Fact checking Nikki Haley’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire

<i>Will Lanzoni/CNN</i><br/>Haley participates in a CNN town hall at New England College in Henniker

By CNN Newsource

Published January 18, 2024 7:59 PM

By CNN Staff

(CNN) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley participated in a CNN town hall Thursday in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s upcoming primary.

The GOP presidential contender — who came in third behind former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis during Monday’s caucus in Iowa — took questions from New Hampshire voters about a wide range of issues.

Here is a fact check of some of Haley’s claims during the town hall.

Response to attacks on US soldiers

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday that that it took Iran “shooting our men and women in Iraq and Syria … 130 times” for President Joe Biden to “do something” about it.

Fact’s First: Haley’s claim is false.

The first time the US took action against Iranian-backed forces on October 26 — when an F-15 fighter jet and a pair of F-16 fighters used precision-guided munitions against weapons and ammunition storage facilities linked to Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria — US and coalition forces had come under attack 19 times in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Those strikes have been followed by several more, including on November 8, November 12, November 20, and December 25.

As of Thursday, there have been at least 142 attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria since the attacks began on October 17.

From CNN’s Haley Britzky

Electric vehicle mandates

Haley once again characterized Biden’s electric vehicle policies as mandatory, saying the president’s goal is “everybody’s got to drive an electric car by 2033.”

“Americans don’t all want electric cars; quit telling them how to live,” Haley added during Thursday’s town hall.

Facts First: Haley’s claim – along with a very similar claim she made during CNN’s presidential debate earlier this month where she said Biden’s goal was for everyone to drive an EV by 2035 – is misleading. Biden has not moved forward with EV mandates, though his administration has made an aggressive push for automakers and consumers to move toward electric vehicles.

The Biden administration has proposed ambitious new tailpipe emissions regulations for automakers, offered tax credits to people who buy certain electric vehicles, invested in new electric vehicle charging stations and ordered federal entities to purchase electric vehicles, among other policies promoting the adoption of EVs. But there is no Biden requirement mandating the use of electric vehicles and no Biden proposal to prohibit citizens from continuing to use gasoline-powered engines as more EVs hit the roads.

Depending on how automakers were to respond, the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new tailpipe rules could, if adopted, require electric vehicles to make up two-thirds of new cars sold in the US by 2032. Several blue states, including California, have passed laws banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Tax credits

Asked during a CNN town hall about whether she would support a recent bipartisan deal in Congress to expand the child tax credit, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she would want to “do it across the board and make sure that it’s fair.”

“If you’re gonna do tax credits, do it for everybody,” she said. “Don’t play favorites. Don’t pick winners and losers. That’s not what we do in America.”

Facts First: Haley is mischaracterizing how the child tax credit works. A wide swath of American families are already eligible for and claim the child tax credit. Very low-income and very high-income households don’t qualify. The congressional deal would temporarily enable lower-income families to claim more of the credit.

The child tax credit allows eligible families to reduce their tax liability by up to $2,000 per qualifying child. The agreement calls for increasing the maximum refundable credit for those households who owe little or no income taxes.

Also, many low-income families currently receive the same child tax credit whether they have one or more kids. Under the deal, these households would receive the same credit for each of their children, just as higher-income families already do.

These provisions would be in effect for three tax years, from 2023 through 2025.

The proposal would help more than 80% of the 19 million children who receive no credit or a partial one because their families earn too little, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Once fully in effect in 2025, the provisions would lift at least half a million children out of poverty and improve the financial situation of about 5 million more children who would remain below the poverty line.

Some Democrats and advocates are disappointed with the deal because it wouldn’t expand eligibility for the child tax credit to all lower-income families, as the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act did for one year.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

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