Florida Republican Debate 2012: Fact Checking the GOP, from Gingrich to Paul

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum faced off last night in the final GOP debate in Florida before the Jan. 31 primary.

For the most part, the four remaining presidential candidates held nothing back in the debate. But several of their statements, while passed off as fact, either skirted the truth or were just plain wrong.

What answers did the candidates get wrong, and when did truth start to enter the realm of spin? Check out the full Florida 2012 Republican debate fact check below, from whether Obama really undermines Israel to how much Romney knew about his own ties to Freddie Mac.

1. 'A Ghetto Language'

During last night Republican primary debate, Newt Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney for running a Spanish-language radio ad in Florida claiming the Gingrich had labeled Spanish the language of the ghetto.

It's taken totally out of context, Gingrich said. I did not say it about Spanish. I said it in general about all languages.

[It is] better for children to learn English in general, he concluded. Period.

True or False

Both. Gingrich wasn't specifically referencing Spanish, but the original quote still doesn't look good.

Gingrich didn't stop at just promoting English in his speech to the National Federation of Republican Women in 2007.

The full quote reads: We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

Although the former Speaker did not identify the 'ghetto language' as Spanish, the remark was widely taken to be a slur on the most common language spoken by U.S. immigrants, and Gingrich recognized as much.

A few days after the speech, the Republican primary candidate posted a video online apologizing for his choice of words, saying he regretted producing a bad feeling within the Latino community.

2. How Many Languages?

Gingrich claimed that there were 94 languages spoken at Miami Dade College in Florida.

True or False?

False. Actually, there are 86 languages spoken at MDC. Gingrich got the number right earlier this week at Monday's debate. The former Speaker has a habit of dropping obscure facts into his statements, but this was one segment that got lost in translation.

3. Colombian Free Trade Agreement

You had a president of the United States that help [up] a Colombian free trade agreement, Santorum fumed during last night's debate. Colombia, who's out there on the front lines working with us against the narco-terrorists, standing up to Chavez in South America.

And what did we do? he asked. The president of the United States sided with organized labor and the environmental groups, and held Colombia hanging out to dry for three years.

True or False?

False. When President Obama took office, he tried to revive a free-trade deal with Colombia that President Bush had negotiated before it was stalled in Congress.

Obama had to deal with opposition from within his own party and from organized labor to try and get the Colombia deals as well as a South Korea and a Panama free-trade pact passed. He did hold off on submitting them to Congress in an attempt to win over more of his party's support, but finally submitted them in 2011.

Congress approved all three in the fall, despite a fair amount of remaining Democratic opposition. The pacts were supported by a significant number of Republican congresspeople.

4. Obamacare

According to Mitt Romney, Obamacare takes over health care for the American people.

True or False?

Both. Obama's plan does increase the role of the federal government in the U.S. health care system.

But when it's fully implemented in 2019, as the Boston Globe reported, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office indicates that 56 percent of Americans under age 65 will be covered by employer plans, roughly the same amount as in 2012.

5. 'Absymal Treatment' of Latin America

Rick Santorum accused the Obama of having a consistent policy of siding with leftists, siding with Marxists, siding with those who don't support democracy in Latin America.

Santorum called the Obama administration's treatment of its allies there abysmal.

He singled out the coup that removed Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras as a particularly egregious failure, arguing that Obama failed to help the Honduran people.

True or False?

False. Though it's somewhat hyperbolic to call it abysmal, there's no denying the Obama administration has focused its attentions abroad on countries in the Middle East far more than in South and Central America.

But President Obama visited three countries in Latin America last year. The Panamanian and Colombian trade agreements he pushed through mark part of the greatest expansion of trade liberalization in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Far from siding with Marxists or leftists, like Fidel Castro in Cuba or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Obama had roundly criticized them throughout his administration.

And while some Republicans in Congress pushed for America to recognize Roberto Micheletti, a parliamentary leader installed during the coup, Obama worked to broker a deal to bring Zelaya home from exile. When the deal fell through, the U.S. accepted the results of an election that made Porfirio Lobo as the president of Honduras.

6. Romney's Blind Trust

Newt Gingrich attacked Mitt Romney last night for profiting off the housing crisis that hit Floridians, noting his investments in both Goldman Sachs and in Freddie Mac, which Romney had slammed Gingrich for working with in past years.

Someone who owns stock in a place that forecloses on Floridians has a lot of gall to start raising the issue, Gingrich said at a Tea Party rally before the debate.

Romney, however, argued that the investments Gingrich referenced weren't made by him at all. My investments for the last ten years have been in a blind trust, managed by a trustee, he asserted.

True or False?

Both. Most of Romney's assets, according to the New York Times, are held in blind trusts managed by a trustee. These trusts include Romney's investment in Goldman Sachs, and some securities are linked to adjustable-rate mortgages from banks known to be foreclosing houses in Florida and other states.

But not all of Mitt Romney's investments have been in a blind trust. Romney's personal financial disclosure forms reveal that the Republican primary candidates owned between $250-500,000 in the Federated Government Obligation Fund.

This fund contained mutual-fund notes for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. An addendum to the disclosure forms reveals that the fund was outside the scope of his blind trust. It remains unclear, meanwhile how much money the trusts purchased by Romney or his trustee gained or lost through the investment.

7. 'The Wars Expand'

[President Obama] promises to end the wars, Ron Paul said during last night's 2012 Florida debate. But the wars expand.

True or False?

False. Actually, the wars are shrinking, and have been throughout Obama's term as president. Last month, the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, and America and NATO have agreed to end the war in Afghanistan in 2014.

Obama did send an additional 33,000 troops to Afghanistan in late 2009, but fulfilled his promise to bring 10,000 troops home by the end of 2011. The administration is set to pull an additional 23,000 troops out by fall 2012.

8. Obama 'Undermines' Israel

We're in a continuous state of war where Obama undermines the Israelis, said former Speaker Newt Gingrich last night.

Mitt Romney agreed, claiming Obama threw Israeli under the bus by criticizing the construction of Jewish settlements that have been formed in the West Bank since 1967.

This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements, Romney said. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

True or False?

False. President Obama has spoken at length about the plight of Israelis, and recognizes the right of both Israel and Palestine to exist.

Though the U.S. does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank settlements, a policy begun long before Obama was elected, the administration sided with Israel by vetoing a UN resolution that would have condemned the state's settlement policy.

As for the Gaza attacks, Obama referred to them specifically in December 2008, and has condemned the bombings in UN speeches in 2009 and 2011.

If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep, I'm doing everything in my power to stop that, Obama said in 2008. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

9. Palestinians 'An Invention'

Gingrich, who prides himself on being a historian, repeated the same statement he first made in early December, claiming that the Palestinian people were technically an invention in the late 1970s.

True or False?

False. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was actually founded in 1964, meant to lobby for the rights of the Arab people living on lands now part of the Nation of Israel. Many historians, meanwhile, trace the Palestinians as a people back to the first decades of the 20th century.

10. Romney Goes Democrat

During the final Florida debate, Mitt Romney said, I've never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot.

True or False?

False. Romney has said that he voted for Senator Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democrat, when he ran against Bill Clinton for the presidential nomination.

It was the same day President George H.W. Bush and Pat Buchanan were on the Republican ballot, and as an independent, Romney could have voted on that ballot instead.

According to the Times, Romney claims the only reason he didn't vote Republican that year was because it was clear Bush would win the Massachusetts primary (he did win, with 65 percent of the vote. He also claims he voted for Tsongas to try and stop Bill Clinton from getting the nomination.

11. Newt's Budget Balancing

Last night, Gingrich once again took credit for four balanced budgets while he was the Speaker of the House. It's a claim he's made at almost every stop on the campaign trail.

True or False?

False. The years the former Speaker reference are 1998 through 2001, but Gingrich was only in office for the first two. He left the House in January 1999, and had no role in shaping the budget for the next two years.

Luckily for the audiences, sites like PolitiFact weren't the only ones scrutinizing Gingrich's claim. So was Ron Paul.

I think you've stretched that a little bit more than you should have, Paul said gently to his GOP rival. The Texas congressman was in the House when Gingrich was Speaker.

12. Romney Is 'Anti-Immigrant'

When Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney of being anti-immigrant during last night's debate, the GOP candidate lost his cool.

That's simply inexcusable, said Romney. I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife's father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive.

He also criticized the former Speaker for implying that his self-deportation plan was the same as tracking down families and kicking them out of the country. I'm not going to find grandmothers and deport them, he said. Those are your words, not my words.'

True or False?

Both. Saying Romney is anti-immigrant is too extreme, and his self-deportation strategy is not the same as hunting down families to send out of the country.

But Romney borrowed the idea of self-deportation from groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which not only opposed benefits for illegal immigrants but seeks to put massive restrictions on legal immigration, as well.

Romney has already said he would veto the DREAM Act, which gives legal status to immigrant students, unless the act only applies to those who had been in military service. He opposed state laws that allow the children of illegal immigrants to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates.

And Romney has just recently welcomed his endorsement by Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state. Kobach authored several laws based on self-deportation designed to limit all possible benefits and opportunities for illegal immigrants in order to drive them out of the state.