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LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off one final time, each looking to land a knockout punch.
As the presidential nominees met Wednesday for their final debate, and CNN’s Reality Check Team spent the night analyzing their claims.
The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN is listening throughout the debate and selecting key statements from both candidates, rating them true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it’s complicated.
Supreme Court
Reality Check: Trump on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s remarks
By Kate Grise, CNN
Trump called out the Supreme Court justice for her criticism of his candidacy.
“Something happened recently where Justice Ginsburg made some very inappropriate statements toward me and toward a tremendous number of people, many, many millions of people that I represent and she was forced to apologize,” he said. “And apologize she did. But these were statements that should never, ever have been made.”
Ginsburg called Trump a “faker” in a July 11 interview with CNN.
“He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment,” Ginsburg said. “He really has an ego … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”
“At first I thought it was funny,” she said. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president.”
Early that same week, Ginsburg also told The Associated Press that if Trump won the presidency, “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs.”
She also told The New York Times, “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
Read more: Deadline to register for Nov. 8 presidential election nears
Ginsburg later said she regretted the remarks.
“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” Ginsburg said in a statement. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future, I will be more circumspect.”
We rate Trump’s claim true.
Reality Check: Trump justices would overrule Roe v. Wade ‘automatically’
By Steve Vladeck, CNN
Trump’s claim that the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade would be overruled by justices he would appoint to the Supreme Court “automatically” is belied by history.
Although Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointed justices who they believed would overrule the 1973 decision recognizing a woman’s constitutional right to choose an abortion, three of those appointees — Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter — famously voted to preserve the Roe decision in 1992.
Even if a President Trump were only to appoint “pro-life” justices, there is simply no way to ensure that any particular decision, including Roe, would be “automatically” overruled.
Verdict: False.
Immigration
Reality Check: Clinton ‘fought for the wall,’ Trump claims
By Theodore Schleifer, CNN
Trump thundered that Clinton “fought for the wall in 2006.”
Clinton did indeed support a border barrier in 2006 — she voted for George W. Bush’s Secure Fence Act, which paved the way for 700 miles of security along the southern border. But as the name implies, it was a “fence,” not a wall.
It’s unclear if that is still an official campaign position. Her position on immigration reform, as listed on her website, says close to little about how she would secure the border.
Confronted by Latino anchor Jorge Ramos about the difference about her position and Trump’s, Clinton said in January.
“We do need to have secure borders, and what that will take is a combination of technology and physical barriers,” she told him.
“But you want a wall, then,” Ramos replied.
“I voted for border security — and some of it was a fence, I don’t think we ever called it a wall,” she replied, before conceding: “Maybe in some cases it was a wall.”
The difference is largely semantic — both are physical barriers that prevent people from crossing. But Trump isn’t entirely accurate.
Verdict: True, but misleading.
Syrian refugees
Reality Check: Trump says Obama admitted thousands of Syrians
By Laura Koran, CNN
Trump claimed that President Barack Obama has admitted “thousands and thousands” of Syrians, adding, “they have no idea where they come from.”
Let’s break this claim down.
The Obama administration amended its refugee quotas for the 2016 fiscal year in response to the growing migrant crisis, paving the way for at least 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US. They ended the fiscal year at the end of September having admitted more than 12,500 Syrians as part of this increase.
The administration called for a further increase in the overall refugee admissions quota for the 2017 fiscal year, from 85,000 to 110,000. Officials have not offered a specific goal for Syrians, but plan to admit 40,000 refugees from the geographic region that includes Syria.
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