Fact-checking the Huntsman-Gingrich debate

By Martha M. Hamilton
Published on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 11:53 a.m.

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"You look at defense … we're spending more than the rest of the world combined."

Jon Huntsman, Monday, December 12th, 2011.

Ruling: Mostly False | Details

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Jon Hunstman and Newt Gingrich debate in New Hampsire

When former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich met for a one-on-one debate in Manchester, N.H., the subject was foreign policy. We found some interesting statements that called for fact-checking.

We started with Huntsman. "If you look at defense … we're spending more than the rest of the world combined," he said. But when we checked into it, we found otherwise.

The evidence supported Huntsman's underlying point -- that the U.S. spends far more than other countries on defense, but it fell short of his claim that U.S. spending exceeds that of all other countries combined. International research shows that United States’ defense funds make up between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s total military spending. So we rated Huntsman’s claim Mostly False.