News Reporter: Fact Checker: Trois Pinocchios pour Justin Trudeau, eight more Pinocchios for Trump

Friday, 2 December 2016

Fact Checker: Trois Pinocchios pour Justin Trudeau, eight more Pinocchios for Trump

The truth behind the rhetoric

Trois Pinocchios pour Justin Trudeau, eight more Pinocchios for Trump

It’s been a while since we fact-checked a foreign leader. Upon the Nov. 25 death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a surprisingly warm statement — inspiring #TrudeauEulogies mocking him on Twitter. This week, a reader asked us about the claim in Trudeau’s statement that Castro “made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation."

Castro came to power in 1959 after overthrowing the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. We reviewed studies from the rigorous research effort to analyze how current living standards in Cuba compare to pre-revolutionary standards. According to the research, Cuba was already near the top of the heap in the region in regards to health and education before the revolution.

Cuba is now lauded for its low infant mortality rate, but it was low even before the revolution. Researchers say overall healthcare outcomes may not have been much different without the revolution. Cuba’s ranking in the region on life expectancy and literacy improved after Castro. Free national public education and public health systems expanded after the revolution.

But there are still problems. Cuban hospitals are ill-equipped. The GDP plummeted, so even educated people are paid low wages and lack incentives to thrive professionally. Trudeau appears to accept the Cuban government spin as fact — and earned Three, er, Trois Pinocchios.

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Pinocchios galore for Trump’s voter fraud claims

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter and, again, claimed that there were “millions of people who voted illegally.” Then, when asked to back up this claim about voter fraud, his campaign offered, yet again, two sources that do not support this claim at all.

Back when Trump was trailing in the polls and was threatening to dispute the election results because the system was "rigged," we gave Trump two Four-Pinocchio ratings for making a number of bogus claims about alleged voter fraud. And this week, we awarded the future U.S. president Four Pinocchios again for claiming that “millions of people” voted illegally in the election.

The simple answer is: There is no basis for this claim, which continues to spread widely via conspiracy and fake news sites.

When asked to support this, a Trump aide regurgitated debunked talking points that he said showed “issues of voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting.” He cited two studies. One found millions of out-of-date voter registration records due to people moving or dying, but no evidence of voter fraud. The other is a misinterpretation of disputed data, about which the researchers even said Trump was taking his findings out of context. We awarded Four Pinocchios again.

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Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup.

— Michelle Ye Hee Lee