Checking Rachel Maddow

Congress has left on its August recess, but there’s still plenty of interesting political debates on the nightly talk shows. As part of our effort to fact-check the pundits and talk show hosts, we examined two claims by Rachel Maddow, the liberal host from MSNBC.

We checked Maddow’s claim that illegal immigration is actually “not getting worse,” as many opponents of illegal immigration contend. We found that the number of illegal immigrants is often tied to the economy and the number tends to dip during an economic downturn. As a result, the latest estimates say that the number of immigrants has declined. We rated Maddow’s statement True.

We also checked Maddow’s claim that “tax cuts are remarkably un-stimulative when you compare them with different kinds of government spending.” That gave us an opportunity to refresh our memories of Econ 101 by watching the Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem and talk with a few economists about whether there was, indeed, a consensus on stimulants, so to speak.

We found some economists agreed with Maddow’s interpretation, and some did not. We rated her statement Half True.

To see how Maddow has fared overall on our Truth-O-Meter, check out her PolitiFact record.