News Reporter: Fact Checker: Attack ads target Clinton and Trump over their views on women

Friday, 20 May 2016

Fact Checker: Attack ads target Clinton and Trump over their views on women

The truth behind the rhetoric

This week, we took a deep look at two controversies surrounding Hillary Clinton often cited by her opponents: that she “defended an accused child rapist, then laughed about his lenient sentence” and “politically attacked sexual harassment victims” (specifically, women who made sexual allegations about Bill Clinton). These claims were made in an ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

These are misleading soundbites about complex situations. Forty years ago, then-Hillary Rodham was running a legal aid clinic in Arkansas and was appointed by the court to defend a child rapist. In 2014, an audio recording emerged of Clinton later being interviewed about the case with unusual candor. She’s heard laughing four times while describing the legal process and the case, but at no point does she laugh about the man’s sentence. Still, some might find it disturbingly lighthearted.

Did Clinton politically attack sexual harassment victims? The NRSC pointed to Clinton’s 1998 interview on “The Today Show,” where she said she believed the sexual harassment allegations against her husband were false attacks and part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

The NRSC argued that Clinton was attacking former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones (former Arkansas state employee who alleged that then-Governor Bill Clinton propositioned her and exposed himself in 1991). But the timeline doesn’t support the claim about Lewinsky’s case, which was not fully revealed until six months after that interview. We awarded Three Pinocchios.

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Speaking of women …

Pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA attacked Donald Trump this week over his comments about women in a new ad. It features voters (mostly women) mouthing words actually said by Trump, mostly about women's appearances. The ad ends with a woman mouthing this Trump quote: “And you can tell them to go [expletive deleted] themselves.”

The ad then asks, "Does Donald Trump really speak for you?" A series of images of women flash by. Is the ad about Trump and women or about how Trump speaks? It’s left up to the viewer’s interpretation.

The expletive isn’t about women, but about trade — specifically, about companies taking U.S. jobs to Mexico. So Trump angrily (and inaccurately) tweeted about the “pathetic” ad: “You can tell them to go BLANK themselves” – was about China, NOT WOMEN!

Clinton’s allies almost gleefully responded to his retort. By tweeting that the one quote was not about women, Trump reinforced the accuracy of the other, damaging quotes that were, in fact, about women. Did Priorities USA set him up for that trap? Perhaps.

… and of men, too

Trump often points to the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe to make a case for tough immigration policies along the U.S.-Mexico border and, of course, to build a wall. So we revisited a topic we wrote about during one of the gazillion debates earlier this year: Trump’s claim about women, children and young men in the European migration crisis.

Trump said “young, strong men” were dominating the European migrant crisis. Is that really the case? Not anymore. The overall flow of migrants and refugees into Europe was dominated first by men, including younger men, when the numbers began spiking last year. But since the middle of 2015, the demographics began to shift and more women and children started making trips across the Mediterranean Sea (the most commonly used route).

Why the shift? We don’t know for sure, since many factors affect the movement of migrants and refugees. Generally speaking, men tend to make sea trips like these because they’re grueling, and women and children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. After the men arrive, they seek refugee status so they can safely bring their family members through the family reunification process.

But more European countries are restricting their family unification policies, so more women and children may be resorting to the sea route. The data don’t support Trump’s claim, and we awarded Three Pinocchios.

(Courtesy of giphy.com)

Help us find ads, statements, speeches, quotes and figures that don’t quite pass muster. Send your fact-check suggestions: fill out this form, e-mail us or tweet us at @myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP or using #FactCheckThis. Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter.

Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup.

— Michelle Ye Hee Lee