Category: Fact Check

He dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had pushed to “make America Florida,” is still aiming to shape national policy.

DeSantis is proposing an alternative method of proposing U.S. Constitutional amendments that would let states call a convention if enough of them ask Congress. 

In a Jan. 29 Naples news conference, DeSantis said he would ask the Republican-controlled Florida legislature to pass four resolutions that would compel Congress to call a “convention of the states” aimed at passing those same resolutions as constitutional amendments. 

“Washington’s never going to reform itself,” DeSantis said in the conference. “It’s going to require us working in our individual states using the tools that the Founding Fathers gave us to be able to take power away from D.C. and return it back to the American people.”

When contacted for comment, DeSantis’ office pointed to two Florida Senate measures, one calling for the balanced federal budget and the other for congressional term limits. The other two reforms, presidential line-item veto power and equal laws for the public and members of Congress. so far lack accompanying bills. 

If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Usually, a constitutional amendment is passed when Congress approves it by a two-thirds margin, then sends it to the states, where three-fourths must approve to ratify. 

The alternative method DeSantis advocates is also spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, which says:

“The Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which … shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof.”

These guidelines would require 34 states to call a convention. Even if the Florida Legislature approves proposals, 33 other states would have to approve the same proposals to have a convention. And if those amendments were eventually approved by a convention, ratifying each one would require 38 states to concur. 

In the Constitution’s nearly 237-year history, such an assembly has never been called. Nevertheless, DeSantis and other conservatives see this tactic as part of a broader movement to achieve their policy goals. 

However, some legal scholars and advocacy groups say the method’s untested history invites problems, as does the the Constitution’s lack of guidance about how a convention would be structured and limited.

The idea’s opponents fear that the convention could make radical constitutional revisions beyond its original focus. 

The language in the Constitution “seems pretty simple, but lots remains entirely unclear,” said Frank O. Bowman III, a University of Missouri law professor. 

What’s required to meet the threshold to call a convention?

Although the concept is often called a “constitutional convention,” or “con-con” for short, Robert G. Natelson, a retired University of Montana law professor and a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute in Denver, said the term is a misnomer, because the Constitution’s wording refers to a “convention for proposing amendments.”

Legal scholars say key aspects of how to execute the count for calling a convention remain murky.

In the early 1990s, Michael Stokes Paulsen, now a University of St. Thomas law professor, determined that over time, 45 states had called for a general convention, without a specified topic. But it’s unclear whether the framers intended a convention to be so wide open. 

Many scholars believe states’ proposed amendments must be narrower, and tied to a specific policy topic. 

Backers of a balanced budget amendment say they have 28 states on board already, although the validity of some of these states’ proposals might be legally debatable, said Georgetown University law professor David Super. Even if all proposals were valid, six more states would need to join to invoke a convention.

Another complicating factor is that states can rescind past resolutions that supported a convention; several states have done this in recent years. By the time Paulsen revisited this idea in 2011, the number of states calling for a convention had dropped from 45 to 33, because of repeals. That’s one less than the 34 required to invoke a convention.

How would a convention be structured?

Issues Super said are “completely undetermined” include who would select the delegates, how much representation each state would have, how proposals would be grouped for voting and what kind of a majority would be necessary to approve amendments.

Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt said, “Presumably, the legislature of each state would choose a process for selecting delegates. But there is no precedent. The delegates assembled would have to come up with their own system.”

The Constitution does not spell out an explicit role for the president or the courts in organizing a convention, or a role for Congress beyond telling the convention to meet in the first place. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has tended to avoid what it deems “political” questions, legal experts said.

Even if the Constitution clearly says Congress “shall” call a convention, it’s unclear who could enforce that mandate if Congress chooses not to — a realistic possibility if the amendments would reduce Congress’ institutional power. 

“We just don’t know,” said Jonathan Marshfield, a University of Florida law professor.

What would be the convention’s scope?

If the convention were prompted by a specific proposed topic, such as a balanced budget amendment, it would seem to have limits. 

Natelson, who moderates a website about conventions like the one DeSantis is seeking, said the Constitution’s wording — a “convention for proposing amendments” — is noteworthy because it specifies that the existing constitution must be amended, not that an entirely new document can be introduced.

Absent constitutional guidance, historical precedent, or an external enforcement mechanism, however, not everyone is sure those guardrails would hold.

“The biggest fear that people usually mention is that of the ‘runaway convention’ that starts proposing all sorts of things outside of its original remit,” Kalt said.

There’s a precedent for this — in the original Constitutional Convention of 1787.

“A fair number of delegates thought that their task was simply to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation,” Bowman said. “The idea that a whole new structure should be proposed wasn’t settled until after everyone arrived.”

How likely is a constitutional convention?

Scholars broadly agree that the concept of a convention is valuable: It was designed to act as an institutional check on Congress.

If Congress is dysfunctional — as many Americans believe — a convention could be “a lever that would push it in the right direction,” Marshfield said. “I see some value in that.”

However, getting 38 states to agree to ratify an amendment, experts said, would be exceedingly difficult in an age of solidly red and blue state legislatures. 

“The country is very polarized, and anything that doesn’t have significant support in both parties doesn’t have any chance of being added to the Constitution,” Kalt said.

After a New York judge unsealed documents in a court case related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, social media posts purported to have the full scoop.

“Confirmed visitors to Epstein Island 12/21/23,” read a Jan. 3 Facebook post that then listed 166 people, many of them celebrities and world figures. President Joe Biden. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Singers Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. Actors Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. The list went on.

“The Epstein List is Finally Out,” a Jan. 4 Instagram post declared as video scrolled through the same list. 

(Screenshot from Instagram)

Turns out, much of this 166-name claim isn’t new and isn’t connected to the thousands of pages of documents the court released Jan. 3, Jan. 4, Jan. 5, Jan. 8 and Jan. 9. 

We found nearly identical lists shared in 2020 and as late as Dec. 31.

The previously redacted or sealed documents stemmed from a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The records include letters from attorneys; transcripts of depositions with Maxwell, Giuffre and Johanna Sjoberg, who accused Epstein of abuse; and more, including emails from the involved parties that were released in discovery.

Using copies of the court documents that USA Today compiled on Document Cloud, PolitiFact looked up each name on this viral list to see whether it was mentioned. If we found a match, we reviewed the context in which the person was mentioned. We also looked at news stories and other documents — including Epstein’s already public address book and flight logs — to get a more complete picture of the list’s accuracy.

Answer: The list is not accurate. One-hundred and twenty-nine of the 166 people listed are not mentioned on any of the newly unsealed documents. Perusing Epstein’s private jet flight logs and his address book that were already publicly available, we found that 99 of the names were not on the flight logs, and 131 of them were not in the address book. (View our findings in this spreadsheet.)

(PolitiFact screenshot)

Among those on the list who are not mentioned in the documents: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; Obama; former first lady Michelle Obama; Beyoncé; Lady Gaga; Rihanna; Streep and Hanks.

Others on the list are mentioned once, and not in an incriminating way. For example, attorneys in documents named architect Ed Tuttle as a potential witness in the case. Still others on the list, such as actor Alec Baldwin, comedian Jimmy Kimmel and television personality Chrissy Teigen, have known of claims associating them with Epstein and have denied knowing the sex offender. None of them were mentioned in the documents.

Some names did feature prominently in the new records, including well-known figures whose relationships with Epstein have been widely reported.

Maxwell, for example, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in what the federal prosecutors described as “a scheme to sexual exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.” Others whose names appear frequently in the document have not faced prosecution. And mere mention of one’s name in the court case records does not mean that person is legally implicated.

Among those whose names appear often:

• Alan Dershowitz. Giuffre testified that she was sexually trafficked to Dershowitz between 1999 and 2002, when she was between the ages of 16 and 19. Attorneys for an accuser identified as Jane Doe No. 3 said Epstein sexually trafficked her to powerful people, including Dershowitz. Dershowitz denies ever having engaged in sex with Giuffre, and said Jane Doe No. 3’s claims were “totally false and outrageous charges.” Giuffre later dropped her allegations against Dershowitz, and a judge tossed out Jane Doe No. 3’s charges.

• Bill Clinton. Sjoberg said in a 2016 deposition that Epstein told her, “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” An attorney asked Maxwell about her recollection of a trip to Thailand with Bill Clinton and she said she remembered it, but doesn’t remember the trip’s purpose. Giuffre did not accuse Clinton of illegal activity. Clinton in 2019 denied any knowledge of the “terrible crimes” to which Epstein pleaded. His statement also said that in 2002 and 2003, he took a “total of four trips” on Epstein’s jet, which included stops related to the work of the Clinton Foundation, and said he had “never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.” Clinton’s spokesperson told Newsweek on Jan. 3 that “nothing has changed” since the 2019 statement. In a statement to People, the spokesperson also said that despite being mentioned in the documents, Clinton was not accused of wrongdoing.

• Jean-Luc Brunel. Lawyers for Jane Doe No. 3 said Brunel, a former modeling agent, brought young girls from poor backgrounds and farmed them out to friends including Epstein. They also accused him of engaging in illegal sexual activity with underage girls. He was arrested in December 2020 and, in 2022, was found dead in his prison cell by suicide. A magistrate charged him with sexual harrassment and the rape of minors over 15 years old, but his attorneys denied any wrongdoing. He was designated under the “status of assisted witness,” which meant that prosecutors did not have enough evidence to charge him with human trafficking but could have charged him in the future.

• Prince Andrew. Giuffre in 2021 filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew, accusing him of sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress while she was a minor. Prince Andrew denied these allegations and, in 2022, he and Giuffre settled. Sjoberg also accused Prince Andrew of groping her breast, a claim he denied.

• Sarah Kellen. Witnesses said Kellen worked as a personal assistant for Epstein and Maxwell and scheduled flights on Epstein’s private jets. A judge said she was a “criminally responsible participant” in the sex-trafficking scheme, but she was never charged. In 2020, Kellen said through a spokesperson that she was subjected to Epstein’s sexual and psychological abuse for years. The statement also said that she is “aware of the pain and damage Epstein caused” and “deeply regrets that she had any part in it.”

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is also on the list and is not mentioned in the new court documents. The New York Times in 2019 reported that Gates had met with Epstein multiple times since 2011, and that employees of Gates’ foundation also visited Epstein’s mansion. In a September 2019 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gates confirmed that he met Epstein, but said he did not have “any business relationship or friendship with him.”

Previous reporting on Epstein and his associates

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. He was arrested again in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein died in his jail cell the next month, in what investigators ruled a suicide.

In 2015, Gawker published Epstein’s address book, which it dubbed the “little black book.” Business Insider wrote that the address book likely included “aspirational contacts” or people Epstein wanted to meet. 

We used Business Insider’s searchable databases of Epstein’s flight logs and address book to search the names on the 166-name list. Fifty-four names on the list appear on the flight logs. Eleven names on the list are close to some listed on the flight logs and appear to be misspellings. (For example, former Clinton adviser Doug Band’s name appears as “Doug Bands,” and British neurologist Oliver Sacks’ name appears as “Oliver Sachs.”) 

Meanwhile, 32 of 166 names on the list were in the address book. The list also appeared to misspell the names of three people who are in the address book: Svetlana Griaznova (spelled “Svetlana Griaznove” in the address book), Magali Blachon and Melinda Luntz (spelled “Melinda Lutz” in some documents). Bill Clinton is not in the address book, but Band is.

Our ruling

A 166-name list that circulated on social media following the January release of court documents in an Epstein-related lawsuit claimed all people listed were connected to Epstein.

About 78% of the people on the list — 129 of the 166 — were not mentioned in the court documents. Looking through other already public documents, including Epstein’s private jet flight logs and his address book, we found that 99 of them were not on the flight logs, and 131 of them were not in the address book. Others who are mentioned in court documents have not all been criminally implicated, as the posts suggest. Although some of the people listed had well-documented relationships with Epstein, the number of those people formally charged with crimes is two.

Is this an accurate list? No, it is not. We rate it False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird and Staff Writers Madison Czopek and Sara Swann contributed to this report.

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PolitiFact has published its 1,000th fact-check of Donald Trump. In addition to our data analysis, we decided to back at the 10 Trump fact-checks that our readers clicked the most. The list included statements about immigrants, crime, terrorism, Hillary Clinton, gasoline prices and his own popularity. 

Here is the list in descending order:

1. “My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011, when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” Trump said in 2017. Mostly False. Trump was referring to the Obama administration’s 2011 decision to delay processing of Iraqi refugees for six months after the FBI uncovered evidence of  a failed terrorism plot by two Iraqi refugees. Trump’s executive order temporarily banned travel to the United States for all citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and was not in response to actions by those citizens.

2. In the 2015 Republican primary, Trump tweeted an image that said crime statistics show Black people kill 81% of white homicide victims. Pants on Fire! Trump’s tweet was a day after voters at a Trump rally in Alabama kicked and punched a Black activist. Almost every number in the image was wrong — the statistics on white victims were exaggerated fivefold and the police-related deaths were also off. This image again went viral in 2020, after George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by Minneapolis police.

3. Trump said a nuclear deal gave Iran “$150 billion, giving $1.8 billion in cash — in actual cash carried out in barrels and in boxes from airplanes.” Half True. Trump made this statement in a 2015 “Fox and Friends” interview. Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal but broke his promise to renegotiate it. The $150 billion was the highest estimate we had seen, and the one with the least evidence to support it. The $1.8 billion was reasonably accurate, but we found no evidence that barrels and boxes were involved.

4: “The birther movement was started by Hillary Clinton in 2008. She was all in!” False. Trump tweeted this statement in 2015. The birther movement refers to the falsehood that Obama was not born in the United States. The birther movement appears to have begun with Democrats who supported Clinton and opposed Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary. But there was no record that Clinton or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the charge that Obama was not born in the United States. 

5. In 2015, Trump said, “I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering” as the World Trade Center collapsed. Pants on Fire! Trump’s statement during a speech defies basic logic. If thousands and thousands of people were celebrating the 9/11 attacks on American soil, many people beyond Trump would have remembered it, and there would be video or visual evidence. Instead, all we found were a couple of news articles that described rumors of celebrations; the rumors were either debunked or unproved.

6. In 2017, Trump tweeted, “The National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion.” Mostly False. The number was correct, but it was temporary, because of how government bond selling and cashing ebbed and flowed that month. The drop did not affect the overall arc of the national debt, which has only risen for more than two decades. Also, Trump hadn’t implemented any policies that could have triggered the temporary debt decline.

7. In 2021, Trump told interviewer Hugh Hewitt that gasoline prices were “$1.86 when I left” the White House. False. Some fraction of Americans may have been paying that amount, but most were not. The national average price for gasoline when Trump left the White House was $2.38, or about 28% higher than what he said it was.

8. Trump’s first-ever campaign ad in 2016 purportedly showed Mexicans swarming over “our southern border,” as if they were ants fleeing an anthill. Pants on Fire. PolitiFact traced the footage back to a location 5,000 miles away from the southern U.S. border. On May 3, 2014, the Italian television network RepubblicaTV had posted footage of migrants crossing the border into Melilla, one of two Spanish-held enclaves on the Moroccan coast. 

9. In a 2016 speech, Trump said Hillary Clinton headed the State Department when it “approved the transfer of 20 percent of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.” Mostly False. Trump’s claim was a reductive version of his source material’s findings. State was one of nine agencies, plus federal and state nuclear regulators, that had to OK the deal, which had  Russia’s nuclear energy agency gain control of about 20% of U.S. uranium production capacity by gradually buying Canada-based Uranium One. Nine people related to Uranium One donated to the Clinton Foundation, but it’s unclear whether they were still involved in the company when the Russian deal happened or stood to benefit from it. Most of the Clinton Foundation donations occurred before and during Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid, before she could have known she would become secretary of state.

10. In a 2019 press conference, Trump said, “I’ve had tremendous Republican support. I have a 90% — 94% approval rating, as of this morning, in the Republican Party. That’s an all-time record.” Half True. At the time, Trump’s support within his party was consistently in the mid-to-high 80% range, but not as high as 94%

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PolitiFact has hit a milestone: We published our 1,000th rated fact-check of Donald Trump.

In classic Trump fashion, he claimed in his New Hampshire primary victory speech Jan. 23 that Democrats used the COVID-19 pandemic to “cheat” in the 2020 presidential election. 

Unsurprisingly to our regular readers, his claim was Pants on Fire.

It’s not unusual for politicians of both parties to mislead, exaggerate or make stuff up. But American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy. 

Our fact-checking saga of Trump began in 2011, when he used his celebrity to amplify “birther” conspiracy theories to undermine former President Barack Obama’s eligibility. The pace of our checks intensified in 2015, with his surprise Republican primary ascent and his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton. Trump’s turbulent policy-by-Twitter updates kept our reporters sprinting during his presidential tenure. He downplayed the COVID-19 public health threat and fanned persistent falsehoods about voting and election results that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s fast-and-loose style surely endears him to some of his supporters, who propelled him to the White House in 2016 and made him the Republican front-runner to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024.

The 45th president stands apart — and the election year has barely started. Here’s what our fact-checking data shows us about his Truth-O-Meter record so far.

It will be some time before another politician hits 1,000 ratings. After Trump, our three most-fact-checked politicians are all Democrats: former President Barack Obama with 603 fact-checks, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with 301, and President Joe Biden with 286.

Trump stands alone for the share of rated claims that are some degree of false. About 76% of his statements earned ratings of Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. The median rating for his 1,000 checks is False.

More than 18% of our fact-checks of Trump landed at Pants on Fire, which we define as a statement that is not just false but ridiculous. 

About a quarter of Trump’s 1,000 rated statements landed on the relatively true side of our meter (True, Mostly True or Half True). Often these involved statistics, such as his accurate tweet in 2019 that said U.S. food stamp program participation had hit a 10-year low. 

Trump’s median rating of False is worse than a cross-section of frequently checked Democratic and Republican politicians. Politicians with median ratings of Half True include Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton; three senators who ran for president, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and two longtime congressional leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Trump has also fared worse than three frequently checked politicians who have a median rating of Mostly False: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

“It’s been an astounding eight years in American politics,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communication professor and a historian of American political rhetoric. “He’s built his entire political identity on the fact that he doesn’t owe anyone the truth about anything.”

A relentless flow of ‘truthful hyperbole’

In his 1987 best-seller “The Art of the Deal,” Trump described “why a little hyperbole never hurts.”

“People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole,” Trump wrote. “It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.”

That approach held true for politics as it did for business. Ever since he descended the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, we have encountered a firehose of claims. 

He talks a lot — in TV interviews, on social media, at campaign rallies that stretch for nearly two hours. As president, Trump made Twitter essential reading, before the social media platform exiled him after the Capitol riot. Of the tweets we checked, about 79% rated Mostly False or lower. So far, on his Truth Social platform, we have not yet rated a claim higher than Mostly False.

Among his most common settings for claims, Trump fared best in State of the Union addresses. His median Truth-O-Meter rating for those annual speeches inched into the Half True range.

In practice, we have looked at many more Trump statements than just the 1,000 cited in this article. 

Each of the 1,000 fact-checks has a formal Truth-O-Meter rating. Sometimes, we instead write articles about claims without rating them. Examples include summaries of multiple claims made in a debate, rally or major speech. Other times, a statement is a prediction, or too vague for us to rate, or involves an unanswerable question, such as how courts will rule in the classified documents case. In those cases, we’ll write an explanatory story without a rating. These are not captured in Trump’s Truth-O-Meter scorecard.

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker column sought to collect every statement by Trump during his term that Glenn Kessler and his team determined was false or misleading. They ended up with 30,573 statements. 

Even though these mentions were usually brief rather than fully detailed fact-check articles, and even though they included many repeated claims, compiling the database was “exhausting,” Kessler told us. The database ended up at about 5 million words.

After this experience, Kessler said the Post has capped future efforts at the first 100 days of a new presidency, as the newspaper did for Biden’s 78 false or misleading claims.

If the past is prologue, 2024 will be another peak year for checking Trump. Our rated fact-checks peaked in 2016 and 2020, the two years he ran for president. 

In the beginning, there was birtherism

For Trump’s accusations and insults, accuracy hardly matters.

In 2011, Trump leveraged his TV businessman persona to discredit Obama’s legitimacy as the nation’s elected leader. Trump told an annual conservative conference that the people who went to school with Obama “never saw him, they don’t know who he is.” His accusation was part of “birtherism,” a series of false beliefs that Obama, the first Black president and one with Kenyan lineage, wasn’t a natural-born American citizen. We rated this statement Pants on Fire!

He kept repeating birther claims through his 2015 campaign. In 2016, Trump falsely said Clinton started the rumors about Obama’s birthplace. Clinton supporters circulated the rumor in the 2008 Democratic primary’s final days and after Clinton had conceded to Obama. But the record did not show Clinton or her campaign ever promoting, or starting the birther theory.

In his new campaign, Trump promoted baseless birtherism claims about Republican rival Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor who was born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents.

Sometimes it’s easy to fact-check Trump because his statements fly in the face of available video. He tweeted in 2020 that “I never called John (McCain) a loser.” But 2015 video of Trump speaking in Ames, Iowa, showed that he said of McCain, “I never liked him much after” McCain lost the 2008 presidential race, “because I don’t like losers.”

During a 2016 GOP primary debate, Trump said of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, that “he said he would take his pants off and moon everybody … nobody reports that.” Bush was making a joke about what he felt was scant press coverage. We rated Trump’s statement Mostly False.  

We have fact-checked many politicians who admit, usually through a spokesperson, that they misspoke. When Trump is challenged on his dubious statements, he typically ignores reporters’ questions or says he shouldn’t have to defend his words.

In November 2015, Trump tweeted an image that crime statistics show Black people kill 81% of white homicide victims. We rated the statistic Pants on Fire. Days later, then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told Trump he was wrong. 

“Hey, Bill, Bill, am I gonna check every statistic?” Trump said. “I get millions and millions of people.”

Trump is the three-time winner of our annual Lie of the Year, which we award for the year’s most significant falsehood. He won:

• In 2015 for three outrageous claims in the Republican presidential primary, including the claim about Black people.

• In 2017 for calling claims of Russian election interference a “made-up story.”

• In 2019 for saying a whistleblower got his call with Ukraine’s president “almost completely wrong” when the account was close to the White House’s own transcript.  

Trump shared in our 2020 and 2021 Lies of the Year for his efforts to downplay the threat of COVID-19 and the significance of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, respectively.

By topic, Trump’s immigration claims stand out

PolitiFact’s focus has been on Trump’s more consequential statements. His rhetoric around immigration often distorts reality. 

Trump campaigned in 2015 and 2016 on a message of fear of immigrants illegally in the U.S. He told Americans that “the Mexican government … they send the bad ones over.” That’s Pants on Fire. Most Mexicans were crossing the border seeking work. There was no evidence that their government sent criminals. 

Trump also wildly misrepresented Democratic policies. In October 2016, he said Clinton would allow 650 million immigrants into the U.S. in one week. That’s an absurd number considering the U.S. population was about half that amount.

In December 2017, Trump said that under the diversity visa lottery program, other countries “give us their worst people” — a distortion of how the U.S. government vets and selects them. 

During the 2020 campaign and Biden’s presidency, Trump continued to use scare tactics, falsely stating that Biden halted virtually all deportations, including of murderers, or planned to give immigrants welfare benefits.

Trump’s falsehoods have fueled threats to democracy

Trump’s ridiculous statements about elections stretch back to 2016, when a few months before Election Day he called elections “rigged.” After he won in 2016, Trump claimed there was “serious voter fraud” in states he lost. It was particularly absurd for him to blame voter fraud for his 2016 loss of California, a state that hadn’t voted for a Republican for president since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Trump’s election falsehoods increasingly became focused on grievances.

As Trump faced reelection in 2020, he said Biden could win only if the election was rigged. Elections are administered in thousands of local areas nationwide, each with safeguards, making any attempt to “rig” a national election highly improbable.

Trump’s election result denial has poisoned many Americans’ views on voting, misleading the public about how elections are run. 

A December 2023 Washington Post/University of Maryland survey found that about one third of respondents believed there was solid evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020. 

Gallup found before the 2022 midterms that most Americans were very confident or somewhat confident that the results would be accurately counted. Democrats were more than twice as confident as Republicans, representing the largest gap Gallup has recorded on this measure since 2004.  

One week before the 2020 election, Trump said counting ballots for weeks after Election Day “is totally inappropriate, and I don’t believe that’s by our laws.” However, most ballots are counted quickly; federal law allows states more than a month after the election to check their math, resolve disputes.

In the early morning hours after polls closed, Trump made the ridiculously premature declaration that he had won. Because the ballots were still being counted,  no one could say with any confidence whether Trump or Biden had won. Yet claims that Trump had won prompted Trump’s supporters — some armed — to gather outside of vote counting sites including in Philadelphia and Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix.

Trump continued this theme over the next several weeks, telling his supporters of “surprise ballot dumps” and “massive fraud” that did not exist. He told his allies, “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

More than 1,200 people have been charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Court records show that some have said Trump told them to act. Whether Trump faces consequences for actions to subvert lawful election results remains to be seen in Fulton County, Georgia, and the federal courts.

What is PolitiFact’s role?

Readers sometimes ask us what our endgame is with a politician like Trump. They say our fact-checks don’t keep Trump from repeating his false claims, including lies about the 2020 election.

It’s not our job to silence Trump or force him to change his rhetoric. Nor is it our job to tell voters how they should mark their ballots. 

Our job is to provide factually vetted information to voters so they can make informed choices.

We fact-check all major political parties, holding their leaders and candidates accountable for misleading rhetoric. We write for Americans who are open to considering evidence. And we document for the historical record, including analysts who will study the Trump era for decades to come.

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A government program that promises $2,400 each month may sound too good to be true. Well, it is.

In a Facebook video first posted Jan. 6, a driver approaches a man who is wearing a Walmart employee’s vest and pushing shopping carts in the store’s parking lot. The driver says, “Sir, bet I could get you to quit your job right now.” 

The man is initially skeptical but the driver asks if he makes less than $30 an hour and then shows him a check of $2,418.44. The driver claims he got it as part of a government program for people earning less than $30 an hour.

“They are subsidizing the wages so if you make less than $30 an hour, you are going to get up to $2,400 every single month,” the driver said.

The Facebook video 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 video shows the man telephoning a supposed government hotline that would have him answer a few questions and be enrolled in this program. A link attached to the video leads to a website that requests personal information from visitors. 

We found no such government programs giving checks of up to $2,400 to people earning less than $30 an hour — well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (for nontipped workers) in 2024. The website associated with the Facebook post, fedhealth.us, is also not maintained by the federal government. Online scammers employ these schemes to extract money from unsuspecting people or use personal details, such as Social Security numbers, to steal people’s identities.

This video is the latest in a laundry list of online scams purporting to help low-income people. PolitiFact has previously checked social media videos and posts that claim to help people access governmental assistance up to $6,400, among other benefits.

We rate the claim that the government will send you a $2,400 check monthly if you earn less than $30 an hour False.

You can keep drinking your oat milk latte. An Instagram video claims the dairy substitute is more unhealthy for blood sugar than Coca-Cola, but experts say that is misleading. 

In the Jan. 22  Instagram video, Dave Asprey, author of The Bulletproof Diet, a book criticized for offering nutrition advice without scientific backing, says oat milk “raises your blood sugar as much as drinking a Coke.” 

The video 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.)

One serving of oat milk contains significantly less sugar than a can of Coca-Cola. A 12-ounce can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar, while popular brand Oatly milk contains 7 grams of sugar in an 8-ounce serving of its “original” oat milk product. Other oat milk brands such as Planet Oat and Chobani have 4 grams of sugar and 7 grams of sugar per 8-ounce cup, respectively, in their “original” products. 

The blood sugar claim appears to be related to the type of sugar in oat milk, maltose, which has a higher glycemic index than other types of sugars. Glycemic index measures how quickly a food affects your blood sugar level.  

According to the glycemic index guide, oat milk has a glycemic index of 69, while Coke has a glycemic index of 60. 

But a nutrient’s glycemic load is not the only determinant of how much your blood sugar will rise when you consume a product that contains that nutrient, said Jen Cadenhead, a nutrition scientist at Columbia University’s Teachers College. 

Cadenhead said the fiber in oat milk can “slow the absorption of sugars so that food and beverages are better digested.” 

Other contents such as protein and fat can also slow blood sugar rise. 

One 8-ounce cup of Oatly contains 3 grams of fiber, 3 grams of protein and 5.5 grams of fat. By comparison, a 12-ounce can of Coke has zero grams of protein, fat and fiber. 

A 2015 study by the Weizmann Institute of Science found that the rate at which a person’s blood sugar rises in response to food intake varies from person to person based on factors such as an individual’s gut microbes, sleep patterns and exercise routines. 

We rate the claim that oat milk “raises blood sugar as much as drinking a Coke” False.

Un video en Facebook dice que el logo de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas esconde el mapa de la tierra plana, pero eso no es cierto.

“El logotipo de la ONU que tu lo ves, es el mapa de la tierra plana literal, no es que lo pusieran de casualidad es el mapa de la tierra plana rodeado por la Antártida”, dice la publicación del 10 de diciembre de 2023. 

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).

Aunque el mapa que aparece en el logo de la ONU se parece a uno promovido por personas que dicen que la tierra es plana, estos no están relacionados. Tampoco el mapa en el logo de la ONU está rodeado de la Antártida, sino de ramas de olivo. 

La ONU dice en su página web oficial que el diseño de su logo es un mapa del mundo que representa una proyección “azimutal equidistante centrada en el Polo Norte”. Lo cual significa que es un mapa que muestra al mundo sobre una superficie plana y aunque ese tipo de mapa es usado por los terraplanistas, la ONU no lo usa con ese propósito. La página de la ONU también dice que el mapa está rodeado por una corona de ramas de olivo en oro, no por la Antártida. 

La oficina de la ONU en Viena tiene una página web con respuestas a preguntas más frecuentes. Esta dice que los símbolos del emblema de la ONU “hablan por sí mismos”. Esta dice que la rama de olivo simboliza la paz y se remonta a la antigua Grecia. En relación al mapa, la oficina dice que este es el mapa del mundo que simboliza la extensión y la universalidad del interés de las Naciones Unidas de lograr su objetivo principal: la paz.

PolitiFact no encontró en las páginas oficiales de la ONU ninguna mención sobre la creencia en el mapa de los terraplanistas. Estas solo explican que su logo tiene un mapa del mundo uniendo a las naciones rodeadas de las ramas de olivo que significan paz. 

Le escribimos a la ONU por correo electrónico y llamamos por teléfono, pero no recibimos respuesta. 

Calificamos la declaración de que el logotipo de la ONU “es el mapa de la tierra plana rodeado por la Antártida” como Falsa. 

Lee también: La Tierra no es plana. Aquí te contamos por qué.

Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

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Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.

Publicaciones en las redes sociales dicen que un hombre azerbaiyano entró a los Estados Unidos por la frontera sur, pero el hombre en la publicación no es quien ellos dicen. 

“Los d3m0cratas estan permitiendo que Los enemigos de EUA entren por la frontera. Movsum Azerbaijani, pertenece al partido Islamic0”, dice una publicación en TikTok del 23 de enero. “Fue condenado por 12 años en prision por tratar derrocar su gobierno y ahora llega a causar ‘problemas’ en USA”. 

Otro video en TikTok muestra a un hombre en la frontera que dice en inglés, “Pronto sabrán quien soy”, y añade en subtítulos en inglés que supuestamente él es Movsum Samadov. 

Samadov, el jefe del Partido Islamico de Azerbaiyán, fue arrestado en el 2011 y sentenciado a 12 años en prisión. Él fue condenado por cargos criminales incluyendo la preparación de terrorismo, portar armas ilicitamente y por tratar de derrocar a su gobierno.

Human Rights Watch reportó en el 2011 que antes de que Samadov fuera condenado, él fue arrestado por publicar un discurso en YouTube denunciando el mandato del presidente azerbaiyano, Ilham Aliyev, por prohibir a las mujeres usar pañuelos en la cabeza en escuelas y universidades. Él fue liberado el 19 de enero de 2023, después de completar su sentencia, según la Comisión de los Estados Unidos para la Libertad Religiosa Internacional. 

PolitiFact encontró que las imágenes virales del migrante se originaron el 20 de enero en una cuenta en X llamada, @1strespondersmedia, la cual se auto describe como un medio de comunicación. La publicación original dice que el migrante quien cruzó a los Estados Unidos ilegalmente amenazó al creador del video cuando le preguntó su nombre y de dónde venía. Pero la publicación no dice que el hombre en el video es Samadov. El hilo en la publicación también dice que el encuentro sucedió en Sasabe, Arizona. 

El Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium, el cual provee información y análisis de grupos terroristas, publicó en X que Samadov fue identificado erróneamente como el hombre que cruzó la frontera ilegalmente.

Usuarios en las redes sociales mostraron una foto de Samadov del 2011 para afirmar que él era el hombre en las publicaciones, pero imágenes más recientes y videos en YouTube lo muestra luciendo mayor, y con pocas similitudes al hombre del video en las redes sociales.

Samadov le dijo a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty en una entrevista del 24 de enero que él no es el hombre en las publicaciones. (Traducimos la entrevista de azerbaiyano a inglés usando Google Translate). 

Samadov dijo que la persona en el video no se parece a él, y señaló que el hombre tiene pocas similitudes a él, excepto por sus lentes. 

‘

La imagen en la izquierda es un screenshot de una publicación en Facebook y la imagen en la derecha es de la cuenta en Facebook de Samadov.

Samadov también dijo en la entrevista que él tiene prohibido dejar Azerbaiyán. Él dijo que trató dos veces de visitar Estados Unidos, pero no le dieron permiso. 

No pudimos identificar al hombre en el video o su país de origen, pero un vocero del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional de los Estados Unidos le dijo a PolitiFact que él está en custodia estadounidense.

PolitiFact contactó a la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de Estados Unidos, y al Servicio de Control de Inmigración y Aduanas, pero no recibió respuesta. 

Calificamos la declaración de que Samadov entró a los Estados Unidos por la frontera como Falsa. 

La investigadora de PolitiFact Caryn Baird contribuyó a este reporte. 

Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

Read a similar fact-check in English.

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Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.