Truth is often scathed in politics. This week’s Democratic presidential debate was no exception. Here are some of the top lies promulgated at the fiasco.

Lie #1 Clinton’s emails

Hillary Clinton obscured facts about her private email account while she was Secretary of State. She claimed that what she did was “allowed by the State Department.” Nevertheless, Clinton was supposed to hand over her emails to the Department by the end of her tenure — not two years later. Nor was using a private email permitted by the established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations. ¹

Lie #2 Sanders on wealth and income inequality

Bernie Sanders wrongly stated that the United States is the world’s leader in wealth and income inequality. In actuality, the U.S. ranks 42nd in income inequality and 16th in terms of wealth held by the top 1 percent.¹

Lie #3 Clinton on gun violence

Clinton claimed that we lose 90 people a day to gun violence. While it is true that gun deaths average about 90 people a day, nearly one-third of those are suicides. Most gun deaths are actually suicides. According to statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 63 percent of firearms deaths in 2013 were suicides.¹

Lie #4 Sanders on African American unemployment rates

Sanders stated that African American youth unemployment was 51 percent. However, this figure includes African Americans with part-time jobs seeking full-time employment.¹

Lie #5 Chafee on Rhode Island’s unemployment rate

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee purported that his state “had the biggest drop of the unemployment rate over my four budgets of all but one state.” To the contrary, California, North Carolina and Florida had steeper declines in unemployment rates when Chafee was governor.¹

As can bee seen, Clinton and Sanders took the prize for the most lies made at  the Democratic presidential debate; though the other candidates made their fair share of half-baked truths.

For hourly headlines on all the 2016 presidential candidates, visit Election2016.news.

Sources include:

FactCheck.org