Haley created a site to fact-check DeSantis. It could use more context.

More than a dozen times during Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, directed viewers to a website claiming to correct Ron DeSantis’ “lies.”

But the Haley campaign website is itself a political project — not an exercise in objective fact-checking.

The site does refer to independent fact-checking to push back on claims that distort Ms. Haley’s positions on issues such as Gaza refugees and to clarify her comments about being motivated to run for office by a speech by Hillary Clinton, despite their political differences.

But there are important differences between Ms. Haley’s efforts and an independent fact-checking operation. For example, the website does not directly quote Mr. DeSantis or the specific comments it rebuts. It also considers some statements that do not actually contain verifiable facts as a “lie”.

“Mr. DeSantis claims he will take on big spenders in Washington,” the site says, calling his claim a lie because he is in Congress voted Unpleasant increase the federal debt limit. Ms. Haley may use this criticism in her campaign, but that alone does not make Mr. DeSantis’ statements about his intention to rein in federal spending a “lie.”

“At the end of the day, it’s still campaign propaganda,” said Bill Adair, creator of the website PolitiFact and professor of journalism at Duke University. “It’s not fact checking.”

It is certainly not the first time a political campaign has used the style of fact-checking for its own objectives, Mr. Adair said, noting that the 2008 Obama campaign created a website to push back against ‘slander’.

During Wednesday’s debate “it was proclaimed more prominently and more often than I have ever seen it before,” Mr Adair said. He added: “I think this shows that fact-checking has matured to the point where candidates are posing as fact-checkers in an attempt to provide their own account of the facts, even though it is often not the whole truth.”

Here is more context on several claims on Ms. Haley’s website, Desantislies.com.

Ensure gender transition

The website states that “DeSantis falsely claims that Nikki Haley supports gender reassignment surgery for minors.” It goes on to say that Ms. Haley “is against gender reassignment surgery and puberty blockers for minors and has said this several times.”

It is true that Mrs. Haley did that pronounced against the fact that minors can undergo gender transition operations before the age of 18. But Mr. DeSantis and other critics have echoed a comment she made in June — not reported on Ms. Haley’s website — suggesting that the law should not be involved in regulating this care.

During a CBS interview, Ms. Haley was asked what the law should say about transgender care for young people. “I think the law should stay out of it, and I think parents should deal with it,” Ms. Haley responded.

But even then, Ms. Haley added, “When that child turns 18, if they want to make a more permanent change, they can do that.”

Freedom of opinion

The website says that “DeSantis falsely claims that Haley opposes free speech on social media,” and points out that Mr. DeSantis previously expressed support for legal efforts to tackle journalists’ use of anonymous sources.

But the site ignores Ms Haley’s November call for social media users to be required to be verified by name before backtracking on her comments amid criticism.

“If I get into power, the first thing we have to do is: social media accounts and social media companies have to show America their algorithms,” Ms. Haley said. during a Fox News event. “Let’s see why they push what they push. The second is that every person on social media should be verified by his or her name.”

Ms Haley added: “First of all, it is a threat to national security. When you do that, suddenly people have to stand up for what they say. And it eliminates the Russian bots, the Iranian bots and the Chinese bots. And then you’ll get some civility when people know that their name is next to what they say, and they know that their pastor and their family members will see it.

Mr. DeSantis quickly criticized her comments, proverb“Haley’s proposal to ban anonymous speech online – similar to what China recently did – is dangerous and unconstitutional.”

A day later, Mrs. Haley said on CNBC that “life would be more civil” if people didn’t post anonymously, but noted: “I don’t mind anonymous American people having freedom of speech. What I don’t like is that anonymous Russians, Chinese and Iranians have free speech.”

When confronted during the Republican debate in December, Ms. Haley misleadingly claimed that she “never said the government should take anyone’s name.”

Taxes

Mr. DeSantis and his supporters have made misleading claims about Ms. Haley’s record on taxes when she was governor of South Carolina. But the claims did not always turn out to be categorically false, as Ms. Haley’s website claims.

The website links to four articles, including two from The New York Times. In one example, The Times fact-checked a pro-DeSantis super PAC’s argument that Ms. Haley “raised taxes” and found it misleading.

That’s because, technically, Mrs. Haley co-sponsored legislation which was passed in 2006 and increased the state tax by one percentage point. But that measure, among other things, also exempted owner-occupiers from paying property taxes for schools and was viewed by experts as a “tax swap,” not a tax increase. An analysis at the time predicted that most homeowners would have a lower tax burden overall.

China

The website calls Ms. Haley the “most outspoken candidate for the growing China threat” and claims that “DeSantis is falsely attacking Nikki Haley’s record on China.”

There is indeed distortion: Mr. DeSantis claimed that Ms. Haley gave a Chinese company land near a military base, referring to a fiber-optic company. But while Mrs. Haley celebrated the company’s opening of a factory in South Carolina, and although the state provided a grant for site improvements, it was the county government – ​​not the state – that the land made available as part of a deal to safeguard hundreds of jobs.

But it’s worth noting that the flawed attacks went both ways.

For example, a pro-Haley super PAC falsely claimed that Mr. DeSantis “voted to expedite Obama’s China trade deals.” That claim was based on a vote Mr. DeSantis became a congressman in 2015 to expand the president’s authority to fast-track trade legislation (he was one of 190 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted for it). No trade agreements subject to that authority have been concluded with China.