Keller @Large: Claims By Trump, Biden Camps Don't Hold Up
BOSTON (CBS) - You hear it almost every day lately from the president, the claim that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud this fall.
But it's been debunked by a bi-partisan array of state election officials. In 2017, the White House created a special commission to probe alleged voter fraud;
they found nothing and disbanded in 2018.
And today, a Republican election-law expert who's been looking out for voter fraud for years wrote in the Washington Post "four decades of dedicated investigation have produced only isolated incidents of election fraud. There's no proof of widespread fraud."
The president may keep repeating it, but that doesn't make it true.
"Joe Biden will protect social security," says a new Biden campaign ad, as he tries to capitalize on the fact that President Trump has called for doing away with the payroll tax, the money taken out of your check that helps fund Social Security. "If Trump gets his way, Social Security benefits will run out in just three years from now. Don't let it happen," says the ad.
But that explosive charge falls short of provable truth.
While the president has said he wants to "terminate" the payroll tax, his aides insist the plan is only for a temporary tax holiday. And while Trump's claim that Congress will make up any losses to Social Security from "tremendous" economic growth ahead is highly debatable, Biden's charge that Trump wants to kill the retirement program is not supported by the facts.
We'll be applying the Truth Test to campaign claims regularly down the campaign stretch. If you'd like to suggest a statement or ad for fact-checking, email me at keller@wbztv.com.
