Fact Check: McCain, Obama Err, Stretch Truth

Sept. 27, 2008 — -- As Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., engaged in their first one-on-one presidential debate Friday evening, ABC News looked into their claims and found they were not always entirely accurate.

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Claim: Obama said he "pays for every dime" of his spending proposals.

Fact: The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that Obama's policies would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion over 10 years. The Tax Policy Center adds that McCain's policies would lead to an even bigger increase in the debt of $5.1 trillion.

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Claim: Obama said that McCain "wanted to give oil companies another $4 billion."

Fact: McCain's tax proposal would give tax breaks to all corporations, not just oil companies. His proposal seeks to lower the corporate tax rate 10 percent.

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Claim: Obama said "if you make less than $250,000 -- less than a quarter-million dollars a year -- then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase."

Fact: Obama has called for higher taxes on income, capital gains and dividends for individuals making $200,000 per year. His tax plan imposes higher taxes on couples starting at $250,000 a year.

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Claim: McCain suggested Adm. Mike Mullen called Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan "dangerous." Obama said, "That's not the case."

Fact: On "Fox News Sunday," Mullen was asked by Chris Wallace if setting a timeline for withdrawal along the lines of Obama's plan "could be dangerous." Mullen told Chris Wallace, "I think the consequences could be very dangerous in that regard."

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Claim: McCain began tonight's debate by expressing his concerns for Ted Kennedy "who is now in the hospital."

Fact: While Ted Kennedy did go to the hospital briefly today for a minor seizure, the Kennedy family released a statement an hour before the debate began saying he was back at home, doing well and watching the debate.

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Claim: McCain said Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote a resignation letter the night before the Normandy invasion in World War II.

Fact: Eisenhower wrote a letter taking full responsibility for the consequences of the invasion, but did not write a letter of resignation, according to the National Archives. See the letter here.

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Claim: McCain said Obama voted for a tax increase on people who make $42,000 per year.

Fact: Obama voted "yes" on a Senate budget resolution that would raise the tax rate from 25 percent to 28 percent for single wage earners making $42,000 or more. However, budget resolutions are non-binding and do not affect tax rates.

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Claim: McCain said he'd been criticized because he "called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Fact: McCain has been criticized in part for saying to reporters last Thursday, "If I were president today, I would fire him" -- something the president technically cannot do because the SEC is an independent agency.

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Claim: McCain said that Obama did not understand that Pakistan was a "failed state" when Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to power.

Fact: Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999, deposing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The institutions of government never stopped functioning.

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Claim: Both men talked about the Iranian "Republican Guard."

Fact: There is no Iranian Republican Guard. The group branded a terrorist group by the U.S. government is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

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Claim: Both men claimed former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported their views regarding negotiations with Iran. Obama said that Kissinger, along with other former secretaries of state, believed in direct negotiation. McCain quibbled with Obama's statement, saying that he Kissinger did not support talks at the presidential level.

Fact: Kissinger had this to say at a CNN Forum on Sept. 16: "I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we know we're dealing with authentic." After the debate, Kissinger released a letter of support for McCain, saying he "would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the presidential level."

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The "Fact Check" team: Reynolds Holding, Tahman Bradley, Teddy Davis, Karen Travers, Kirit Radia, Luis Martinez, Ariane deVogue, Arlette Saenz, Kim Randolph, Nitya Venkataraman, Jerica Richardson, Steven Portnoy, and Jonathan Karl.