans, 32, opposed the bill.

While the bill passed the Senate, then-House Speaker John Boehner did not take it up in the Republican controlled House, and the legislation died at the end of 2014. It’s not clear whether Bennet and the other senators in the 2020 presidential race could strike a similar compromise or another major immigration bill in today’s Senate.

-Jeremy Herb

Amazon’s effect on retail commerce

CNN debate ISO Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang: This is why Trump is President
01:10 - Source: CNN

Andrew Yang said: “Raise your hand in the crowd if you’ve seen stores closing where you live. It is not just you. Amazon is closing 30% of America’s stores and malls.”

Facts First: Yang is right that up to 30% of malls may close in the next few years, but that’s not all because of Amazon.

Malls have been closing fast, and will continue to do so, according to Wall Street retail analysts. A report from Credit Suisse in 2017 projected that between 20% and 25% of malls would close within five years. Cowen & Company estimated that 20% of stores in large mall chains will close, and that all class C and D malls — which comprise about 30% of the total — are at dire risk.

E-commerce has played a role in the shrinkage of brick and mortar stores, rising from less than 1% of all retail in 1999 to 10.2% now, according to the Census Bureau. Amazon comprises nearly half of online retail in the United States, according to EMarketer.

But retail has also been challenged by overcapacity, given a years-long retail boom that saw real estate developers building more malls than consumers really wanted. That bubble is now bursting, as consumer preferences have shifted away from enclosed malls. Also, many large chains — from Payless Shoes to Toys “R” Us — have slipped into bankruptcy after being acquired by private equity firms that loaded them up with debt.

-Lydia DePillis

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to accurately describe the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as well as changes to the Hyde Amendment in 1994.