NBC's "Meet the Press" featured appearances Sunday by Republican presidential candidates John Kasich and Rand Paul, as well as Capt. Mark Kelly and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
PolitiFact looked at two claims made by the show's guests.
Asked by moderator Chuck Todd why he hasn’t hosted a public event in the state of Nevada since December 16, Rand Paul blasted fellow senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio for missing Senate votes.
“"I'm one of the few of the candidates that actually shows up to vote. Both Cruz and Rubio are missing the vast majority of their votes. But I feel an obligation to the taxpayer that pays my salary,” he said.
PolitiFact rated that “mostly false.”
The RULING, according to PolitiFact: “Paul has a point that he has a better Senate voting record than Cruz and Rubio. And over the past three months, Rubio has missed a majority of his votes, skipping out on nearly 60 percent as he campaigns for president. This doesn’t hold for Rubio’s 2015 record or his Senate career. And Cruz has not missed a majority of his votes over any of those time periods. Paul’s criticism goes too far in saying both candidates are "missing the vast majority of their votes," so we rate it Mostly False.”
Later in the show, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick defended new gun laws in his state, saying that states where people carry guns have less crime.
“Everywhere that we have more citizens carrying guns, crime is less. There's a study showing that where states have open carry or concealed carry, but particularly open carry, the crime is down 25 percent,” he said.
PolitiFact also calls that claim “mostly false.”
The RULING, according to PolitiFact: “It’s possible that Patrick is referencing a disputed study by gun rights advocate John Lott and getting some details wrong. Lott’s study shows a 25 percent decrease in murder and violent crime across the country from 2007 to 2014, as well as a 178 percent rise in the number of concealed-carry permits. Those two trends may be correlated, but experts say there’s no evidence showing causation. Further, gun laws may have little to nothing to do with rates of falling crime. We rate Patrick’s claim Mostly False.”