Category: Fact Check

PETERBOROUGH, N.H.: On her 52nd birthday, Republican presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley called out former President Donald Trump on his age and for confusing her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. 

Haley told supporters at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture that during a Jan. 19 rally, Trump, 77, blamed her for failing to secure the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. 

“He went on and talked about how I kept the police from going into the Capitol on Jan. 6, went on and repeated that I didn’t do anything to secure the Capitol. Let’s be clear,” Haley said. “I wasn’t in the Capitol on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office on Jan. 6. He mentioned it three times, he got confused.”

PolitiFact has fact-checked multiple misleading claims about Pelosi’s role regarding Capitol security on Jan. 6 and have found that this responsibility is shared, it is not solely the responsibility of the Speaker.

At her Peterborough rally, Haley also repeated many claims we’ve previously fact-checked, including statistics about illegal immigration and fentanyl seizures. 

One voter PolitiFact spoke to outside the event told us she valued accuracy and wanted to know the context behind claims she often hears from candidates, including Haley.

Here are some of the statistics Haley cited, along with context.

“We had more fentanyl cross the border last year, that would kill every single American.” 

There’s no way to know how much fentanyl crossed the border into the U.S. But, we do know how much fentanyl was stopped from getting into the country — 27,000 pounds in fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Its potency is what makes it so lethal. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be deadly for an adult. That means border officials seized more than enough fentanyl to kill every American (the estimated U.S. population is more than 333 million). 

Yet, fentanyl’s lethality can vary based on its purity and a person’s height, weight and tolerance from past exposure, Timothy J. Pifer, director of the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory, told PolitiFact in 2019. 

Also, just because enough fentanyl has been seized to kill every American does not mean every American has the same chance of dying of a fentanyl overdose, Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a toxicologist and emergency doctor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, previously told us. 

“That would assume that all that drug was somehow going to get into everybody,” Stolbach said. 

Fentanyl overdoses are the “No. 1 cause of death for adults 18 to 45.”

We rated a similar claim Mostly True.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects data on the leading causes of death nationwide, but it doesn’t keep tabs on which drugs cause the most fatalities. 

Instead, fentanyl deaths fall under the broader category of “other synthetic narcotics,” Brian Tsai, a spokesperson with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics Public Affairs Office told PolitiFact in April. Fentanyl comprises about 90% of the deaths in that narcotics category, Tsai said. 

For the 18 to 45 age group, Tsai said, the leading cause of death was “accidents (unintentional injuries).” Within the several subcategories under “unintentional injuries,” “unintentional drug overdoses,” is the largest proportion, and “synthetic narcotics,” is the No. 1 category. 

Medical experts previously told PolitiFact that although the statistic is likely right, data collection limitations make it difficult to know with certainty. 

“Only 31% of eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading. Only 27% of eighth graders in our country are proficient in math.”

Haley’s statistics are accurate.

To compare test scores among the states, researchers and politicians typically point to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which tests public school students’ progress in a variety of subjects, including English and math. The national tests focus on certain grade levels and are administered every other year.

In 2022, 31% of eighth grade students performed at or above the  NAEP proficient level on the reading assessment, which was 3 percentage points lower compared with 2019, the previous assessment year.

In 2022, the percentage of eighth-grade students performing at or above the NAEP proficient level in mathematics was 26% .

Martin West, an education professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Education Week in October 2022 that fourth and eighth grade reading and math NAEP scores “are down substantially.”

“And they are down nearly everywhere: Every state (and the District of Columbia) saw scores drop by a statistically significant amount on at least one of the four tests administered this spring,” said West, a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP.

Proficient on NAEP does not mean grade level performance — it’s significantly above that. “Using NAEP’s proficient level as a basis for education policy is a bad idea.”

Trump “actually said he wants to raise the retirement age to 70.”

Haley omits that Trump said this decades ago and this has not been his position for years.

Trump co-wrote the book “The America We Deserve,” which was published in January 2000 as he considered a bid for president as a Reform Party candidate. Weeks later, Trump said he wouldn’t run, declaring the Reform Party a “total mess.”

Fiscal responsibility was one of the book’s themes, and Trump warned that the Social Security trust fund would run out by 2030. (More than two decades later, the expected depletion date is around 2034, barring congressional action.)

“We can also raise the age for receipt of full Social Security benefits to seventy. This proposal would not include anyone who is currently retired or about to retire,” the book said. 

Trump wrote: “A firm limit at age seventy makes sense for people now under forty. We’re living longer. We’re working longer. New medicines are extending healthy human life.”

RELATED: New Hampshire dispatch: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and the tales of town halls

RELATED: Trump’s misleading claim that Haley is seeking Democrats to ‘infiltrate’ New Hampshire’s GOP primary

MANCHESTER, N.H. — We’ve hit the halfway mark for PolitiFact’s pre-primaryNew Hampshire trip, and I almost can’t believe it. 

Friday was a travel day for most of our team, so Senior Correspondent Louis Jacobson and I had a respite from the breakneck pace we’ve kept for the last few days. We visited WMUR-TV in the morning so Lou could film one more hit there. 

Friday’s topic was a claim by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who said at her Wednesday event in Rochester that former President Donald Trump “proposed when he was president” that “he wanted to raise the gas tax up to 25 cents.” We say that’s Mostly False. Trump expressed lukewarm support for a 25-cent hike to the federal gasoline tax to help pay for infrastructure improvements. But he didn’t formalize the idea or pitch it to the public.

We’ve also checked Haley’s repeated claim that she has a 17-point national polling edge over President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ False claim that booster shots make a COVID-19 infection more likely.

Lou had a flight home in the afternoon, so we said goodbye outside the station. But I wasn’t by myself in Manchester for too long. Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman and Staff Writer Maria Ramirez Uribe arrived later that evening. They’ll be anchoring our New Hampshire coverage until Tuesday’s election.

Because Friday was a bit of a slower day, I thought it would be a good idea to slow it down a bit and take a big-picture look at our coverage for 2024.

You might remember that when I told you PolitiFact was traveling to New Hampshire, I also asked for your help. Both in our newsletter and on Instagram, I asked readers a few questions: 

• How are you feeling about this election year? What issues are on your mind?

• What do you find confusing about the 2024 election? What do you want to learn more about?

• What do you want to know about PolitiFact or fact-checking in general? Is there anything you don’t understand about our process that you’d like to know more about?

I asked these questions because, as public service journalists, we want to make sure our work is useful to you. Here are some of the answers I received. 

You want to know how we find our facts

Readers told me they wanted to know more about how we decide what’s a fact.

“Can you provide a bit more info on how you source facts, verify that what you report is accurate, etc.” one wrote. 

An Instagram user asked, “How do you know you’re finding the most reliable sources?”

You can learn more about how we decide which claims to fact-check on our website, but I handed these questions over to Lou to answer. 

 

You care about democracy

Readers shared many different issues they cared about going into 2024: abortion rights, immigration, conflict in the Middle East, housing and LGBTQ+ rights. Many said they wanted more insight into why some voters remain loyal to former President Donald Trump and expressed frustration with the Democratic Party for not having strong enough messaging. 

But a running theme through many of the emails and comments I received was concern about the state of democracy.

“Normally I would be looking forward to vote, but with so much misinformation and voters who believe in the lies & BS being spread on the Republican side by the frontrunner, it’s VERY worrisome,” another newsletter reader wrote.

When I asked our Instagram followers to list their top issues for 2024, I got responses such as, “Preserving democracy,” “Ease and safety of voting, proper representation of districts,” and “Civility, respect and protecting democracy.”

“At this time I can honestly say that I am frightened,” one reader told me. “I feel like our democracy is in real trouble! Am I wrong about this?”

Further down in the message, the same reader said, “I like to be informed but feel a sense of burnout from all the ‘noise.’ I really care and have never seen such polarization!”

Helping people be informed participants in democracy is the reason we publish here at PolitiFact. We know it can be hard, sometimes downright exhausting, to try to find accurate information in a sea of rhetoric. 

But you’re not in this alone. If you hear something you think sounds suspicious, send it our way at [email protected] so we can investigate it for you. 

And if you want to help us disrupt the misdirecting agendas of politicians across the ideological spectrum, share our stories with your friends or family or donate to our nonprofit newsroom. 

Some sad news: This will be my last update from New Hampshire, but my teammates who are staying through the election will be sending you updates throughout the weekend. If you’re signed up for PolitiFact Daily, I’ll be back in your inbox sometime next week.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is my first time covering a presidential election. This week has been an incredible learning experience, one I will never forget. Thank you so much for joining me on this trip, readers! 

HAMPTON, N.H. — During his presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has emphasized the speed with which he opened his state during the coronavirus pandemic. He argued this move unleashed the economy when many other states were struggling because of pandemic-related shutdowns.

After initially supporting the coronavirus vaccine during its wide rollout in early 2021, DeSantis and his allies have expressed skepticism about them. DeSantis’ hand-picked state surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, for example, argued that small DNA fragments in the vaccines could pose a “unique and elevated risk to human health.” PolitiFact found the scientific consensus says they don’t.

During a visit to this Atlantic Ocean beach town, more than 100 supporters packed into Wally’s restaurant to hear DeSantis speak and take questions.

DeSantis urged caution about the coronavirus vaccine that medical officials and most doctors still urge Americans to get. He said people who get the vaccine are likelier to get sick.

“Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis said something similar in January 2023: “Almost every study now has said with these new boosters, you’re more likely to get infected with the bivalent booster.” We rated that False.

For this article, we checked back with experts to whether any developments changed their assessment during the subsequent year. All disagreed with DeSantis.

Neither the DeSantis campaign nor his gubernatorial office responded to an inquiry for this report.

What vaccines are designed to do

Broadly speaking, COVID-19 vaccines are not designed to prevent infection; they prevent the virus from spreading within the body and causing severe illness.

“COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters, have now been shown to be most effective against severe disease,” said Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief in the division of HIV, infectious diseases, and global medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Gandhi said the most recent boosters were tailored to target one variant, XBB1.5. She said the boosters have been shown to significantly reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations in people older than 65, including in a recent study from Denmark. 

DeSantis’ comments hint that he is holding the vaccine to a standard — complete protection against infection — that it was never intended to provide.

The Cleveland Clinic study

One study DeSantis’ office cited for our story a year ago came from the Cleveland Clinic and was discussed in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal. 

But Dr. Nabin Shrestha, an infectious disease physician and one of the study’s authors, told PolitiFact at the time that, contrary to DeSantis’ remark, the data did not find a link between getting the shot and having a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. 

What drove coverage in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal was an “unexpected” association researchers found between the number of prior vaccine doses and an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. People with three or more doses of the vaccine had a higher chance of getting infected. 

However, experts told PolitiFact that the study population was not reflective of the general public; it consisted of younger, relatively healthy health care workers and included no children and few elderly or immunocompromised people. Therefore, experts said, the study cannot simply be extrapolated to the population at large.

René Najera, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Public Health at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, told PolitiFact last year that the population tested would be “more likely to be exposed and more likely to be vaccinated as well. … The findings would only be applicable to health care workers in large settings such as the Cleveland Clinic, not the general public.”

Why good studies of infection are hard to do

Gandhi and other medical professionals told PolitiFact that studies like the Cleveland Clinic’s are imperfect, because it is hard to conduct real-world experiments that gauge infection rates, especially for vulnerable populations. Studies tend to get participants who are healthy and are likelier to get boosters, Gandhi said.

Therefore, studies of this sort are “subject to massive bias,” said Babak Javid, associate director of bench science at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tuberculosis Medicine. 

Javid says there’s also significant overlap among the people who get the new booster and those who test themselves frequently. “Since infection status can only be documented if a test is performed, it could easily explain how more vaccinated people are in the ‘infected’ camp,” he said. People who are not getting vaccinated or tested simply won’t be counted, skewing attempts at making comparisons.

Another complication in tracking infection rates is that coronavirus vaccines present the same dynamics as any vaccine. That is, by protecting against one strain, or just a few strains, of a given virus, vaccinated people are still liable to get infected by a different strain that the vaccine doesn’t cover, said Jill Roberts, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, Global and Planetary Health at the University of South Florida.

That’s why many vaccines, such as flu and COVID-19 shots, need frequent updating, experts said. 

Gandhi said that although the boosters have long been known to offer only “modest protection, if at all, against COVID-19 infection … there is no evidence to suggest that boosters actually increase the risk of COVID-19 infection.”

Thus, she said, DeSantis “is incorrect in saying boosters will lead to more frequent infections.”

Our ruling

DeSantis said, “Every booster you take, you’re more likely to get COVID as a result of it.”

Experts say there is no hard evidence that infection is greater in people who have had boosters.

Part of the reason is that determining infection rates among all members of society is difficult. Most studies rely on younger and healthier patients, who are not necessarily typical. Also, people who are not getting vaccinated or tested simply won’t be counted, skewing attempts at comparisons, experts said.

We rate the statement False.

HENNIKER, N.H. — A key argument former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is making as she runs for the Republican presidential nomination is practical. She says that although polls show that a matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump would be a nail-biter, she would cruise to victory.

Haley repeated that argument Jan. 18 in a CNN town hall here at New England College. “If you look at any general election poll, Trump and Biden — even on a good day — Trump will be up by 2 points,” Haley told the audience of New Hampshire voters. “I defeat Biden by 17 points in The Wall Street Journal poll.”

The Wall Street Journal poll did find her ahead by that many percentage points. But Haley left out that this poll result is 6 weeks old, and that no poll since then has come close to matching that margin.

According to the FiveThirtyEight archive of presidential general election polls, there have been nine polls since The Wall Street Journal’s Dec. 4 poll.

Haley’s best showing in those nine polls was in a Jan. 12 YouGov-CBS News poll, which found her leading Biden by 8 points. (Trump and Biden were even in that poll.)

In three other polls, Haley led Biden by smaller margins: 6 points, 5 points and 4 points.

But in four others, Biden was ahead, between 2 points and 5 points. And in the remaining poll, Haley and Biden were deadlocked.

Haley didn’t note that in many of the Haley-Biden head-to-head matchups, a lot of voters were undecided or declined to answer. In a majority of the nine polls, 18% to 26% of voters said they were not able to choose between Haley and Biden.

This is not necessarily surprising; unlike Trump, who served as president for four years and has an enormous media profile, Haley is still relatively unknown among the broad swath of voters who do not follow politics closely. 

However, the large number of undecided voters means that any edge Haley has now may shift as those undecided voters learn more about her and, if she gains the nomination, begin to weigh a Biden-Haley choice.

Haley at the CNN town hall also said: “Seventy percent of Americans have said they don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden.” (Haley said something similar at a rally the night before in Rochester, New Hampshire)

The recent poll results aren’t quite that high, but the electorate seems to be wary of a 2020 Trump-Biden rematch.

An Associated Press/NORC poll released in early December found more than 50% of Americans feeling somewhat or very dissatisfied with a Trump-Biden matchup. An Economist/YouGov poll released a few days later found a similar share of voters opposing a Biden and Trump 2024 run.

The Jan. 16 video showed an infant hooked to wires as what appears to be a news headline flashes on the screen: “Baby who died 34 hours after vaccines had toxic level of aluminum in his blood, report confirms,” the headline read.

The video also showed an image of a Vitamin K injectable label that says it contains 110 micrograms of aluminum per liter.

“Vitamin K at birth is not a vitamin,” another sticker on the video warns. The post’s caption included a list of vaccines along with aluminum levels that it asserted exceed what children can safely receive.

The 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.)

Research has found no link between vaccines and aluminum poisoning in infants.

The headline featured in the video comes from a Sept. 14 article in The Defender, a publication of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group founded by 2024 independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign built on vaccine-related conspiracy theories was named PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year.

The article tells the story of an 8-week-old boy who died in 2022 from what a Maine medical examiner said was “asphyxiation due to inappropriate sleep position and environment.” The infant’s parents doubted the report and sought further testing, which revealed high levels of aluminum in the baby’s bloodstream that the parents believed was because of vaccines the baby received 34 hours before dying. 

The parents planned to file a report in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database about the baby’s death, the story said. They were also planning to seek compensation through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. Humans are constantly exposed to aluminum through food, water, baby formula and even the air. 

Small amounts have been used in vaccines for more than 70 years as an adjuvant — an ingredient that helps create a stronger immune response. A 2021 scientific article said multiple high-quality studies have shown that children who receive vaccines with aluminum adjuvants do not have dangerous levels of aluminum in their blood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Code of Federal Regulations states that “aluminum in an individual dose of a biological product” should not exceed 0.85 milligrams.

We reviewed the vaccines listed in the post’s caption and checked them against information contained in vaccines’ package inserts. We found none of the vaccines listed had more than 0.85 milligrams of aluminum, the limit the USDA has deemed safe.

A report reviewed by Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said infants receive more aluminum in their diets in the first six months of life than what they would receive from vaccines administered during the same period. Vaccines administered to babies within the first six months contain an estimated 4.4 milligrams of aluminum while breast milk over six months contains about 7 milligrams and formula in that time frame contains 38 milligrams. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that average American adults consume 7 to 9 milligrams of aluminum per day from food alone.

We rate the claim that vaccines have unsafe levels of aluminum for infants False.

As the first votes in the 2024 presidential race are cast, social media users are sharing misinformed claims about U.S. voting laws.

In one example, bright red text overlaid on a Dec. 18 Instagram video claimed, “Illegal immigrants now have the right to vote in New York.”

The video featured a Dec. 5 House Homeland Security Committee hearing and tied the claim to a New York City voting law.

“Mr. Blakeman, let me ask you a question,” Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., said during the hearing. “Can illegal immigrants in New York vote?”

Bruce Blakeman, county executive for Nassau County, New York, responded: “In New York City, I believe they passed a law. Luckily, we don’t have that law in Nassau County. But in the city council and mayoral races, I believe illegal aliens recently have been given the right to vote.”

This 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.)

(Screenshot from Instagram.)

Blakeman’s comments in the clip misrepresented a New York City law that allowed noncitizens in the U.S. legally to vote in some municipal elections. The post’s claim that immigrants in the country illegally can vote in New York is wrong. 

“There is no law allowing noncitizens to vote statewide in New York” or any other state, said Joshua Douglas, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law who researches election law and voting rights. 

Only citizens are permitted to vote in New York statewide elections

Under federal law, only U.S. citizens may vote in national elections. 

Susan Lerner, the executive director of the voting rights group Common Cause New York, said that only U.S. citizens can vote in New York state.

In 2021, New York City lawmakers approved legislation that allowed about 800,000 noncitizen New York residents to vote in municipal elections, assuming they had lived in the city for 30 days and were legal permanent residents of the U.S. or had work authorization. This appears to be the law Blakeman referred to during the hearing. 

The legislation neither allowed noncitizens to vote in statewide or federal elections, nor extended voting rights to immigrants in the country illegally. 

“Permanent residents and people authorized to work here are documented and approved by the federal government,” Lerner said. “They pay state and federal taxes, and pay into Social Security as well. In many cases, they’ve lived in the United States for decades. There is nothing ‘illegal’ about them.” 

The measure never took hold.

In June 2022, before the law could even take effect, a New York judge struck it down for violating the state constitution, which says that “every citizen” is entitled to vote. That decision is being appealed. Oral arguments were held in June, but no decision has been handed down. 

“Even if the appeals court rules in favor of the city, allowing (New York City) to implement the law, again, it would only allow legal residents who are not U.S. citizens” to vote, said Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. It would not grant the right to vote to immigrants in New York illegally, as the post suggested. 

Across the U.S., more than a dozen cities have taken steps to allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections, including some cities in California, Maryland and Vermont, Hayduk said. Noncitizen voting in elections is generally limited to municipal elections and is not widespread, however. 

Furthermore, fraudulent voter registration or voting by noncitizens is rare and usually occurs as a result of a misunderstanding or mistake, such as a noncitizen accidentally registering to vote when applying for a driver’s license. 

Our ruling

A video post claimed, “Illegal immigrants now have the right to vote in New York.”

Only U.S. citizens can vote in statewide and national elections in New York. 

A 2021 law in New York City allowed about 800,000 noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, but a judge struck down that law in 2022 and it’s not in effect. Even if the measure were reinstated, it granted voting rights only to noncitizens who were legal permanent residents or had U.S. work authorization, not anyone in the country illegally. 

We rate this claim False. 

RELATED: Trump’s claim that millions of immigrants are signing up to vote illegally is Pants on Fire!

A senator from North Carolina is citing a protest in his home state as an example of why he thinks new laws are needed to stop people from blocking public roads.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., recently filed the “Safe and Open Streets Act,” which would make it a federal crime to purposely obstruct a public road or highway. If enacted, lawmakers would face fines or up to five years of imprisonment.

In a Jan. 8 press release, Tillis’s office highlighted the police response to a Nov. 2 protest in Durham during which pro-Palestinian protesters called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. 

Tillis said protesters “completely blocked the Durham Freeway in Durham, North Carolina, during rush hour, stranding drivers and compromising the free flow of commerce. No arrests were made.”

He added that protesting on a public road “needs to be a crime throughout the country.” 

Is it true that no arrests were made? No. 

No protesters were arrested on the day the Durham Freeway was blocked. But two days later, the Durham Police Department announced that it had obtained warrants for four Durham residents charged with impeding traffic: Olivia Linn, 27, Fatima Nur, 36, Jenae Taylor, 36, Leah Whitehead, 28.

The four protesters later turned themselves into police, as reported by multiple news outlets.

Using the word ‘arrest’

PolitiFact North Carolina asked Tillis’s office about its claim that “no arrests were made.” Daniel Keylin, a Tillis spokesperson, pointed out that PolitiFact NC partner WRAL-TV didn’t use the word “arrested” in a Nov. 4 article about the incident.

“You’re clearly trying to ding Tillis on a minor point, and ironically, WRAL reported that the four turned themselves in days later, not that they were ‘arrested,’” Keylin said in an email.

It’s true that criminal charges can be filed against someone without them being handcuffed. Someone can also be handcuffed but not charged, criminal law experts told PolitiFact NC.

People can also be arrested when they turn themselves in — and the Durham Police Department said that’s exactly what happened with the four protesters who were charged.

“All four women turned themselves in at the Durham County Jail and were placed under arrest,” the department told PolitiFact NC in an email. “They were all released on a written promise to appear in court.”

Questioning the response

Keylin questioned the Durham Police Department’s decision not to detain protesters at the time they were blocking the street. “I’m sure any North Carolinian who was stranded in traffic that day for hours wanted the activists to be arrested on the scene to stop the traffic blockage,” he said.

We asked the Durham Police Department why it didn’t arrest protesters on the day of the protest. The department referred us to a Nov. 3 statement issued by Police Chief Patrice Andrews. She suggested that arresting protesters on-the-spot could have prolonged the traffic jam.

“Our first priority was to reroute the affected traffic and manage commuters still traveling to Durham on the Durham Freeway,” Andrews said. “As this was happening, staff began mobilizing a plan to reopen the highway. We were prepared to arrest any individuals that did not comply with our lawful orders.”

She added: “We did not and will not prioritize haste over safety, and will always avoid taking haphazard or reckless action that would have placed officers, motorists, bystanders, and protestors in danger.”

Holding protesters accountable

Keylin also suggested the protesters may not be fully held accountable by the local district attorney.

The four protesters were due in court on Jan. 16 to face their charge of impeding traffic, a Class 2 misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to 60 days in jail, according to Sarah Willets, a spokesperson for the Durham County district attorney’s office.

They each entered deferral agreements with the same terms: “Comply with three months of unsupervised probation, complete an in-person driving course, and complete 36.5 hours of community service,” Williets said in an email.

“Under a deferral, the person admits responsibility to the charges, and if they successfully complete the terms of the agreement, the charges are dismissed,” she added.

Our ruling

Tillis said police made “no arrests” of protestors who blocked Durham Freeway on Nov. 2.

That’s inaccurate. Durham police didn’t lead anyone away in handcuffs the day of the protest, but two days later — months before Tillis’s Jan. 8 statement — police arrested and charged four protesters for impeding traffic. 

We rate his claim False.

Ground and processed meats may not always be premium products, but they are not human flesh.

In a Jan. 6 Facebook reel that is sharing a TikTok video, a woman talks with text over the video that says: “So would you like to know why they feed human flesh back to humanity?” The TikTok account no longer exists.

The woman mentions “adrenochrome or the blood or the organs or the glands that is used by the elites for human consumption,” which is part of a baseless QAnon conspiracy theory that a global cabal of pedophiles stays young and healthy by harvesting a chemical compound called adrenochrome from the blood of children. 

She also says the “body has to be tortured and put through a lot of fear. That flesh then is fed back to humanity through the fast food industry. Any type of ground or processed meats have human flesh in them.”

This Facebook 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.)

There is no national law specifically banning cannibalism, but the majority of states have enacted laws that “indirectly make it impossible to legally obtain and consume the body matter,” according to Cornell Law School.

All processed meat in the U.S. is also regulated and federally inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA lists what ingredients and additives to ground meat are allowed and they are products only from other farm animals, such as levels of fat. 

“These laws protect consumers by ensuring that meat products are wholesome, unadulterated, and correctly labeled and packaged,” according to the agency.

Many states also have their own inspection programs for meat sold within state boundaries.

Similar claims about processed meat, including that McDonald’s serves human flesh, are not new and have been widely debunked. The fast-food giant has affirmed its patties are made of 100 percent real beef.

We rate the claim that “any type of ground or processed meats have human flesh in them” Pants on Fire! 

TikTok users shared a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying militant Islam would bring down the World Trade Center as proof that he knew about 9/11 before it happened. 

But the video occurred years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It’s from a 2006 CNN interview in which Netanyahu says, “So, I wrote a book in 1995, and I said that, ‘If the West doesn’t wake up to the suicidal nature of militant Islam, the next thing you will see is militant Islam bringing down the World Trade Center.’”

TikTok identified these posts  as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

Netanyahu is referring to his 1995 book, “Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.” In it, he predicts the World Trade Center could be attacked a second time.

He writes of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which occurred in a parking garage, killed six people and injured more than 1,000 other people. According to the FBI, Ramzi Yousef, who helped plan the 1993 bombing, was hoping the attack would cause one of the twin towers to collapse the other. 

In his book, Netanyahu wrote, “In the worst of such scenarios, the consequences could be not a car bomb but a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center.” But this does not mean he knew that commercial planes would be used to bring down the towers Sept. 11, 2001.

The Anti-Defamation League said that conspiracy theories implicating Jews and Israel in the 9/11 attacks rely on “centuries-old antisemitic tropes about Jews supposedly manipulating world events for their own benefit.” 

We rate the claim that Netanyahu knew about 9/11 before it happened False. 

A portable heater invented by a war veteran that can heat your whole home for pennies?

Sounds too good to be true, and indeed it is. 

The Dec. 30 Facebook post with an ad for the “Toasty Heater” claims the device was invented by a Vietnam War-era veteran and that it can heat a whole home for “pennies a day.” 

This Facebook 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 Facebook post’s ad for the Toasty Heater says: 

“Genius American Firefighter discovers an alternative way to stay warm this winter… And greedy energy companies are trying their hardest to shut him down. David’s new discovery is taking America by storm, and experts say it’s the future of heating. He wants everyone to know about it and join him in his fight against big energy.”

The post’s video features a man it claims to be “David” from upstate New York, but the video is actually excerpted from a 2015 interview with a Vietnam War-era veteran, David Gonzalez, who was interviewed by KQED-TV in San Francisco about his experience as a disabled veteran. The station posted the video on YouTube on Nov. 10, 2015. It had nothing to do with a heater. 

The Facebook post also includes a link to a website claiming to sell the Toasty Heater, but the links on that website are broken, taking the user to a website index rather than an online store.

Lead Stories, another Meta-partnered fact-checking organization, explained how the scam has been refashioned across social media to credit a firefighter and a U.S. Army officer as the innovator. Malware Tips, which uncovers and debunks scams online, also found that the Toasty Heater products were “low-quality generic heaters bought in bulk from Alibaba and other Chinese exporters.” 

We rate the claim that a Vietnam War-era veteran has invented and is selling a portable heater that can slash heating bills False.