Un video en Facebook dice que la NASA dejó de investigar el océano para concentrarse en el espacio, pero esto no es cierto.
“La NASA, en algún punto, La NASA obviamente estaba investigando el mar y dejaron de investigarlo y se fueron para el espacio verdad”, dice la publicación del 20 de febrero. “Yo tengo la razón por la cual ellos decidieron irse para el espacio… Hay una teoría que dice que los mismos ancestros de nosotros creían que había una conexión entre el cielo, las estrellas con el océano”.
El subtítulo del video también dice: “PORQUE LA NASA DEJO DE INVESTIGAR EL OCEANO”.
La publicación fue marcada como parte del esfuerzo de Meta para combatir las noticias falsas y la desinformación en su plataforma. (Lea más sobre nuestra colaboración con Meta, propietaria de Facebook e Instagram).
Pero esta declaración está equivocada.
La NASA se creó en 1958 cuando el presidente de Estados Unidos de ese entonces, Dwight D. Eisenhower, firmó el National Aeronautics and Space Act, luego de que la Unión Soviética lanzara Sputnik, el primer satélite artificial.
Esta agencia federal se creó desde el principio con el interés de investigar el espacio y supervisar las actividades espaciales de Estados Unidos.
Un portavoz de la NASA dijo que lo que se afirma en el video no es cierto. Sin embargo, añadió que la NASA también investiga el océano. La página web de oceanografía de la NASA dice que parte de la misión de la agencia es entender el sistema de la Tierra y sus efectos. Los océanos juegan un papel fundamental en los cambios en el ambiente global, influenciando el clima del mundo y el tiempo.
La agencia también le dijo a PolitiFact que uno de los ejemplos de investigación del océano incluye el lanzamiento el 8 de febrero de su misión PACE, (acrónimo en inglés para Plancton, aerosoles, nubes y ecosistemas oceánicos). Esta recopilará mediciones que ayudarán a la NASA a entender cómo el océano y la atmósfera intercambian dióxido de carbono, medir variables atmosféricas clave asociadas con la calidad del aire y el clima de la Tierra, y vigilar la salud del océano.
El video en Facebook que dice que la NASA estaba investigando el mar y dejó de hacerlo para investigar el espacio, es engañoso. La NASA se creó principalmente para la exploración espacial, pero esta también ha investigado el océano desde sus comienzos.
Así que calificamos la declaración como Falsa.
Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.
Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.
A new campaign ad from former President Donald Trump makes two misleading claims about Nikki Haley’s opposition to border policies championed by Trump.
The ad claims Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, “joined Biden in opposing President Trump’s border wall.” In calling for a more comprehensive approach on the border, Haley said in 2015 that “just” building a wall was not going to solve illegal immigration.
The ad further claims that Haley “opposed President Trump’s ban on visitors from terrorist nations.” Haley opposed Trump’s campaign calls in 2015 for a blanket Muslim travel ban, but she supported his more targeted proposal to ban visitors from certain majority-Muslim countries hostile to the U.S.
The ad began airing on Newsmax on Feb. 20, just four days before the Republican primary on Feb. 24 in South Carolina, where Haley served as governor.
The ad cites an article in Time on Feb. 1, 2023, that claimed to document several instances in which Haley “flip-flopped” on Trump, “oscillating from criticizing the 45th President to praising him.”
The story said Haley “slammed his [Trump’s] plan to build a border wall and his other positions on immigration.”
The story quoted Haley at a National Press Club luncheon on Sept. 2, 2015.
“Republicans need to remember that the fabric of America came from these legal immigrants,” Haley said. “If you want to talk about tackling illegal immigration, then let’s talk about it, but we don’t need to attack so many millions of people who came here … and done it the right way, like my parents.”
In that speech, while talking about the need for a comprehensive solution to illegal immigration, Haley did not say that she opposed construction of a border wall, only that building a wall alone was not enough.
“If you notice, they’re all saying, ‘We want to secure the borders.’ That’s a big deal,” Haley said. “What does that mean to you in terms of your commitment to work with Congress to actually secure the border? Don’t say you’re just going to build a wall, because a wall’s not going to do it. You’ve got to have commitment of ground troops, equipment, money, all of that, to bring it together. Then you’re being serious about tackling illegal immigration.”
During a Republican presidential debate in January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to twist those words — as the Trump campaign ad has — into Haley opposing construction of a border wall.
“I said you can’t just build a wall, you have to do more than build a wall,” Haley said at the debate. “It was having the wall and everything else.”
During her presidential campaign, Haley has advocated building more border wall. During a trip to the border in April 2023, Haley pointed to fencing built by the Trump administration and said, “We need to finish what we started.”
Haley on Travel Ban
The Trump campaign ad also claims that Haley “opposed President Trump’s ban on visitors from terrorist nations.”
The ad refers to comments Haley made in December 2015 about then-candidate Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the U.S.
“It’s just an embarrassment to the Republican Party,” Haley said. “I mean, it’s absolutely un-American, it’s un-constitutional, it defies everything this country was based on. And it is just wrong.”
Days earlier, Trump had issued a “Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration,” which he read at a Dec. 7, 2015, rally. Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We have no choice.” A statement released by Trump’s campaign cited polling that indicated “there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.”
After taking office, Trump issued a series of executive orders to follow through on his campaign promise, though none proposed the sweeping reach of that campaign statement. The first, Executive Order 13769 on Jan. 27, 2017, sought a 90-day travel ban on people coming from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Less than a week later, a federal judge halted implementation of the order.
Although it was often referred to as a “Muslim ban” by proponents and opponents alike, the Pew Research Center estimated in January 2017 that the order would affect only about 12% of Muslims in the world.
About a month later, on March 6, 2017, Trump issued a revised executive order, temporarily banning travel from six majority-Muslim countries (this time not including Iraq). That order, too, was initially blocked by the courts, but was ultimately allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court to partially go into effect.
On March 16, 2017, Haley — who had since been appointed by Trump as the ambassador to the United Nations — defended that order, saying “it’s not a Muslim ban,” such as Trump had promised during the campaign, and had nothing to do with religion.
“It’s not a Muslim ban. I will never support a Muslim ban. I don’t think we should ever ban anyone based on their religion,” Haley said in an interview with the “Today” show. “That is un-American. It is not good. What the president is doing, everybody needs to realize that what he’s doing is saying, ‘Let’s take a step back. Let’s temporarily pause.’”
“He’s saying let’s temporarily pause, and you prove to me that the vetting is okay, that I can trust these people coming through for the American people,” Haley said.
On Sept. 24, 2017, Trump issued a proclamation that indefinitely banned travel to the U.S. for many nationals of five majority-Muslim countries as well as Venezuela and North Korea.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on June 26, 2018, that the president had “lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him” under the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict entry to some foreign nationals in order to protect the interests of the United States. The majority found that the proclamation “is facially neutral toward religion.”
As we wrote at the time, none of Trump’s executive actions went as far as his campaign rhetoric.
When he was elected president, Joe Biden revoked all of Trump’s travel ban executive actions. If reelected, Trump has said he will reinstate them.
During a Republican presidential debate on Dec. 6, moderators played a video of Trump at a rally in Iowa on Oct. 16 saying, “No longer will we allow dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs to get residency in our country. We’re not going to let them stay here. If you empathize with radical Islamic, terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified. You’re just disqualified.”
Asked to respond, Haley said, “Well, I don’t think that you have a straight-up Muslim ban, as much as you look at the countries that have terrorist activity that want to hurt Americans. You can ban those people from those countries, that’s the way we should look at it is which countries are a threat to us.
“You look at what came across the southern border, what worries me the most are those that came from Iran, from Yemen, from Lebanon, those areas where they say death to America,” Haley said. “That’s where you want to be careful. It’s not about a religion, it’s about a fact that certain countries are dangerous and are threats to us. A president has one job, and that’s to keep Americans safe. And that’s what we’ve got to do is make sure that we have good national security in that process, and that’s the way you should look at it, is where the terrorist threats are, how we’re going to deal with it and what we’re doing about it.”
So, while the ad claims Haley “opposed President Trump’s ban on visitors from terrorist nations,” that’s not accurate. Haley opposed Trump’s blanket campaign call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” When, as president, Trump issued an executive order to restrict travel from six majority-Muslim countries — not all Muslims — in order to “protect its [U.S.] citizens from terrorist attacks,” Haley supported that.
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Former President Donald Trump compared his civil fraud fine with the punishment of Russian opposition leader Alexei A. Navalny, who died Feb. 16 in a Russian prison.
In a Feb. 20 Fox News town hall, host Laura Ingraham asked how Trump will put up the money for the almost half-billion-dollar fine.
“It is a form of Navalny, it is a form of communism or fascism,” Trump replied.
Earlier in the show, Trump also called Navalny’s death a “very sad situation” and described him as “brave.” Then he pivoted to his legal cases, describing himself as a similar target of political persecution.
“It’s a horrible thing. It’s happening in our country, too,” said Trump. “I’m the leading candidate. I never heard of being indicted before. I got indicted four times. I have eight or nine trials. All because of the fact that I’m — and you know, this all because of the fact that I’m in politics.”
Trump made similar comments days earlier, on his Truth Social platform, comparing his legal woes with what happened to Navalny and likening President Joe Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” he said on Truth Social Feb. 19, describing “unfair courtroom decisions.”
We considered not rating Trump’s statement comparing his civil case with Navalny’s situation; we recognize that in speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.
But after examining the foundation of Trump’s comparison between his legal troubles and the prosecution of a Putin dissident under an authoritarian regime, and after speaking to six experts in Russian history, politics and the U.S. legal system, we determined there were enough factual elements at play to rate his statement on the Truth-O-Meter.
We emailed Trump’s spokespeople to ask for his evidence and got no reply by our deadline.
The evidence comes down to this: Navalny led protests against an authoritarian regime and returned to his country knowing he was a target and landed in prison. Trump was found by a judge to have inflated his real estate assets and has the legal right to appeal.
“If Biden’s staff oversaw an effort to poison Trump on a campaign trip, and then when he recovered arranged for him to be sent to a prison camp in northern Alaska, and then when he died told (his wife) Melania she would be arrested if she tried to enter the U.S., his complaint might be more convincing,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Navalny lacked due process protections afforded to Trump
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands in a cage Feb. 20, 2021, in the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow. (AP)
Navalny, 47, was an attorney, an anti-corruption activist and a critic of Putin’s. In 2011, he led thousands of Russians in protesting falsified elections. In 2017, he was barred from running for president after a Russian court convicted him of fraud, charges that were condemned by the European Union, European Parliament and Amnesty International.
In 2020, while flying, Navalny became ill and was taken to Germany for treatment; the German government said he was poisoned by a chemical weapon developed by the Soviet Union. Months after he was poisoned, he flew back to Russia, where he was arrested and was sentenced to two years in prison after authorities said he repeatedly violated parole. Amnesty International designated him a “prisoner of conscience,” stating “has not been imprisoned for any recognizable crime, but for demanding the right to equal participation in public life for himself and his supporters, and for demanding a government that is free from corruption.”
In 2023, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the charge of “extremism.” Human Rights Watch called it “totally unfounded” and said that “the Russian authorities have abandoned any pretense of justice in dealing with dissenters.”
On Feb. 16, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said Navalny died. The next day, a spokesperson for him confirmed his death. Observers believe Navalny died as a result of his incarceration although the specific reasons are not yet known.
Meanwhile, after a trial, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled Feb. 16 that Trump had inflated the value of many of his real estate assets to “make more money.” One example: The judge found that Trump had claimed the Trump Tower penthouse was three times the size.
Trump and his companies and others involved in his business empire owe about $450 million including interest. New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the case.
Some differences between Trump’s civil case and the cases against Navalny, according to experts we interviewed:
Trump has not been barred from political office and is running for the U.S. presidency, on track to win the Republican nomination. Navalny was barred from running. Several cases have been filed seeking to remove Trump from the ballot as a result of his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump has had due process to fight those efforts, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Feb. 8.
Trump has not been poisoned or imprisoned, although he faces charges that carry potential prison time. His penalty in the civil case involves paying money and he is banned from serving as an officer or director of a New York corporation for three years.
Trump has been allowed access to a full legal defense team to challenge the judge’s motions, bring forward expert testimony and file an appeal.
The “extremism” charge on which Navalny was convicted doesn’t exist in the United States.
Internationally, the U.S. justice system has checks and balances and has rules that require it operate independently from the executive branch. Putin has power and control over Russia’s justice system.
Navalny was not afforded the due process protections that Trump has had in the New York fraud case.
“Navalny was repeatedly poisoned and then imprisoned for exposing corruption,” said Harley Balzer, an expert on Russian and Soviet social history at Georgetown University. “He had documents, interviews with insiders and photos to prove his allegations. He even had a tape of a conversation with one of the people who ordered one of the poisonings. None of the evidence used in the trials where Navalny was convicted was substantive.”
Navalny in 2020 released the phone call he said he made to a security operative. The man in the recording said he was involved in cleaning up Navalny’s clothes “so that there wouldn’t be any traces.”
Engoron found that Trump committed fraud. The four criminal cases against Trump remain pending trial: two pertain to election interference, while one relates to his possession of classified documents post-presidency and the other case alleges he paid off a porn star.
“He has remained a free man with the right to full access to counsel, the right to travel across the country and campaign for political office, and has remained protected by his Secret Service detail,” said Erik Herron, a political scientist specializing in Russia at West Virginia University.
“These are rights that were not extended to Navalny.”
The United States has an independent judiciary to rule on the cases and a jury to ensure impartiality whereas Navalny was prosecuted in a country without the rule of law or independent courts, said Ric Simmons, Ohio State University law professor.
“Trump has also stated that the criminal cases against him are politically motivated — as the case against Navalny was — but given the procedural protections in this country (which do not exist in Russia), political prosecutions are very rare,” Simmons said. “There will be no way of convicting Trump of any of these crimes unless the prosecutors can prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt using admissible evidence that is found to be credible by an impartial jury, regardless of the political motivations of any of the prosecutors.”
University of Chicago political science professor Scott Gehlbach said that given the conditions under which Navalny died, lacking due process and enduring isolation and torture for what he called “trumped-up charges,” Trump’s citation of his civil fraud case “is an insult to Alexei Navalny, to his family, and to the millions of Russians who mourn his passing.”
Putin has used the courts to target his critics and arrest political dissidents. Authorities have introduced restrictions on peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. Torture of prisoners is common. In 2022, Navalny was placed in a punishment cell multiple times in degrading conditions for “violations” of prison rules, such as “wearing the wrong clothes,” according to Amnesty International.
“In a communist or fascist regime the top political leadership tells the judge what verdict it wants,” Sestanovich said.
In the U.S. system, the judges are independent and the proceedings are public, Balzer said.
Kathryn Hendley, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Wall Street Journal of Russia’s system “when they really care about something they have no trouble using the law as a blunt instrument,” she said, forbidding criticism of the war or public gatherings. “The Russian criminal justice system is incredibly sticky — once you are in, it’s very, very hard to get out.”
Even if Trump’s fraud fine stands, or if he is convicted in any of the criminal cases, his case bears no legal similarities to Navalny’s.
“Trump may end up poorer, or subjected to probation or a short prison sentence — but he won’t be sent to the Arctic and killed,” said Mark Osler, University of St. Thomas law professor.
Our ruling
Trump said the fine in his New York fraud case “is a form of Navalny, it is a form of communism or fascism.”
Although Trump is embroiled in numerous legal battles, his civil case involved a fine, not imprisonment, not poisoning, not subjugation to a legal system dominated by an authoritarian regime.
Trump is free to express outrage about the fine and a New York judge’s ruling against him. He is free to speak against the government. He is free to hire lawyers. He is free to appeal his cases. He is free to travel the country while he campaigns for president.
Navalny was blocked from running for public office. He was poisoned by a chemical weapon that the German government said was developed by the Soviet Union. He was convicted in Russia and sentenced to prison largely on the charge of “extremism” which does not exist in the United States. Numerous human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the cases against Navalny were unjust and that Russia was crushing dissent. Navalny died in prison under conditions that have not been fully explained.
Trump has been given due process in the fraud case and has the legal right to appeal. The federal government has not tried to kill Trump, who is running for president of the United States.
We rate this statement Pants on Fire!
RELATED: Fact-check: Trump’s baseless claim that Biden directed the New York civil fraud investigation
RELATED: Lie of the Year 2022: Putin’s lies to wage war and conceal horror in Ukraine
PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.
In a Feb. 20 town hall in South Carolina that aired on Fox News, days before the state’s Republican primary, former President Donald Trump repeated several false and misleading claims we’ve fact-checked before.
Trump and Ingraham at the Greenville Convention Center on Feb. 20. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
He also claimed, contrary to Russia’s track record, that Russian President Vladimir Putin would prefer President Joe Biden to win reelection.
The most newsworthy item from the town hall was Trump comparing the civil lawsuits and criminal indictments against him to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month in a Russian prison.
Biden has blamed Putin for Navalny’s death; Trump did not, when given the opportunity at the town hall. Instead, Trump said Navalny’s death was “a very sad situation” and “horrible,” and then called the civil fraud case in New York against Trump “a form of Navalny,” similar to a comparison the former president had made on social media. It’s not comparable, but we’ll leave that for political and legal commentators to parse.
The town hall, held in Greenville, aired on Laura Ingraham’s show.
Putin’s Preferred Candidate?
In a discussion about U.S. presidents negotiating with foreign leaders, Trump said he thinks the leaders of North Korea, China and Russia would prefer if Biden won reelection.
“Well, they want him very badly to be president,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of money’s being spent between Russia and China. No question with China. Russia, too.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that he would prefer Biden to remain president, but Russia’s track record suggests otherwise. As we have written before, U.S. officials uncovered evidence that Russia undertook covert operations in support of Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
More recently, the Department of Justice on Feb. 15 indicted a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the FBI in 2020, when Smirnov claimed that Joe Biden and his son Hunter each received a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian company, while Joe Biden was vice president. In a Feb. 20 court filing, the Justice Department alleged that Smirnov has ties to Russian intelligence officials and his “efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States continues.”
“He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November,” the court filing said.
There is no evidence that North Korea or China has engaged in covert operations in support of either candidate. However, as we have written, U.S. intelligence officials assessed in 2020 that “China prefers that President Trump … not win reelection,” based on its “public rhetoric” at the time that was critical of the Trump administration.
Wrong on Special Counsel Report About Biden
Trump claimed that the special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents said of the president, “Look, he’s incompetent to go to court, but he can be president.” As we wrote recently when several Republican House leaders made the same claim, the report said no such thing.
The report did refer numerous times to what it characterized as Biden’s “limited” and “poor” memory. But those observations were only included, Special Counsel Robert Hur wrote, because they factored into his decision about whether he could convince a jury that Biden had acted “willfully” to break the law. Hur further posited that Biden’s age and memory might make him a more sympathetic witness, causing a jury to give him the benefit of the doubt.
There were several other factors listed by Hur that convinced him it would be difficult to prove criminal charges against Biden.
Mail-in Voting
Trump continues to claim, without evidence, “If you have mail-in voting, you automatically have fraud.” As we have written, there is no evidence to support claims about large-scale, mail-in voter fraud. While the instances of voter fraud via mail-in ballots are more common than in-person voting fraud, experts have told us the number of known cases is relatively small.
“States can and do take steps to minimize the risks, especially given the great benefits of convenience — and now safety — from the practice,” Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and author of “The Voting Wars,” told us via email in 2020.
As Ingraham noted in the town hall, there’s mail-in voting in Florida, a state that Trump won handily in 2020. Trump himself hasvoted by mail in Florida, and while he claims it’s safe there because Republican governors run it “extremely professionally,” we noted in 2020 that Florida handles mail-in ballots the same way as the other 33 states that allow mail-in voting without a reason.
Federal, state and local officials overseeing the nation’s voting system called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” and Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, stated that U.S. attorneys and the FBI “have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election” — contrary to Trump’s repeated false claims about widespread fraud costing him the election.
Ukraine Aid Exaggerations
When comparing U.S. and European aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, Trump claimed, “We’re in for over $200 billion. They’re in for $35 billion. … It’s a difference of $150 billion. They’ve got to start paying up.”
We don’t know where Trump gets $200 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine; Congress has approved about $113 billion in emergency funding related to the Ukraine-Russia war. Roughly $67 billion of that was for military aid, and the rest was for “nondefense concerns such as general Ukrainian government aid, economic support, and aid for refugee resettlement,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
As for $35 billion in aid from Europe, Trump may be referring to only bilateral military aid that has been allocated by European Union members and institutions, according to figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research group that publishes the Ukraine Support Tracker. The military figure is about $44 billion for all of Europe, including European nations not in the EU.
For a direct comparison, the Kiel Institute says the U.S. has allocated over $47 billion in bilateral military aid for Ukraine, as of Jan. 15. However, in total, including financial and humanitarian assistance, the Kiel Institute says Europe has allocated more than the U.S. — about $96 billion in bilateral aid, compared with almost $73 billion from the U.S.
“The data show that total European aid has long overtaken U.S. aid – not only in terms of commitments, but also in terms of specific aid allocations sent to Ukraine,” members of the institute wrote in a Feb. 16 update.
The Kiel Institute’s figures for the U.S. are lower than the congressionally authorized totals because the institute says some of the approved funding is not bilateral aid, meaning it’s not a direct government-to-government transfer of funds.
Immigration Bill Did Not ‘Allow’ 5,000 Migrants a Day
Asked why he opposed a bipartisan immigration bill that failed in the Senate, Trump wrongly said it would have “allow[ed] … 5,000 people a day.”
As we wrote recently when other Republican leaders made a similar claim, he is referring to a section of the bill that would have provided emergency authority to the administration to “summarily remove” people who cross into the U.S. illegally between ports of entry, even if they are seeking asylum. That authority would have been automatically activated if there was an average of 5,000 or more migrant encounters a day over seven consecutive days — or if there were 8,500 or more such encounters on any single day.
But as Republican Sen. James Lankford, one of the architects of the bill, explained, “It’s not that the first 5,000 are released, that’s ridiculous. The first 5,000 we detain, we screen and then we deport. If we get above 5,000, we just detain and deport.”
“The reason we’re doing that is because we want to be able to shut down the system when it gets overloaded, so we have enough time to process those asylum claims,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
More Repeats
Biden’s houses. Similar to a claim he made back in 2020, Trump suggested that Biden has financially benefited from his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings because, “he’s got a lot of houses all over the place and he’s never been paid more than about $179,000, I guess is the top.” Biden owns two houses, including a vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. As many politicians do, Biden earned a significant amount of money after he left office in January 2017 on speaking fees and a book tour.
Biden and his wife, Jill, were worth an estimated $9 million in 2019, according to Forbes, which put the value of their two homes at $4 million combined. A Washington Post story the same year detailed how Biden “reaped millions in income since leaving the vice presidency.”
Tariffs on China. As he has done numerous times in the past, Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. did not collect any tariffs on goods from China — until he took office. “Not one other president took in 10 cents,” he said. In fact, the U.S. collected billions in tariffs on Chinese imports years before Trump took office.
Illegal immigration. He claimed that immigrants were “coming in from jails and mental institutions,” adding: “They’re emptying out their prisons.” This echoes his prior claims that countries around the world are “emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending their most heinous criminals to the United States.” Immigration experts told us there’s simply no evidence for that. One expert said Trump’s claim appeared to be “a total fabrication.”
Southern border. Apprehensions of those trying to cross the U.S. southern border illegally have gone up substantially under President Joe Biden. But Trump was again wrong to say, “I had the safest border in the history of our country. Recorded history, because I can’t tell you about a thousand years ago, but recorded history of the border by far.” After dropping in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, apprehensions then rose. The total number of apprehensions was higher during Trump’s presidency than either of President Barack Obama’s four-year terms.
Border wall. “We built 571 miles of border wall and that’s what made our border so good,” Trump said. There were 458 miles of “border wall system” built during Trump’s term. Most, 373 miles, was replacement barriers for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or outdated, according to a January 2021 Customs and Border Protection status report.
Gasoline prices. As we’ve written, economists cite several reasons for rising inflation in 2021 and 2022, first and foremost the unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. As for energy, the price of crude oil is set on the global market, and it began increasing toward the end of 2020 primarily, experts say, because the worldwide demand for oil began to exceed the international supply.
Yet, Trump suggested that Biden’s policies were to blame for higher energy costs, saying that Biden had “admitted everything about energy” in a 2020 debate. “And that’s what actually happened, and that’s why your energy costs went up three and four times. We had $1.87 and he was up to $5, $6, $7,” incorrectly referring to the price of gasoline. The average price of regular gasoline was as low as $1.77 under Trump, in April 2020 during the pandemic, but it was $2.38 when he left office. Under Biden, the price per gallon peaked at $5 in June 2022, but the latest price is $3.27, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Economy. No matter how many times he says it, the U.S. didn’t have “the greatest economy in the history of the world” under Trump’s presidency. Economists look to real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth to measure economic health, and that figure exceeded Trump’s peak year of 3% growth more than a dozen times before he took office.
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In the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States has sent Ukraine more than $75 billion in military and humanitarian aid. But some social media users are claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is misusing the funds.
A Feb. 19 Instagram post shared an excerpt from a Nov. 27 episode of the “Redacted” podcast in which co-host Clayton Morris said Zelenskyy “somehow managed to buy two multimillion-dollar yachts … totaling $75 million.” (Redacted removed this episode from its YouTube and Facebook accounts. Copies and a transcript of the video are still available online.)
Morris cited documents that he said showed Zelenskyy purchased two luxury yachts, “Lucky Me” and “My Legacy,” in October 2023 using two associates as proxies.
“Americans, of course, are paying for this luxury, though. Your tax dollars, so Zelenskyy can live in luxury,” said Morris, who has previously shared false claims about Zelenskyy, including that he was becoming a U.S. citizen.
The Instagram post’s caption said, “It’s a good thing that we’re able to give the president of the #Ukraine #billions of dollars to buy these #yachts and live an extravagant lifestyle. I mean, to fight a #war against #Russia.”
(Screengrab from Instagram)
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The purchase documents are inauthentic as they include outdated information. The yachts purportedly bought by Zelenskyy’s associates are still for sale.
The documents are titled “Memorandum of Agreement approved by the Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association.” However, the organization that supposedly approved this 2023 sale changed its name to MYBA The Worldwide Yachting Association in 2008. MYBA also uses a different logo now than the one shown on the documents.
A blank version of MYBA’s memorandum of agreement document from 2005 is available to download for free online.
The two yachts were supposedly purchased by Boris and Serhiy Shefir, close friends and business partners of Zelenskyy’s. Before Zelenskyy was elected Ukraine’s president in 2019, he and the Shefir brothers worked together at the film production company Kvartal 95 Studio.
Boris Shefir supposedly purchased the yacht called “Lucky Me” for $24.9 million on Oct. 18, 2023, one of the documents says. However, as of Feb. 21, the luxury yacht company BehneMar still listed the yacht for sale for 19 million euros, or about $20.5 million U.S. dollars.
A week after Boris Shefir’s purported purchase, Serhiy Shefir supposedly purchased the “My Legacy” yacht for $49.75 million on Oct. 25, 2023, the other document says. However, as of Feb. 21, this yacht was also still listed for sale for about 45 million euros, or about $48 million U.S. dollars.
Although these purchases were fabricated, Zelenskyy’s financial relationship with Boris and Serhiy Shefir has been called into question in the past.
In 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed that a month before Zelenskyy was elected president, he transferred previously undisclosed shares in an offshore company, Maltex Multicapital Corp., to Serhiy Shefir, who later joined Zelenskyy’s administration. Boris Shefir was also a part-owner of Maltex, but he said he was unaware of the offshore arrangement, the nonprofit Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported at the time.
Multiple government agencies and hundreds of personnel are overseeing the U.S. aid sent to Ukraine. Experts told PolitiFact in February 2023 that there are checks in place to prevent misuse, such as funneling economic aid through the World Bank and humanitarian aid through nongovernmental aid groups.
The Senate recently passed a $95 billion emergency spending package that would allocate additional funding to support Ukraine, as well as aid for Israel and Gaza. But the package faces Republican opposition in the House.
We rate the claim that Zelenskyy used U.S. aid funds to buy two yachts for $75 million False.
The IRS has not introduced a tax incentive for U.S. families to house immigrants in exchange for labor. A bogus claim that was originally posted as satire is circulating on social media without a disclaimer.
Full Story
There is no new tax incentive for families who house immigrants in exchange for labor.
A conservative satire account called U.S. Ministry of Truth had posted the claim on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Feb. 16, saying, “JUST IN:President Biden announces tax incentives for families willing to take in slav—migrants in a new ‘Housing for Labor’ initiative. ‘You can now apply to keep a migrant in your home in exchange for cooking, cleaning, picking crops, and landscaping.’ – via @IRSnews.”
There is no such announcement on the IRS X account. Also, the photo featured in the U.S. Ministry of Truth’s post shows President Joe Biden signing legislation, but it has nothing to do with immigration. The picture, from the White House Flickr account, shows Biden on June 3 signing an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
Other fact–checking outlets have written about the claim, and the U.S. Ministry of Truth has mocked them for “fact-checking a satire account.” But the problem with content posted by self-described satire accounts is that such claims get copied and reposted by other accounts without the satire disclaimer, so social media users have no way of knowing the claim is supposed to be a joke. We’ve written about many other similar examples over the years.
In this case, screenshots of the original X post are circulating on other platforms without any indication that the claim was intended to be satirical. For example, one California politician shared the meme with his 229,000 followers on Instagram, and he included this message: “Modern day slavery signed into law.”
But, as we said, the claim is made up. “Modern day slavery” has not been codified in the U.S.
Sources
Alvarez, Priscilla. “White House looks for federal spaces to house migrants amid pressure from cities.” CNN. 5 Jan 2024.
Smith, Cameron. “President Joe Biden signs into law the bipartisan budget agreement, Saturday June 3, 2023, in the Oval Office of the White House.” Flickr. 3 Jun 2023.
Norton, Tom. “Fact Check: Joe Biden’s ‘Housing for Labor’ Initiative to Take in Migrants.” Newsweek. 19 Feb 2024.
Tuquero, Loreben. “President Joe Biden announced tax incentives for families willing to take in migrants in a new ‘Housing for Labor’ initiative.” Politifact. 20 Feb 2024.
Reuters. “Fact Check: Biden did not offer tax incentive to house migrants for labor.” 21 Feb 2024.
After Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., posted on Facebook about a Minnesota shooting that left two police officers and a paramedic dead, social media users began sharing a manipulated image to claim the senator and another state elected official previously supported defunding the police.
The Feb. 18 fatal shooting happened after a standoff at a Burnsville home, where police responded to a domestic abuse call. Klobuchar posted several times on Facebook expressing sorrow and support for the victims’ families.
A Feb. 19 Facebook post then juxtaposed screenshots of Klobuchar’s Facebook posts with a photo that shows Klobuchar, circled in red, at an event with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is in the foreground.
In the crowded room, three people appear to be holding signs that read, “Defund the Police.”
“Amy’s page won’t let me post pictures, so I’m posting here … Klobuchar, Ellison and Flanagan … which is it Amy Klobuchar????? You never let a tragedy go to waste,” the post’s caption read. Flanagan is likely a reference to Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
This Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The photo is from a real event that Klobuchar and Ellison attended, but it has been altered to add the “defund the police” signs. Those signs do not appear in the original 2022 image.
(Facebook screenshot)
MultipleX postsshared the same altered photo of Klobuchar and Ellison. Some of the X posts were tagged with a “manipulated media” label, which X says it uses on “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.” The label doesn’t identify what was manipulated.
The image from one of the X posts has telltale signs of manipulation. For example, a woman seated in the front holding one of the signs appears to be doing so with a fingerless hand. The two signs in the background don’t appear to be held by any fingers.
Brian Evans, an Ellison spokesperson, said the photo in the Facebook post “is digitally altered.”
He pointed us to the original, unaltered photo, shared by Ellison in an Oct. 16, 2022, X post. It was taken at a Get Out the Vote event at the AFL-CIO Midwest Region building in Saint Paul, Evans said.
“It’s worth noting that, in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterms, numerous altered photos (like this one) were shared online to smear a variety of Minnesota candidates and elected officials,” Evans said.
Klobuchar has not supported defunding the police, said Jane Meyer, the senator’s spokesperson.
“Senator Klobuchar strongly and publicly opposed the defund the police measure in Minnesota, has repeatedly made clear she opposes defunding the police, and is in fact the longtime lead author of the bipartisan bill in Congress which funds police,” Meyer said.
Meyer is referring to the COPS Reauthorization Act, which stands for Community Oriented Policing Services and provides grants that fund state and local law enforcement agencies.
At a 2022 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Klobuchar reiterated her support for funding police, and said she opposed a Minnesota state ballot initiative, later defeated, that would have defunded police.
“One of the focuses has got to be, as you all know, reforming some of the practices, but at the same time, funding the police,” Klobuchar said before addressing questions to the panel’s witnesses.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks about not defunding the police at a 2022 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. (C-SPAN)
Ellison also has not supported defunding the police, Evans said.
“While the photo itself is fake, the idea it puts forward is false as well,” Evan said. “Attorney General Ellison does not and has never supported defunding the police.” He said Ellison has supported police and sought ways to reduce the use of deadly force during encounters with police.
Ellison has said defunding police was “never a good idea” and “even worse phrasing,” according to the Minnesota Post. He told the Wisconsin Examiner in an October 2023 interview that “‘Defund the Police’ was an emotional reaction to a horrendous situation, but it was not a sound policy prescription.” The “defund the police” movement followed the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man, after a white police officer pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes.
Ellison repeatedly asked the state legislature for additional funding to expand his office’s Criminal Division, beginning when he took office in 2019, Evans said.
Evans said Ellison’s 2022 midterm opponent tried to falsely portray Ellison as supporting defunding the police, pointing to Ellison’s support for a Minneapolis City Charter amendment that would have folded the city’s police department into a larger Department of Public Safety.
That amendment would not have defunded the police, Ellison wrote in an op-ed for the Minneapolis Star Tribune in September 2021.
Our ruling
A Facebook post says a photo shows Klobuchar and Ellison posing at a “Defund the Police” event.
The photo was altered.
The original photo from a 2022 election event does not show anyone holding those signs. Neither Klobuchar nor Ellison support defunding the police.
PolitiFact readers started 2024 with deep reading and thoughtful comments to our newsroom. They sounded off in emails to reporters and through social media comments about immigration, our fact-checking of former President Donald Trump and a debunk of the cemetery mail truck hoax.
Below, our readers’ thoughts, lightly edited for length, clarity and style. Readers can email us fact-check ideas and feedback at [email protected].
Learn more about PolitiFact’s process, and how we’re working to make our fact-checking more transparent.
Immigration
The reader who requested our piece “Ask PolitiFact: What branch of government is ‘really’ responsible for the crisis at the border?” wrote in to thank PolitiFact, and immigration reporter Maria Ramirez Uribe:
“Thank you for your response. I really appreciate the thoroughness of your report although Immigration is clearly a muddled mess from any angle. However, I feel you answered my question and I’m sticking to my original idea that Congress should bear a larger portion of the blame for not doing their job over the last 30 years, thereby making it more difficult for the other two branches to work the way they should. Thanks again. I really am grateful for your great reporting!”
One reader thought the question in our piece was pedantic.
“So, who’s right? Is there more Biden can do? Or is it on Congress to update immigration law, which hasn’t been changed in decades?”
So what if it hasn’t ‘changed in decades’? Existing law gives him the power to protect our borders for crying out loud. That’s why he reversed Trump’s policies … to create the invasion. And he has certainly succeeded in doing that.
Let me ask … if someone is seeking asylum from say, Gaza, why must they seek it in the United States? Or if they are from Venezuela, why don’t they seek asylum in the very first country they cross the border into? Come on.”
Another reader followed up about the framing of the immigration piece:
“What if the question was asked differently: A proactive action by which arm of government would have the most impact? Is the Executive branch able to perform an action(s) that would make a big improvement in immigration outcomes? Or would a proactive action by the courts make the bigger improvement (a nonstarter, courts are reactive, not proactive)? Or would a proactive action by the Congress, if they chose to do it) make the biggest improvement at the border? Personally, I think the ability to create the biggest improvement (at) the border lies with Congress. Thank you for your article.”
The mail truck in a cemetery
Social media users (and a former president of the United States) have falsely claimed that hundreds of thousands of ballots were sent to dead people — and pets — in Virginia and Nevada.
As evidence, these posts often share the same photo of a mail truck in a cemetery; some claim Democrats have something to do with it.
It’s possible toview these social media posts — many with laughing emojis — as a joke, which is why we didn’t fact-check these claims on our Truth-O-Meter. However, these posts spread the falsehood that U.S. elections are marred by widespread fraud.
Some readers thought we simply couldn’t take a joke.
“The mail truck in the cemetery is a joke and doesn’t say Republican Democrat. So you need to get a sense of humor. It’s (a) joke.”
“It is just a joke intended for those who have a sense of humor.”
We heard from the original poster of the Facebook post:
“You fact-checked my sharing on FB of the above post. I am very amused at your action on this post. Evidently you have never heard of sarcasm or satire. Just to be helpful, satire is defined as the use of exaggeration, humor, or irony to criticize someone.
“Well, congratulations on stopping the distribution of a good joke. But do not ever try to convince anyone you are an impartial arbiter. You are a radical, left-wing propagandist using fact-checking to reduce free speech of your political opponents. It is evident you do not follow the famous quote, ‘I detest what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ I hope you never have to live under a regime that you are helping to build.”
Our fact-checking of Trump:
A reader wrote to us on Threads about the Trump food prices inflation check:
“By the way, you forgot to point out that higher prices (are) a trailing indicator of inflation (i.e., a rapid increase of the money supply). Remember when Trump said he liked “a weak dollar” (an old mercantilist idea)? How do you think you weaken the dollar? Blaming Biden for inflation Trump caused is the most grotesque show of chutzpah one can imagine.”
On our look into our 1,000 fact-checks of Donald Trump, one reader asked:
“Does this matter really? So, he said false facts. Talk is cheap. Actions are what matter. Would you rather have someone that speaks the truth all the time and their actions say otherwise or vice versa?”
And a general comment:
“I am getting tired of hearing about Donald Trump and his problems. It’s getting really old.”
A few notes of appreciation:
We also have a few comments from supporters that show the value of our fact-checking reporting:
“Just going to guess that if there were no Trump, PolitiFact would just continue to independently fact check political statements from both sides of the aisle. You know, like they did before Trump (see: Obama-meter). There’s a section on their website dedicated to their process, their ethics policy, their funding and disclosures, how they correct their mistakes, etc., if you’re actually curious about evaluating the accuracy and trustworthiness of this particular source. I hope you’ll check it out, and also generate the same level of curiosity about other news sources you may use which likely don’t have nearly the same level of ethical commitment.”
“I appreciate how you cite your research and get multiple sources in each story.”
“I wish more news media would adhere to a high standard like this. It’s too much of a ratings game instead of delivering facts with some depth to a story. Thank you for your efforts!”
“I like the easy-to-read fact/evidence-based reviews of assertions made by individuals. I may not agree with the ultimate conclusion you assign, but because you include all the information in your review, I can make up my own mind. The work is excellent.”
And simply:
“PolitiFact is a clear voice in a wilderness of demons.”
We are happy to stand out as helpful in the wild world of false.
If you are interested in this type of behind-the-scenes fact-checking, consider signing up for the daily or weekly email newsletter from PolitiFact.
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Inflation is emerging as one of Republicans’ top lines of attack against Democratic President Joe Biden, who is running for a second term.
Consumer inflation has been cooling down since a 9.1% peak in mid-2022. In January, prices were up 3.1% compared to a year ago, still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
But even as the economy has improved, Republicans are tapping into lingering unease among voters. That includes U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents southeastern Wisconsin.
“Bidenomics is costing the typical American household over $11,400 more a year to buy the basics,” Steil posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Feb. 1, 2024.
Steil has made similar claims when Biden has visited Wisconsin to tout his economic agenda. Republicans in the state are likely to keep citing inflation when Biden makes future stops this year.
That’s why we wanted to dig into the number now. Are households really spending $11,400 more each year to buy basic goods?
And, is it solely because of Biden and his policies?
Let’s dig into the data.
Estimate comes from report prepared by Joint Economic Committee Republicans
When PolitiFact Wisconsin asked Steil’s office for backup, communications director Chavonne Ludick referred to an inflation tracker created by Republicans on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
The committee is bipartisan and chaired by a Democrat, but the report was released by Republicans (Steil is not a member). The report was initially released in November 2022, but the tracker has been updated.
In November 2023, the analysis showed typical American households must spend an extra $11,434 each year to have the same standard of living as in January 2021, according to articles from CBS and The Hill.
The state-by-state map also shows data from November 2023, so we can assume Steil is using the committee’s most recent numbers.
In Wisconsin, the tracker shows the latest annual amount was $10,065 per year, or $839 extra per month — near the middle of the pack.
On its face, the report backs up Steil’s number — American households were recently spending $11,400 more a year to buy the basics.
Republicans don’t detail how many people are in a household, per person number is less
How did the committee’s Republicans get to their $11,400 number?
They used January 2021 as a base month, which was “the last time inflation was within recent historical norms.” They say their calculations consisted of three steps:
Estimating average monthly household spending by state
Approximating inflation rates by state relative to January 2021
Applying the inflation rates to monthly household spending to estimate state-level inflation costs
Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the GOP calculations seem to be right, except for one aspect:
“They calculate numbers for ‘a household’ when it’s unclear how many people are in a household,” Chinn said in an email.
Chinn previously analyzed the report for a Wisconsin Watch fact-check of an ad that said Wisconsinites are spending $10,000 more per year compared to 2021.
But the number for individuals, he calculated, is $6,414.
Chinn added that while “not technically ‘wrong,’ the use of (consumer price index) tends to overstate the change in cost of living.”
Chained CPI, a metric that takes into account changes in consumer preferences more rapidly, would “likely be a little lower,” he said.
So the calculation is generally on target, albeit with an asterisk for a lack of clarity about what size the household is.
Biden administration pushed back on report, said disposable income is up
But there is another essential part of the claim – that of blame. Steil blames “Bidenomics” for the higher prices of household essentials.
PolitiFact National has tackled whether Biden is responsible for inflation before and has noted it’s not nearly so clear cut.
Increases in the prices of gasoline, for example, is largely something that presidents can’t control.
And economists have said inflation goes back to issues rooted in the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as supply-chain constraints and workforce shortages.
Still, some legislation like the American Rescue Plan – advanced under Biden – might have added to pressures that pushed up prices.
The relief plan put more money in Americans’ hands, but not enough goods could be produced, kicking up prices.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has pointed to other metrics that show a fuller picture of the economy.
In comments to CBS, the Biden administration called the Joint Economic Committee Republicans’ analysis “flawed,” but did not explain which parts.
The administration cited federal data that showed disposable income had risen 16% since Biden took office. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis does show disposable income is increasing.
A Washington Post analysis of economic data notes, however, that an end in pandemic stimulus money and rising prices have caused swings in household income.
Chinn added that Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee performed an analysis that found “national average wages and salaries grew by nearly $15,000 between January 2021 and October 2023.”
Democrats said that amount “outpaces price growth during that period by over $3,500” — which reads as an implicit agreement that Republicans’ $11,400 number is correct.
So, we’re left with an essentially accurate number, but a very mixed picture on blame.
Our ruling
Steil said “Bidenomics is costing the typical American household over $11,400 more a year to buy the basics.”
That number comes from a report released by Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee.
An economics professor said the Republicans’ calculations look good, despite the fact they didn’t explain how many people they were counting in a household and could have used a slightly different metric.
But, Steil blames inflation solely on “Bidenomics.” Just as the president can’t claim credit for every positive aspect of the economy, which is shaped by a myriad of factors, it’s not fair to ascribe all of the blame.
While the numbers look fairly accurate, Steil misfires on the blame element. Our definition of Half True is “the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.”
When Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., shared a newsletter with constituents recently, she made the first item of business federal marijuana policy.
In the Feb. 3 newsletter, Gillibrand wrote that “marijuana is currently classified in the same category of drugs as heroin and a more dangerous category than fentanyl or cocaine.”
Gillibrand is correct about marijuana’s federal status. That decades-old classification clashes with the drug’s widespread state-level legalization in recent years.
Four states fully outlaw marijuana for medical or recreational use: Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina and Wyoming. Seven more states allow the marijuana derivative CBD but not marijuana itself.
By contrast, every other state has fully legalized marijuana for recreational and/or medical use or removed criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of the drug.
So, why does the federal government still consider marijuana to “have no medical use” and believe it has “the highest potential for disorder and abuse”?
Marijuana as a Schedule I drug
The federal government’s schedule system stems from the Controlled Substances Act, which was enacted in 1970. The schedules run from 1 (for drugs that have the most serious risk of abuse) down to 5 (which are the least likely to be misused).
Gillibrand is correct that cocaine and fentanyl both fall within Schedule 2, which covers drugs “considered dangerous” and have “a high potential for abuse.” Under federal scheduling, the legitimate medical use for cocaine is that it can be used during certain eye surgeries under controlled dosages.
Heroin, meanwhile, is considered a Schedule 1 drug, along with marijuana. Other Schedule 1 drugs include LSD and ecstasy.
Although states have increasingly passed laws to legalize marijuana for medical and recreational use, fatal poisonings from fentanyl have skyrocketed, particularly from contamination within other dangerous drugs.
PolitiFact recently rated True the statement that the United States has seen “more Americans die of fentanyl than the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam wars, combined.”
Still, marijuana is more potent than it used to be, with the highest concentrations of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient, found in concentrated cannabis products. Marijuana potency has increased from 4% THC in 1995 to 17% in 2017, and at one dispensary in California, a strain of cannabis that could be smoked had 41% THC, according to KFF Health News.
What does Gillibrand support?
Gillibrand’s office told PolitiFact she supports a full descheduling of marijuana but would also consider a rescheduling to a lower level as an alternative.
Gillibrand was one of eight co-sponsors of the Marijuana Justice Act, which several Democratic senators introduced in the 2019-20 congressional session. The bill would have removed marijuana from the list of controlled substances. Her office added that moving marijuana away from Schedule 1 would enable more research, because Schedule 1 drugs are subject to greater restrictions on medical and scientific study.
Gillibrand also argues that changing marijuana’s status would help ease operations for marijuana-based businesses and unclog court dockets.
What is the outlook for federal rescheduling or descheduling?
Mason Tvert, a marijuana policy specialist with VSStrategies, a Denver-based cannabis consulting company, said the federal government has already taken limited steps toward rescheduling marijuana.
In August 2023, the federal Department of Health and Human Services recommended that the Drug Enforcement Administration reschedule cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, though the recommendation’s full text was not released. In January, the department released a 252-page, unredacted copy of the text in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Schedule 3 would put marijuana on par with some dosages of codeine, as well as ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone.
This marked the first time in history that any federal agency had publicly acknowledged cannabis as having an accepted medical use and relatively low potential for abuse.
Even so, Jonathan Caulkins, who studies drug policy at Carnegie Mellon University, told PolitiFact he doesn’t expect rescheduling to happen soon.
If marijuana were to be rescheduled, then every distributor would have to be licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Caulkins said. This would be a challenge, he said, given variations in the strains of marijuana and the lack of a “baseline” version under the law.
Tvert acknowledged that rescheduling might drag further because of this.
If DEA agreed with the recommendation, the agency would have to publish a proposed rule to reschedule cannabis. That would start a rulemaking process with as much as a 60-day public comment period.
A bigger bottleneck, he said, would come in the courts, as people request administrative hearings; clearing these could take months. All told, rescheduling could take a year or longer, and if President Joe Biden loses reelection, his successor could shelve the process.
Our ruling
Gillibrand said, “Marijuana is currently classified in the same category of drugs as heroin and a more dangerous category than fentanyl or cocaine.”
Gillibrand is correct that the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, which means it is considered a greater concern than either fentanyl or cocaine, which are classified as Schedule 2 drugs.
Now that most states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, federal officials are considering rescheduling marijuana to a lower category of concern. However, there is no official timeline for action.
