Democratic debate night 1: Fact-checking the candidates on the issues

Democratic debate night 1: Fact-checking the candidates on the issues originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Here’s ABC News’ fact check of the first of two Democratic presidential debates in Detroit between Marianne Williamson, Rep. Tim Ryan, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Rep. John Delaney and Gov. Steve Bullock. (Please refresh the page for updates.)

FACT CHECK | Sanders: 87 million Americans “are uninsured or under-insured” and 500,000 Americans “are sleeping on the street, and yet companies like Amazon that made billions in profits did not pay one nickel in federal income tax.”

PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (C) speaks while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (L) listen at the beginning of the Democratic Presidential Debate, July 30, 2019, in Detroit. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Both comments and his condemnation of corporations like Amazon have become a staple of Sanders’ stump speech. For the uninsured rate of Americans, the senator may be citing a Commonwealth Fund study which revealed that compared to 2010, when the Affordable Care Act became law, “fewer people today are uninsured, but more people are underinsured. Of the 194 million U.S. adults ages 19 to 61 in 2018, an estimated 87 million, or 45%, were inadequately insured.”

In regards to the rates of homeless people, he is likely citing a 2015 study from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development which reported that 500,000 people were homeless during the year 2015.

-Armando Garcia

(MORE: Democratic Debate 2019 live updates: Night 1 of the debates is underway)

PHOTO: Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper speaks during the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates, July 30, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit. (Paul Sancya/AP)

FACT CHECK | Hickenlooper: “Last year Democrats flipped 40 Republican seats in the House and not one of those 40 Democrats supported the policies of our front runners at center stage. Now I share their progressive values, but I’m a little more pragmatic.”

Hickenlooper was making an effort to raise questions about the policies pushed by the progressives at the center of the stage, but that’s not entirely accurate. At least four freshman House Democrats representing formerly Republican-held districts support Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare-for-all legislation as cosponsors: Reps. Katie Hill, Katie Porter, Mike Levin and Josh Harder, all from California.

-Benjamin Siegel

FACT CHECK | Buttegieg: “Science tells us we have 12 years before we reach the horizon of catastrophe when it comes to our climate.”

A U.N. report released late last year found that rising temperatures could reach a “tipping point” where the effects, such as melting polar ice, can’t be reversed by 2030 if carbon dioxide emissions aren’t dramatically reduced. That deadline has been cited frequently as a reason for the country to take urgent and transformative action like the ambitious goals laid out in the Green New Deal.

PHOTO: South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg participates in the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates, July 30, 2019, at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. (Paul Sancya/AP)

But climate scientists like Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State University, have said benchmarks like that portray climate change as a cliff where Americans could start seeing impacts all of a sudden rather than a minefield where new consequences happen at various times. Climate models can’t give precise information about exactly what rising temperatures will trigger and when.

But the vast majority of climate experts agree that the consequences of rising temperatures will continue to get more severe if the U.S. and other countries don’t make drastic changes to reduce the use of fossil fuels and other sources of greenhouse gases. A recent climate report from the U.S. government found that many impacts of climate change are already affecting various parts of the country, including more severe rain events that contributed to recent flooding in the central U.S. and the East Coast, and heat waves that contribute to droughts in western states.

-Stephanie Ebbs

source: yahoo.com