Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, contradicted President Joe Biden’s claim last month that top military advisers didn’t recommend keeping a residual force in Afghanistan. 

In a Sept. 28 Senate hearing, both generals said they believe the U.S. should have left a residual force of at least 2,500 troops, and that Biden received those recommendations.

But in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Aug. 18, Biden denied that his decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan went against the advice of his top military advisers.

Stephanopoulos, Aug, 18: But your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.

Biden: No, they didn’t. It was split. Tha– that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.

Stephanopoulos: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

Biden: No. Not at — not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. They didn’t argue against that.

Stephanopoulos: So no one told — your military advisers did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?

Biden: No. No one said that to me that I can recall.

Two days after that interview, we wrote that Biden’s recollection was contradicted by reporting from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, all of which reported, citing unnamed sources, that early in Biden’s presidency, top military officials recommended Biden keep a small residual force in Afghanistan.

Now Biden’s claim is contradicted by firsthand sources — the generals themselves.

At the Sept. 28 hearing, Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe said that during a closed, classified hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier in September, Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, then the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said that he recommended in January that the U.S. keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.

Inhofe asked McKenzie if he agreed with that recommendation.

“I won’t share my personal recommendation to the president, but I will give you my honest opinion, and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation,” McKenzie said. “I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. And I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time. Those were my personal views. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government.”

(The recommendation in the fall of 2020 would have been made to then-President Donald Trump.)

Inhofe then asked Milley if he agreed with the recommendation to keep 2,500 forces in Afghanistan.

Milley said, “I do agree with that,” noting that he put his opinion in a memo that he wrote back in the fall of 2020 when Trump was president.

Inhofe asked McKenzie if he ever spoke to Biden about Miller’s recommendation.

“I was present when that discussion occurred,” McKenzie said. “And I’m confident the president heard all the recommendations, and listened to them very thoughtfully.”

The issue was again raised during the hearing by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.

“I don’t discuss exactly what my conversations are with the sitting president in the Oval Office,” Milley said. “But I can tell you what my personal opinion was and I am always candid.”

Milley said it was assessment “back in the fall of ’20 and remained consistent throughout” that the U.S. should keep 2,500 to 3,500 troops in Afghanistan.

McKenzie said he “share[d] that assessment.”

Asked if Miller ever presented that opinion personally to Biden, McKenzie said, “I believe his opinion was well heard.”

Cotton then turned his attention to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Biden’s interview with ABC News, in which Biden said that he did not recall senior military leaders advising him to leave a small troop presence in Afghanistan.

“Is that true?” Cotton asked.

“First of all, I know the president to be an honest and forthright man,” Austin said. But he confirmed that the “input” from Milley, McKenzie and Miller “was received by the president and considered by the president, for sure.”

Asked about the seeming contradiction at a daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki emphasized that in the interview, Biden said the advice on the withdrawal timeline and whether to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan was “split.” She declined to say which military advisers disagreed with Milley, McKenzie and Miller. “I’m not going to get into specific details of who recommended what,” Psaki said.

Psaki also said that the question put to Biden was whether military advisers told him, “We should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”? Biden said no one said that to him.

Psaki noted that in his testimony on Sept. 28, Austin acknowledged that with “a force posture of 2,500, certainly, you’d be in a fight with the Taliban, and you’d have to reinforce yourself.”

“If we had kept 2,500 troops there, we would have increased the number of troops,” Psaki said. “We would have been at war with the Taliban. We would have had more U.S. casualties. That was a reality everybody was clear-eyed about. There are some, as is evidenced by people testifying today, who felt we should have still done that. That is not the decision the president made. It’s up to the commander in chief to make those decisions.”

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In the days leading up to the Senate vote on the House-passed elections bill, Republicans offered several misleading talking points about the Democratic bill, and made other statements that required more context.

• Republicans said the bill would direct taxpayer money to publicly finance federal campaigns. The matching campaign money would come from a new surcharge added to certain criminal fines and civil settlements involving corporate defendants and their executive officers.
• Republicans said the bill creates a “speech czar” who would limit the free speech of campaigns. The bill proposes to break the current bipartisan split on the Federal Elections Commission board, and allow the president to appoint a tie-breaking chairman. But one election expert said that’s more akin to a “campaign finance czar” than a “speech czar.”
• Republicans said it would “ban” or “repeal” state voter ID laws. The proposed law would allow states to keep voter ID laws, but it would allow voters without ID in states that require voter identification to provide a sworn written statement attesting to their identity and eligibility.
• House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy warned the bill’s call for automatic voter registration through state motor vehicle agencies is the kind of thing that led to “multiple cases of fraud” in California. A few Californians were erroneously registered “due to DMV errors” and voted in the 2018 elections, but none were charged with voter fraud.

H.R. 1, the For the People Act, passed the House on March 3 on an almost entirely partisan basis. (The lone Democrat to vote against the bill was Rep. Bennie Thompson.) It seeks to expand access to voting and make major changes to campaign finance and redistricting laws.

The bill came up for a test vote in the Senate on June 22 but failed on a straight partisan 50-50 vote, blocking the ability to even start debate on the legislation.

Before the vote, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the proposal would “rewrite the ground rules of American politics” and install a “transparently partisan plan to tilt every election in America permanently in their favor.” He argued it would be “a recipe for undermining confidence in our elections.”

After the vote, President Joe Biden issued a statement saying “a Democratic stand to protect our democracy met a solid Republican wall of opposition.” But Biden vowed the legislation is not dead.

“This fight is far from over—far from over,” Biden said. “I’ve been engaged in this work my whole career, and we are going to be ramping up our efforts to overcome again—for the people, for our very democracy.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said shortly after the vote that “the fight to protect voting rights is not over,” calling the test vote “the starting gun, not the finish line.”

Taxpayer Dollars to Candidates?

One of the chief criticisms from Republicans is that the proposal would redirect taxpayer money to candidates.

“It takes hardworking taxpayer money and gives it to candidates,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said on Fox News on June 18. “Not by a dollar for dollar, but six to one. So, if AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] raises $200 online, you the hardworking taxpayer has to give her $1,200.”

“But this bill — just to give you one example of how bad it is — would actually take your tax dollars and send them to [Sen.] Bernie Sanders and any other politician running for office to run their campaign,” Sen. Tom Cotton said on Fox & Friends on June 21. “So think about that. Arkansans would be subsidizing Bernie Sanders’ campaigns. I don’t think many Americans want to see their tax dollars to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars going to support … politicians who they oppose attacking politicians they support.”

McCarthy and Cotton are talking about provisions in the bill that call for a public funding match for small-dollar donations to federal campaigns. It’s true, as McCarthy said, that the plan calls for matching contributions 6-to-1, meaning that if someone donated up to $200 to a candidate, the federal government would match that contribution with another $1,200.

Congressional candidates would have to meet certain criteria to qualify for the matching funds. For example, they’d have to raise at least $50,000 in small-dollar donations from at least 1,000 donors.

But there is partisan debate about whether those matching dollars are “taxpayer” dollars. According to the bill, matching public contributions would come exclusively from what the legislation calls the “Freedom from Influence Fund.”

The bill states that “No taxpayer funds may be deposited into the Fund.” (See Section 541.) Instead, the Freedom from Influence Fund would be financed through a 4.75% surcharge on certain criminal fines and civil settlements and fines collected by the federal government from corporate defendants and their executive officers.

Even though this would be a new surcharge, and the public financing would be entirely funded through that new surcharge, Republicans argue that government funds are fungible and any money collected by the government is therefore taxpayer dollars.

“The new surcharge would otherwise go to taxpayers,” Cotton’s press office said in a statement provided to FactCheck.org. “It’s taxpayer dollars, whatever they call it.“

A spokesman for Democrats on the Committee on House Administration said the public campaign financing programs are entirely self-funding and do not use any taxpayer revenue.

“This funding is not fungible, and the funds will only pay out what is collected through said fines on corporate malfeasance – if there’s not enough money, they won’t pay out the full amount,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman cites several examples of the types of fines to which a surcharge would be added, including a $5 billion fine levied by the federal government against Facebook in 2019 for mishandling users’ personal information and a $4.3 billion fine paid by Volkswagen in 2017 for cheating on diesel emission tests.

The ‘Speech Czar’

In an effort to address what a spokesman for Democrats on the Committee on House Administration called “modern-day gridlock that has essentially crippled the FEC and allowed big spenders to violate campaign finance laws with impunity,” H.R. 1. seeks to restructure the balance of power on the FEC board.

Currently, the FEC is run by six commissioners, three each representing the respective political parties. They are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Under H.R. 1, the commission would be pared to five members, with no more than two affiliated with any one party. That would mean two for each party, and a fifth unaffiliated member. However, the president would still appoint all of the members, subject to advice and consent of the Senate.

The president would also designate one of the appointments to act as chair of the commission, who would be given new powers. Among the enumerated powers of the chair: they would act as chief administrative officer of the commission; could appoint and remove the staff director; and could subpoena witnesses.

Republicans say this new chair would essentially become a campaign “speech czar.”

According to the conservative Institute for Free Speech, H.R. 1 would, “Empower the Chair of the Commission, who will be hand-picked by the president, to serve as a de facto ‘Speech Czar,’ with the sole power to, among other things, appoint (and remove) the Commission’s Staff Director, prepare its budget, require any person to submit, under oath, written reports and answers to questions, issue subpoenas, and compel testimony.”

“It gives a speech czar just like what high tech does now,” McCarthy said on Fox. “It will tell us what we can say in campaigns and what we cannot. … What it does, it makes Hollywood pretty much in charge of our campaigns. … We would no longer be able to criticize China or anything else or hold them accountable.”

Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and author of “The Voting Wars,” told us McCarthy’s comments don’t make sense.

“I have no idea how making the FEC have a chair would prevent anyone from ‘criticiz[ing] China’ or anyone else,” Hasen told us via email.

Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT who specializes in elections, said McCarthy appears to be relying on the talking point from the Institute for Free Speech.

“The term ‘speech czar’ is part of the rhetorical strategy of Republicans to equate all spending with speech,” Stewart told us via email. “As you know, HR1 would end the 3-3 partisan balance on the FEC, allowing it to be controlled by one of the parties, with the President appointing the chair, who would have authority over enforcement actions.  So, while it would be an exercise in rhetoric rather than legal reasoning, it might be reasonable to call the chair the ‘campaign finance czar,’ but to call the chair the ‘speech czar’ is part of a larger political movement to equate all regulation of campaign finance regulation of speech, and therefore unconstitutional.”

DMV and ‘Voter Fraud’

Seeking, unsuccessfully, to craft an alternative voting bill that might get bipartisan support, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin released a list of voting changes he would support, including “Automatic registration through DMV, with option to opt out.”

McCarthy claimed in his Fox News interview that automatic registrations through the Department of Motor Vehicles led to “multiple cases of fraud” when it was instituted in California.

“I’m worried about this, because you see what Joe Manchin is saying today,” McCarthy said. “That — automatic voter registration, that you do it through DMVs? That’s what we found in California, multiple cases of fraud.”

A federal law enacted in 1993, popularly known as the Motor Voter law, requires states to provide citizens with the opportunity to register to vote when they get a driver’s license.

But in recent years, 19 states including California have created a mechanism to do so by default. Since April 2018, Californians who get a driver’s license or change their address through the DMV are automatically registered to vote, unless they choose to opt out.

But the new policy in California was not without glitches in its first year. A state audit in 2019 discovered that automated voter registration at DMV offices resulted in almost 84,000 duplicate records and more than 171,000 errors in voter registration related to political party preference, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In late 2018, the California secretary of state’s office said roughly 1,500 people — including noncitizens — were erroneously registered to vote through the state’s motor-voter program. The office said those registrations have since been cancelled, but in August 2019, it announced that six people who were erroneously registered “due to DMV errors” actually voted in the 2018 elections (none were undocumented immigrants who applied for the state’s special licenses that don’t require proof that recipients are in the country legally).

None of the six were charged with voter fraud, however.

“The six individuals were inadvertently registered through the California Motor Voter program due to DMV errors and based on state law are not guilty of fraudulently voting or attempting to vote,” the secretary of state’s office said in a statement. “All of these voter registrations have been canceled.”

A spokesman for Democrats on the Committee on House Administration said California’s rollout hiccups are hardly a reason to scrap automatic voter registration at DMVs.

“When California first put in place its new computer database system for voter registrations at its DMV, there was a programming flaw that caused it to mix up records,” the spokesman told us via email. “The problem was quickly detected, contained, and fixed, according to the state’s DMV director. That flaw had nothing to do with the fact that registration was made automatic; it related to a new computer program. … AVR is highly successful in CA. The state has experienced dramatic surges in voter registrations and there have been no further problems reported.”

H.R. 1 and Voter ID

Republicans have said one of their chief complaints about H.R. 1 is that it would supersede state voter ID laws.

“You don’t want to have an ID because that’s what H.R. 1 does, it takes away anybody seeing an ID,” McCarthy said on Fox News.

“One is it bans voter ID, where people, when they go and ask for a ballot are normally in Wyoming and certainly around the country, asked to prove that they are who they say they are,” Sen. John Barrasso said at a Senate Republicans press conference on June 17.

At the same press conference, Sen. Ted Cruz said, “29 states have adopted voter ID laws, reasonable common sense steps to protect the integrity of elections. The Corrupt Politicians Act [Cruz’s nickname for H.R. 1] would repeal all of those voter ID laws.”

As we have written, H.R. 1 wouldn’t ban state laws that ask voters to show identification at the polls. It would modify the effect of some of those laws, though.

Referring to strict versions of voter ID laws, H.R. 1 says, “[O]nerous voter identification requirements” have “eroded access to the right to vote.” It goes on to add that those requirements more heavily impact minority communities. Indeed, despite calls for voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud, there have been very few documented instances of such fraud.

“What we do know about voter ID laws is they deprive many voters of their right to vote, reduce participation, and stand in opposition to including more Americans in the democratic process,” the spokesman for the Democrats on the Committee on House Administration told us in an email. “Studies show that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government issued photo ID, and that percentage is even higher for seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low income voters, and students.”

The House bill would allow voters to get around state ID laws if they present a statement “signed by the individual under penalty of perjury, attesting to the individual’s identity and attesting that the individual is eligible to vote in the election.” This option would apply only for federal elections.

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In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper examines efforts by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue to discredit Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin’s account of President Trump using profanity to disparage African countries at an immigration meeting in the Oval Office. They said Durbin has a “history” of misrepresenting what was said at White House meetings.

As we wrote, they are referring to a 2013 Facebook post in which Durbin wrongly claimed a GOP leader had told then-President Barack Obama, “I can’t even stand to look at you.”

But there’s more to that story than Cotton and Perdue presented, and there’s a big difference between what happened then and now.

Durbin was not in the 2013 White House meeting. Rather, he shared a secondhand report he received from White House staffers that turned out to be inaccurate. The White House press secretary at the time said the misquote resulted from a “miscommunication in the readout of that meeting between the White House and Senate Democrats.”

This time, Durbin provided a firsthand account of what he heard at the Jan. 11 meeting. Durbin and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham were at the White House to discuss their bipartisan plan to save an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which Trump is phasing out. A day after the meeting, Durbin quoted Trump as saying of African nations, “‘Those shitholes send us the people that they don’t want.’”

The video about the claim by Sens. Cotton and Perdue, which can be found on CNN’s website, is part of our fact-checking collaboration with CNN’s “State of the Union.” Previous videos can be found on our website.

The post Video: Durbin’s ‘History’ of Distortions appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue sought to discredit Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin’s account of President Trump using profanity to disparage African countries at an immigration meeting in the Oval Office, saying Durbin has a “history” of misrepresenting what was said at White House meetings.

They are referring to a 2013 Facebook post in which Durbin wrongly claimed a GOP leader had told then-President Barack Obama, “I can’t even stand to look at you.”

But there’s more to that story than Cotton and Perdue presented, and there’s a big difference between what happened then and now. 

Durbin was not in the 2013 White House meeting. Rather, he shared a secondhand report he received from White House staffers that turned out to be inaccurate. The White House press secretary at the time said the misquote resulted from a “miscommunication in the readout of that meeting between the White House and Senate Democrats.”

This time, Durbin provided a firsthand account of what he heard at the Jan. 11 meeting. Durbin and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham were at the White House to discuss their bipartisan plan to save an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which Trump is phasing out. A day after the meeting, Durbin quoted Trump as saying of African nations, “‘Those shitholes send us the people that they don’t want.'” In an interview with Charleston’s Post and Courier, Republican Sen. Tim Scott said Graham told him that the media reports about Trump’s language were “basically accurate.”

Trump initially issued a vague denial, tweeting on Jan. 12, “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” without explaining which remarks he denied making or what exactly he said at the meeting. On Jan. 15, the president tweeted that Durbin “totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.”

On the Sunday talk shows on Jan. 14, Cotton and Perdue — who were among the attendees at the immigration meeting – also claimed that Durbin misrepresented what happened at the meeting. Both suggested that Durbin’s version should not be believed because, they said, Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what had been said in White House meetings.

Here’s what Perdue said on ABC’s “This Week”: “In 2013, Senator Durbin also made the same accusation against a Republican leader in a meeting with President Obama, and said that it was – he chewed out the president, it was so disrespectful to President Obama, we couldn’t even have the meeting. That’s what he said in 2013. Later that day, the president’s own press secretary came out and said, and I quote, ‘It did not happen.’ This is about a gross misrepresentation. It’s not the first time.”

And on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Cotton said, “I certainly didn’t hear what Senator Durbin has said repeatedly. Senator Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by that.” Cotton later repeated the accusation, saying, “Senator Durbin has misrepresented what happened in White House meetings before, and he was corrected by Obama administration officials by it.”

They are not telling the whole story. (We asked Cotton’s office if there were other instances besides the 2013 example, but we did not get a response.)

Back in 2013, Durbin posted on his Facebook page that during a meeting with Obama during a government shutdown, a “GOP House Leader told the president: I can’t even stand to look at you.” Durbin later clarified that he was not at the meeting, but he said that’s what he was told by a White House staffer who briefed him on the meeting.

Three days after Durbin posted the comment on Facebook, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing on Oct. 23, 2013, “I looked into this and spoke with somebody who was in that meeting, and it did not happen.”

But that wasn’t Carney’s final word on the matter. At a press briefing the following day, Carney elaborated: “Let me just say that yesterday I was simply saying that the quote attributed to a Republican lawmaker in the House GOP meeting with the president was not accurate. I wasn’t accusing anybody of anything. And what I can tell you is that there was a miscommunication when the White House read out that meeting to Senate Democrats, and we regret the misunderstanding.”

Carney later added that “the quote attributed to the lawmakers was not accurate, but there was a miscommunication in the readout of that meeting between the White House and Senate Democrats, and we regret that.”

Durbin told reporters at the time that Carney had essentially admitted that the White House had “misled members of Congress.”

“They [the White House] gave me a bad quote and then they said it didn’t occur,” Durbin said.

Again, Carney said there was a “miscommunication” that led to a “misunderstanding.” At the time, Durbin said there was no misunderstanding on his part, and that when a “staffer in the White House” relayed what was said at the meeting, he found the comments so “earth-shattering” that he wrote them down verbatim, the Associated Press reported.

Whether there was a “miscommunication” or the White House staffer relayed incorrect information to Durbin, those circumstances are different from Durbin’s firsthand account of what he says he heard Trump say last week.

The post Durbin’s ‘History’ of Misrepresentations appeared first on FactCheck.org.

What exactly did President Donald Trump say at a Jan. 11 White House meeting on immigration?

At the meeting, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, presented a bipartisan plan to remove the threat of deportation for the 689,800 people who were illegally brought to the United States as children and afforded protection under an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which Trump is phasing out. A day after the meeting, Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat and co-author of the plan with Graham, claimed Trump used an obscenity to describe African nations and made disparaging remarks about Haitian immigrants.

Durbin quoted the president as saying of African nations, “‘Those shitholes send us the people that they don’t want.'” Durbin continued, “He repeated that. He didn’t say that just one time.” Durbin also quoted Trump as saying, “‘We don’t need more Haitians.'”

After the meeting, Graham reportedly told his fellow Republican senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott, that the media reports about Trump’s language at the meeting were “basically accurate,” according to Charleston’s Post and Courier.

Trump issued a vague denial. In a Jan. 12 tweet, he said: “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” without explaining which remarks he denied making or what exactly he said at the meeting. Talking to reporters in Florida two days later, Trump said of the remarks attributed to him: “They weren’t made.” On Jan. 15, the president tweeted that Durbin “totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.”

There were at least seven members of Congress at the meeting and one administration official, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Five members of Congress and Nielsen have made public statements about the meeting. Here’s what each of them has said so far.

Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat

The Illinois Democrat told reporters in Chicago on Jan. 12 that the president described African countries as “shitholes.” Durbin confirmed what the Washington Post had reported earlier that day.

Durbin, Jan. 12: As Sen. Graham started to read the plan, the president started making comments and asking questions, and that’s when things deteriorated rapidly. When we talked about those in the United States on temporary protected status, there was comment that they were from El Salvador and Honduras and Haiti. “Haitians,” he said, “we don’t need more Haitians.” Then we went on and the president started commenting on immigration from Africa. And that’s when he used those sickening, heartbreaking remarks, saying, “Those shitholes send us the people that they don’t want.” He repeated that. He didn’t just say it one time…. It was clear that the president had rejected our bipartisan plan and told us to go back to work and find something else…. I cannot imagine that in the history of that room, that hallowed room, where the president of the United States goes to work every day there has ever been a conversation quite like that. It was vile. It was hateful. It was racist.

Told that the president denied saying the words attributed to him, Durbin said, “It speaks for itself. There were witnesses. There were 12 of us in the room. I was the only Democrat who was in that room, but I’m hopeful that Republican senators will step up and confirm what I just told you. It happened. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

Later that day on MSNBC, Durbin also said that Graham confronted the president over his remarks at the meeting. Durbin said Graham exhibited “extraordinary political courage.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican

The South Carolina Republican senator put out a statement on Jan. 12 in response to Durbin’s remarks, saying, “I appreciate Senator Durbin’s statements.” Graham did not contradict Durbin’s account, but he didn’t explicitly confirm it, either.

Graham, Jan. 12: Yesterday Senator Durbin and I met with President Trump at the White House to discuss our bipartisan proposal on border security and immigration.

Following comments by the President, I said my piece directly to him yesterday. The President and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel. I’ve always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals.

The American ideal is embraced by people all over the globe. It was best said a long time ago, E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One. Diversity has always been our strength, not our weakness. In reforming immigration we cannot lose these American Ideals.

The American people will ultimately judge us on the outcome we achieve, not the process which led to it.

I know the bipartisan proposal discussed at the White House can get a lot of support from both sides. As always, I look forward to considering additional ideas that could make the proposal even better.

I appreciate Senator Durbin’s statements and have enjoyed working with him and many others on this important issue. I believe it is vitally important to come to a bipartisan solution to the immigration and border challenges we face today. I am committed to working with Republicans and Democrats to find common ground so we can move forward.

South Carolina’s junior senator, Republican Tim Scott, was not at the meeting, but he told the Post and Courier that he spoke to Graham about media reports of Trump’s use of the term “shitholes.” Scott said that Graham told him the media reports were “basically accurate,” according to the Post and Courier, without elaborating on what Graham specifically told him.

Post and Courier, Jan. 12: Reached Friday at a Samsung appliance plant opening in Newberry, Scott said that Graham told him the comments, as reported in the media, were “basically accurate.”

“If that comment is accurate, the comment is incredibly disappointing,” Scott told The Post and Courier.

“We ought not to disparage any other nation, frankly,” he added. “Thinking about the success of America. It is the melting pot. It’s the ability to weave together multiple communities together for one nation.”

Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue, Republicans

The two Republican senators initially put out a joint statement on Jan. 12 that said they “do not recall the President saying these comments specifically.”

Cotton and Perdue statement, Jan. 12: President Trump brought everyone to the table this week and listened to both sides. But regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith. In regards to Senator Durbin’s accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest. We, along with the President, are committed to solving an issue many in Congress have failed to deliver on for decades.

Two days later, both senators elaborated on their statement during appearances on Sunday talk shows.

Cotton reiterated on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he did not hear Trump use the language attributed to him. However, Perdue, appearing on ABC News’ “This Week,” told host George Stephanopoulos that Durbin had grossly misrepresented Trump’s remarks, saying “that language … was not used.”

Perdue, Jan. 14: Then in Thursday we had a meeting, and coming out of that meeting, we heard a gross misrepresentation of what happened in that meeting.

But it’s not the first time we’ve had a gross misrepresentation by that individual.

Stephanopoulos: Well, let’s get into – let’s get into that.

Perdue: No, let me finish, George.

Stephanopoulos: Well, I want to know what the gross misrepresentation was.

Perdue: … the gross misrepresentation was that language was used in there that was not used, and also that the tone of that meeting was not contributory and not constructive….

Stephanopoulos: … you’re saying flat out, definitively, the president did not say those words?

Perdue: I’m saying that this is a gross misrepresentation, it’s not the first time Senator Durbin has done it, and it is not productive to solving the problem that we have at hand.

Stephanopoulos: Senator Durbin has been very clear. Senator Graham has told others that the reports were basically accurate. Are you saying the president did not use the word that has been so widely reported?

Perdue: I’m telling you he did not use that word, George. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation. How many times you want me to say that?

On the same program, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake was asked if he believed Perdue. Flake said he learned of Trump’s disparaging comments a day before the public learned of them.

“Well, all I can say is I was in a meeting directly afterwards where those who had presented the president our proposal spoke about the meeting,” he said. “And they — they said those words were used before those words went public. So that’s all I can tell you is I — I heard that account before the account even went public.”

Shortly after Perdue’s interview, Cotton appeared on “Face the Nation” and was asked about Perdue’s remarks by host John Dickerson.

Cotton, Jan. 14: Yeah, John, I didn’t hear that word either. I certainly didn’t hear what Senator Durbin has said repeatedly. Senator Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings though, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by that. Here’s what I did hear. And here is the point.

Dickerson: Sorry to interrupt. You didn’t hear the word, or it was not said? Because Senator Graham also told Senator Scott, your Republican colleague, that this is what happened. Senator [Jeff] Flake was in a subsequent meeting right afterwards where he was told by people in the meeting this happened. So just to button that up, you’re saying it did not happen or you just don’t recall?

Cotton: I didn’t hear it, and I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was. And I know–

Dickerson: But–

Cotton: And I know what Dick Durbin has said about the president’s repeated statements is incorrect.

National Review Editor Rich Lowry, who was not at the meeting, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he was told Trump “used a different, but very closely related vulgarity. He said s-house, and not s-hole.”

A day later, the Washington Post reported, based on accounts from anonymous White House officials, that Perdue and Cotton told the White House that they heard “shithouse” rather than “shithole,” which the Post wrote allowed both men “to deny the president’s comments on television over the weekend.”

Graham appeared to criticize Cotton and Perdue for their selective memories of the meeting. “My memory hasn’t evolved,” he told reporters in South Carolina on Jan. 15. “I know what was said and I know what I said.”

At an event in Chicago on Jan. 15 to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Durbin said: “I know what happened. I stand behind every word that I said in terms of that meeting.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican

Diaz-Balart would neither confirm nor deny whether Trump used the obscenity at the meeting to describe African nations.

The Florida Republican issued a Jan. 12 statement via Twitter saying he did not want to be “diverted from all possible efforts to continue negotiating to stop deportations,” without addressing the president’s reported remarks.

Diaz-Balart, Jan. 12: For months, I have been involved in numerous high level bipartisan meetings negotiating DACA, including Thursday’s meeting at the White House. There are almost 800,000 young DACA beneficiaries who will face imminent deportation in March if we do not reach a deal. I will not be diverted from all possible efforts to continue negotiating to stop the deportations. Nothing will divert my focus to stop the deportation of these innocent people whose futures are at stake.

On Jan. 14, Diaz-Balart’s spokeswoman issued a statement saying the congressman “has NEVER repeated, stated, or leaked what is said in private meetings.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

On “Fox News Sunday,” Nielsen told host Chris Wallace that there was an “impassioned conversation” on immigration at the meeting, but she did not hear “that specific phrase being used.”

Wallace, Jan. 14: Secretary, you were in that meeting in the Oval Office. Did the president say that?

Nielsen: I don’t recall him saying that exact phrase. I think he has been clear and I would certainly say undoubtedly the president will use, continue to use strong language when it comes to this issue. He feels very passionate about it.

I think what was frustrating about that meeting for all of us in the meeting was that although the deal presented in theory and approach to the four pillars upon which we had agreed, did not address the core security issues that we need to do our job. And more importantly, there’s nothing in there that would prevent us from getting here again.

So, we’re not interested in half measures. We don’t want additional temporary populations here. It’s unfair to them, it’s unfair to American citizens and it certainly raises security risks.

Wallace: I don’t understand — I’m just going to press back on you once on this subject. It seems to me — you were in the meeting when these comments were made. I can understand you either saying they were said or they were not said. It is pretty shocking language and to say I don’t recall seems implausible.

If the president of the United States used the word blank-hole talking about countries in the Oval Office or didn’t say it, I would know.

Nielsen: I understand the question. It was an impassioned conversation. I don’t recall that specific phrase being used, that’s all I can say about that.

At least two other Republicans — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Rep. Robert Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — attended the meeting, but we have yet to find any statements from either one about Trump’s remarks at the meeting.

The post What Did Trump Say at Immigration Meeting? appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Nonpartisan congressional analysts say eliminating the penalty for not buying health insurance would increase average premiums on the individual market by 10 percent. That, in turn, would result in some people deciding not to buy health coverage for financial reasons.

Yet Republican Sen. Tom Cotton claimed that the amended Senate tax bill revoking the penalty would have “no impact on anyone” who wants to buy insurance through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.

Cotton made that statement during a Nov. 19 interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Host John Dickerson asked Cotton about the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation’s estimate that, starting in 2025, 13 million fewer people would have health insurance if the penalty for failing to comply with the Obama-era health care law’s individual mandate is repealed.

Dickerson, Nov. 19: Okay. Let’s move on to tax reform. Thirteen million people will be without coverage if the individual mandate is removed as you’d like to see in this tax cut plan. What happens to those 13 million?

Cotton: Well, John, remember what the hated Obamacare mandate is. It fines an American family. They can’t afford their insurance — insurance that Obamacare made unaffordable in the first place. So this bill doesn’t cut a single dime from Medicaid, it doesn’t cut a single dime from the insurance subsidies, it doesn’t change a single regulation in Obamacare. It simply says the IRS cannot fine you if you cannot afford health insurance. So this has no impact on anyone who wants to get health insurance under Obamacare’s individual exchanges or under the Medicaid expansion under their employer’s plan.

Cotton’s office didn’t respond to our request for an explanation.

However, the CBO and JCT estimate that the bill would have an impact on some Americans who want to buy insurance on their own, on or off the exchanges.

Eliminating the penalty would produce results “very similar” to repealing the individual mandate, CBO and JCT say. The latter would result in, among other outcomes, 13 million fewer Americans having health insurance as early as 2025, and average premiums in the nongroup market increasing by 10 percent in most years through 2027.

“Those effects would occur mainly because healthier people would be less likely to obtain insurance and because, especially in the nongroup market, the resulting increases in premiums would cause more people to not purchase insurance,” the analysis says.

Christine Eibner, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, also contradicted Cotton.

“I disagree with the statement,” Eibner wrote in an email to FactCheck.org. “Eliminating the mandate would have spillover effects for the individual market, which includes the ACA’s marketplaces and other individual market plans.”

She added: “Specifically, it’s likely that the people who would drop individual market coverage if the mandate were eliminated would be healthy, low-cost people, who have relatively low health care utilization. If these folks drop out, those remaining on the market will be costlier, leading premiums to rise. Insurance will then become more expensive.”

By 2025, about 5 million of the projected 13 million fewer Americans with health insurance would come from the nongroup or individual insurance market, CBO and JCT say. In addition, 5 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid; another 3 million fewer people would get insurance through their employer; and as many as 500,000 fewer would no longer have some other form of health insurance.

In some cases, higher premiums would be offset by higher government subsidies in the form of premium tax credits. But not everyone qualifies for them.

As of February 2017, 84 percent of the 10.3 million people purchasing health insurance through federal and state exchanges, received premium tax credits, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Naturally, that means 16 percent of those on the exchanges, plus the roughly 5.4 million buying off-exchange plans, don’t get those tax credits.

CBO and JCT do not specify how many would leave the nongroup market because health insurance became too expensive. At least some of them would, though.

Therefore, it’s inaccurate to claim that the proposal from Senate Republicans to stop the penalty payment would not affect anyone buying on the Obamacare exchanges, or who want to buy insurance.

We previously wrote about an inaccurate claim made by Democrats that all 13 million people would be kicked off their health insurance if the Senate bill became law.

As we said, some are expected to stop purchasing insurance for financial reasons, but many would voluntarily give up their health coverage because they would no longer be penalized. CBO’s joint analysis doesn’t say how many would willingly give up insurance and how many would find it too pricey to buy.

The post Cotton’s False Insurance Assurance appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. Tom Cotton each claimed the other distorted the facts regarding the role of Congress in a possible international deal on Iran’s nuclear program:

• Kerry accused Cotton of putting out “false information” that Congress can “change an executive agreement” now being negotiated by the Obama administration. Kerry is correct that Congress cannot change an executive agreement, but it can nullify parts of the deal through legislation if it has enough votes.
• Cotton claimed the secretary said future Congresses and presidents “can’t change a mere executive agreement.” But that’s not what Kerry said. He said the administration is proposing a nonbinding executive agreement, which does not need congressional approval but can be changed by a future president.

Cotton, a freshman senator from Arkansas, finds himself at the center of the Iran debate after he penned an open letter to “the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” — signed by 46 Republican colleagues — that warned any deal signed by Obama could be revoked by the next president and that future Congresses “could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.” Kerry was asked about the letter during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on March 15.

Kerry said the letter was “not only contrary to the Constitution with respect to the executive’s right to negotiate, but it is incorrect, because they cannot change an executive agreement. So, it’s false information and directly calculated to interfere. … Congress does not have the right to change an executive agreement.”

Later in the show, Cotton responded to Kerry’s remarks, saying, “In our constitutional system, while the president negotiates deals, Congress has to approve them for them to be lasting and binding. And I have to say, I’m surprised by the secretary’s comments this morning, because just a few days ago, he testified before the Senate to say that any deal would not be legally binding. And now he says that future Congresses can’t change a mere executive agreement if we disagree with them or if a future president disagrees with them? That’s not the way our constitutional system works. … And I don’t see how anyone can dispute that if a deal is reached with Iran that is not approved by Congress, then future Congresses and future presidents don’t have to accept it in our constitutional system.”

Who’s right? Although the comments seem to contradict each another, they do not because the two men are talking about different types of international agreements with different governing legal principles.

The first thing to know about the deal with Iran that the Obama administration is negotiating along with its P5+1 partners (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany) is that it is not a “treaty.” As spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, treaties are negotiated by presidents, but must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate before they can be ratified by the president. (The Cotton letter, then, was technically incorrect in claiming that “while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them.” The Senate provides “advice and consent,” but the president actually “ratifies” treaties.)

Much more common than treaties — especially post World War II — are “executive agreements,” which do not require advice and consent of the Senate.  According to a report on international law and agreements from the Congressional Research Service in February, “Executive agreements are not specifically discussed in the Constitution, but they nonetheless have been considered valid international compacts under Supreme Court jurisprudence and as a matter of historical practice.”

Among these executive agreements, there are three types: “congressional-executive agreements,” which involve the president entering an international agreement previously or retroactively authorized by Congress; “executive agreements made pursuant to an earlier treaty”; and “sole executive agreements,” which are deals made by the president pursuant to his constitutional authority and without need for congressional authorization, according to CRS. It is this last type of agreement that the administration is pursuing.

Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and cofounder of Lawfareblog.com, wrote that “in comparison with a binding executive agreement under international law, a non-binding agreement with Iran is easier to make (because the President can clearly do it on his own) and easier to break (because there is no domestic or international legal obstacle to breaking it).”

Given that background, then, let’s take a look at the two versions discussed by Kerry and Cotton on the Sunday talk shows.

We’ll start with Kerry, who said Cotton’s letter was “incorrect, because [Congress] cannot change an executive agreement. So, it’s false information and directly calculated to interfere. … Congress does not have the right to change an executive agreement.”

Kermit Roosevelt, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in constitutional law, said Kerry is correct that “Congress can’t literally change the terms of an executive agreement.”

“The president will negotiate some deal with a foreign country, and both sides agree to certain terms,” Roosevelt told us via email. “Congress can’t then come in and change the terms while keeping the agreement in force — it can’t make the other country agree, obviously, and it can’t change either party’s obligations within the framework of the agreement.”

Jeffrey Peake, who teaches courses on the presidency and Congress at Clemson University, agreed. “Congress cannot alter the content of the agreement — only the president can negotiate agreements,” Peake told us in an email. “Congress could enact a statute undermining the agreement, but this wouldn’t be a renegotiation, since the other sides would have to agree to such a change.  Given the multilateral nature of this agreement, this action becomes less likely and is certainly problematic from the executive’s perspective.”

Cotton, meanwhile, flipped the discussion a bit when he said congressional approval is necessary if Obama wants the deal to be “lasting and binding.” But as Kerry told the Senate on March 11, “We’ve been clear from the beginning: We’re not negotiating a, quote, legally binding plan.” So, Kerry said, it doesn’t need congressional approval.

The Congressional Research Service explained the precedent for such an agreement in its report on international agreements.

CRS, Feb. 18: Not every pledge, assurance, or arrangement made between the United States and a foreign party constitutes a legally binding international agreement. In some cases, the United States makes “political commitments” or “gentlemen’s agreements” with foreign States. Although these agreements do not modify existing legal authorities or obligations, which remain controlling under both U.S. domestic and international law, such commitments may nonetheless carry significant moral and political weight. In some instances, a nonlegal agreement between States may serve as a stopgap measure until such time as the parties may conclude a permanent legal settlement. In other instances, a nonlegal agreement may itself be intended to have a lasting impact upon the parties’ relationship.

Cotton claimed that on Sunday, Kerry contradicted his Senate testimony and that “now he says that future Congresses can’t change a mere executive agreement if we disagree with them or if a future president disagrees with them.” That’s not what Kerry said. Kerry did say Congress does not have the right to change an executive agreement, and as we’ve said, that’s true. However, Kerry acknowledged that “another president may have a different view about [the agreement],” and he said it was the responsibility of the Obama administration to craft a deal that makes sure “this is in fact a proven peaceful program.”

“A statute will prevail in a conflict with an executive agreement,” Roosevelt said. “So if the president promises X, and Congress enacts a law forbidding X [and musters enough votes to override a presidential veto, if necessary] … then X is forbidden. So Congress can nullify an executive agreement, which isn’t quite the same as changing the terms.”

Peake says Cotton is “correct in the sense that any agreement that is done without Congress’ approval could be altered at a later date by future presidents, or, if a statute violates the agreement, the statute would prevail (if it was not already a treaty).”

In their book, “Treaty Politics and the Rise of Executive Agreements,” Peake and Glen Krutz of the University of Oklahoma argue that international commitments made without the approval of Congress, and in particular those that go against the wishes of Congress, are “essentially hollow.”

At a daily press briefing, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked how exactly a nonbinding agreement is enforced.

Psaki, March 12: One, through robust and effective verification … measures to detect any Iranian failure to meet its commitment, including the additional protocol through the NPT [the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons]. So that’s part of it, so that would be required. And obviously there are certain steps that would be put into any agreement. And also by making clear, as I have today, that there would be clear and immediate consequences if Iran fails to meet its commitments.

In other words, Psaki argues, there are some enforcement mechanisms in a technically nonbinding agreement. But Cotton is correct that a legally binding agreement would need congressional approval.

Roosevelt added, however, that Cotton’s argument may not support his broader point, “because Congress can nullify a treaty in just the same way — if a statute conflicts with a treaty, the most recent prevails. So the fact that a future Congress could nullify an executive agreement isn’t a distinguishing feature. The distinction is that you could have a treaty that’s contrary to an earlier statute, whereas an executive agreement contrary to an existing statute would be void.”

While Obama may have the authority to negotiate independently, it also seems likely Congress will have involvement in the deal at some point.

John B. Bellinger, an adjunct senior fellow for international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations, told us via email that under the Case-Zablocki Act, “the executive branch is required to send all executive agreements (international agreements entered into by the Executive branch) to the Congress within sixty days after entry into force, but Congressional approval is not required, unless legislation regarding the specific agreement has previously been enacted.”

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Bob Corker has proposed legislation, the Bipartisan Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, that would require Obama to submit any proposed agreement to Congress for a vote. The current congressional sanctions against Iran allow the president to waive U.S. sanctions, which has been the president’s bargaining chip in seeking compliance from Iran. The Corker bill would prohibit the administration from suspending congressional sanctions for 60 days while Congress held hearings to approve or disapprove the agreement.

As Goldsmith explained in a recent blog post, Congress could, at any time “remove” or “limit” the president’s authority to waive U.S. sanctions on Iran. Congress, he said, could decide to “enact legislation (over the President’s threatened veto) that removes or limits or delays the President’s authority to waive U.S. sanctions. (This is in effect what the Corker Bill aims to do.) Since there are clear Article I bases for the sanctions (most notably the foreign commerce clause), Congress’s [sic] has the authority to alter its sanctions regime in this way, even in the midst of the ongoing Iran negotiations.”

Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, recognized that congressional prerogative in a letter to Corker urging him to hold off on any legislation until a deal is finalized.

“We agree that Congress will have a role to play — and will have to take a vote — as part of any comprehensive deal that the United States and our international partners reach with Iran,” McDonough wrote. “As we have repeatedly said, even if a deal is reached, only Congress can terminate the existing Iran statutory sanctions.”

The Obama administration hopes to complete a framework for a deal this month, and then to have it finalized by the end of June.

— Robert Farley

The post Kerry, Cotton Spar Over Iran appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This FlackCheck.org video highlights misleading claims about immigration that were made after President Obama announced his executive actions in late November. The video includes fact-checked statements from Obama, Sen. Ted Cruz, Reps. Tom Cotton and Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum, who plans to run for president in 2016.

The post FlackCheck.org Video: Immigration Claims appeared first on FactCheck.org.