Category: Fact Check

As U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional Republicans gathered on the banks of the Rio Grande to highlight the migrant crisis at the Texas-Mexico border and criticize the Biden administration’s handling of it, Gov. Greg Abbott suggested that a resurfaced video appeared to show the Biden administration violating a federal court order barring Customs and Border Protection agents from cutting razor wire the state installed to discourage unlawful immigration.

Posted by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., during his visit to Eagle Pass on Jan. 3 with Johnson and around 60 other House Republicans, the video shows Border Patrol agents snipping concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande as dozens of migrants wade toward U.S. soil. Some are shown reaching land with the aid of a rope affixed to a CBP pickup truck.

“Importantly, if this video was taken today, it means that the Biden Admin. is in direct violation of a current court order by the 5th circuit court of appeals prohibiting the border patrol from cutting the razor wire erected by Texas,” Abbott wrote in a fiery post on X on Wednesday afternoon.

Abbott vowed to prosecute the Biden administration for contempt of court if the claim were confirmed.

Abbott, however, should have known the video was taken several weeks before the court order came down because he posted a video of the same incident in September.

Gaetz’s tweet of the video was also misleading. 

“I’m currently in Eagle Pass, TX witnessing the intentional destruction of our Southern Border by the Biden administration,” Gaetz said in the video post on X just before 2 p.m. Jan. 3. It had been viewed more than a million times by that night and received more than 5,000 retweets.

Gaetz wrote that an unnamed “Texas bc official” had sent the video, which “shows how illegal aliens are being encouraged to invade our country while the fencing put up by Texas is cut open by @CBP.”

Abbott’s post, which cited Gaetz’s video, had been viewed more than 500,000 times and liked more than 15,000 times by the afternoon on Jan. 4.

Abbott’s office did not respond to American-Statesman requests for comment. In an email statement, a spokesman for Rep. Gaetz said “the post did not indicate that the video was taken this week.”

Similar video first circulated in September

The incident shown in Gaetz’s video occurred several weeks before a federal appeals court in late October issued an order temporarily barring the Biden administration from removing the barbed barrier.

A very similar video of the same incident circulated widely in late September 2023, a CBP spokesperson told the American-Statesman, which conducted reverse-image searches of several stills from the clip to confirm it was first circulated several months ago.

Shared by Abbott along with the Daily Mail and numerous X users, the video from September shows the two CBP agents cutting a section of wire, albeit from a minutely different angle. The September video and the one Gaetz shared Jan. 3 show the exact same attire, foliage, background and wire arrangement — including a pink plastic object on the right side of the section of exposed wire — and the same migrants wading through the river below the agents.

After that video first circulated in September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to stop the federal government from removing the wire. The Department of Homeland Security released a statement at the time saying that border agents “have a responsibility under federal law” to protect migrants from being injured regardless of their legal status. Migrant children have been lacerated by the fences, needing stitches in some cases, USA Today reported.

Judge Alia Moses, the chief judge for the U.S. Western District of Texas, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, issued a temporary order Oct. 30 barring the wire’s removal except in cases of emergency.

“The Court shall grant the temporary relief requested, with one important exception for any medical emergency that mostly likely results in serious bodily injury or death to a person, absent any boats or other life-saving apparatus available to avoid such medical emergencies prior to reaching the concertina wire barrier,” the judge wrote in the court filing.

The issue then pingponged between opposing rulings. Moses reversed her position and issued a new order authorizing the federal government to continue cutting the wire in November, but a Dec. 19 decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals again prohibited cutting of border wire.

The Justice Department appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 3.

Austin American-Statesman staff reporter John C. Moritz contributed reporting.

The first 40 of more than 200 court documents from a 2015 lawsuit filed by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking victims were released Jan. 3, unsealing the previously redacted names of dozens of people mentioned in the case.

Some social media users used the moment to falsely claim late night TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel was named in the documents. Kimmel made news a day before the documents became public, when New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers said during a Jan. 2 appearance on the “The Pat McAfee Show” that Kimmel was among the people hoping the documents didn’t come out. Kimmel responded on X by threatening to sue Rodgers and stating that he had never “met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list.’”

A Jan. 3 X post said otherwise: “All of you sheeple that stuck up for Jimmy Pedo Kimmel. Conspiracy theorists are batting 1700%. Aaron Rodgers was correct — Jimmy Kimmel was on the list and more.”

The post shared what looked like a screenshot of an X post made by an account called Citizen Free Press. “Not funny, Jimmy Kimmel” the post read along with an image of what looks like a court transcript in which someone claims to have had sex with Kimmel at Epstein’s Florida mansion.

The X post had been retweeted more than 380 times and had 60,000 views by Jan. 4. But the court document shared in the post is fake, according to the Citizen Free Press, a conservative news content aggregation site.

(X screenshot)

Another X account, which didn’t mention the Citizen Free Press, shared the fake court transcript Jan. 3, garnering 3,000 retweets and 1 million views.

Documents released Jan. 3 stem from Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison on sex trafficking and other charges. 

The documents don’t mention Kimmel. Citizen Free Press’ X account does not include a post sharing a document about Kimmel. Moreover, Citizen Free Press’ account features a red and white avatar, while the one in the fake screengrab is black and white and seems to show an image from the 1941 movie Citizen Kane.

The Citizen Free Press said in a Jan. 3 X post that Kimmel was not named in the first document release.

“The image going around is not included in today’s documents,” it said in the post. The Citizen Free Press followed up with a reply sharing another post that called the document fake, and said, “As usual, it takes all of 5 minutes to track down the source and search the document but people don’t care. We do.” 

The Citizen Free Press also confirmed an assertion by Ron Filipkowski, editor of the liberal website, The MeidasTouch Network, that the Kimmel document was fake.

“Your least favorite Twitter account is 100% correct,” the Citizen Free Press wrote in a Jan. 3 X post.

More documents were expected to be released. 

We rate the claim that Kimmel was named in an Epstein court document Pants on Fire!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that if elected president, he’d do better at deporting people who are illegally in the country than former President Donald Trump did.

“Trump promised the largest deportations in history,” DeSantis said Jan. 2 during a town hall hosted by Gray Television. “He deported less, believe it or not, than Barack Obama even did.” 

As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump promised to deport every immigrant living in the U.S. illegally (then estimated to be 11 million people). He failed to do so, earning him a Promise Broken on PolitiFact’s Trump-O-Meter promise tracker.

But did Trump deport fewer people than Obama? There are different deportation metrics, and Obama surpassed Trump’s numbers in each one. Immigrant rights advocates had dubbed Obama the “deporter-in-chief” by the time he left office in 2017.

The federal government classifies deportations as the removal of noncitizens from the U.S. It tracks it in a few different ways:

• Removals: When people are sent out of the U.S. via an official court order, often penalized for the illegal entry. This can include people who have lived in the United States for years and people who recently arrived.

• Returns: When people are returned to their home countries without legal penalties and without being placed in formal removal proceedings. This happens at the border.

• Title 42 expulsions: These happened from March 2020 to May 2023 under a public health policy. Some people arriving at the border were not let into the United States and were expelled without legal penalties.

Under Trump, from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2020 the Department of Homeland Security recorded 2 million deportations, a combination of all three metrics. (Fiscal year 2017 included about four months of the Obama administration.)

During Obama’s first term, fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2012, there were 3.2 million deportations (removals and returns). Fiscal year 2009 included about four months of the second George W. Bush administration. During Obama’s second term, covering fiscal years 2013 through 2016, there were 2.1 million deportations (removals and returns).

These figures — for Obama and Trump — include deportations of people stopped at the border and people who were already living in the U.S. and picked up by immigration authorities.

A DeSantis campaign spokesperson pointed us to a 2020 report from the libertarian Cato Institute that supports DeSantis’ claim. The report focused on Immigration and Customs Enforcement removals of people already living in the U.S., and shows that there were more deportations under each of Obama’s terms compared with Trump’s term.

“By any measure, the Trump administration failed to meaningfully increase immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States,” compared with the Obama administration, the report said.

Our ruling

DeSantis said Trump “deported less, believe it or not, than Barack Obama even did.”

Federal data tracking the removals, returns and expulsions of noncitizens supports this claim. During each of his terms, Obama deported more people than Trump did during his term. 

We rate DeSantis’ claim True.

Social media users are claiming Dr. Ben Carson has backed a new treatment for high blood pressure: CBD gummies.

A Dec. 11 Facebook post shows a screenshot of what appears to be a CNN article with a photo of Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary who ran for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The post’s caption reads, “Dr. Ben Carson discovered 3 completely natural ingredients, and as a result, blood pressure disappeared forever. Headaches go away, blood cholesterol levels decrease, and symptoms caused by increased blood pressure disappear.”

The post links to a webpage that claims Carson has endorsed CBD gummies to “cleanse” blood vessels and lower blood pressure.

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.)

(Screengrab from Facebook)

However, Carson’s endorsement of this CBD product was fabricated. A Carson spokesperson told the fact-checking website Lead Stories that Carson has neither endorsed nor heard of the product. PolitiFact also contacted Carson but did not hear back before publication.

The Facebook post’s image appears to show a CNN article headlined, “72-years-old Dr. Ben Carson: Do not kill the heart with chemistry! If your blood pressure is higher 140/80, drink two tablespoons of … ” But we searched for this headline and found no articles from CNN or other credible news outlets that contained this information.

The photo of Carson below the fake CNN headline is neither recent, nor related to this CBD product. A reverse-image search found the photo was taken in March 2016 at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

The webpage linked in the Facebook post has been similarly edited to look like the British scientific journal Nature. But the URL doesn’t match Nature’s website. The inauthentic webpage was registered in October 2023, according to website domain search engine Who.is.

Clicking on the Nature logo atop the webpage redirects to another site unaffiliated with the journal that advertises BioHeal CBD gummies.

We searched for “BioHeal CBD,” the product Carson supposedly endorsed, but found no articles or announcements about the product from Carson, news sites or medical journals.

We rate the claim that Carson has endorsed CBD gummies to treat high blood pressure False.

Winter brings holiday cheer, New Year’s resolutions and something less pleasant — costly utility bills from turning on the home heater. You may want to believe social media promotions of a new energy cost-cutting product, but they are not legit.

Facebook posts styled as testimonials link to articles about billionaire Elon Musk developing a product called “Cosmo Heater” that reduces heating bills to “basically $0.” The articles said Musk used technology created for NASA for the heater.

“Thanks to Elon Musk’s heater invention, my winter heating costs have dropped by almost 80%,” a Dec. 26, 2023, Facebook post’s caption read.

(Screenshots from Facebook)

The posts were 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.)

A heating device developed by Musk, who runs companies including SpaceX and Tesla, may sound legitimate. But this product is not linked to Musk.

The Facebook posts contained two different links, but both led to articles with nearly identical text.

The texts said Musk and Cosmo Heater were “featured on national news over the holidays,” but a Google advanced search showed no such news reports, nor any statements by Musk about the product. Instead, search results included one video and other articles warning users that advertisements touting Musk’s endorsement of the product were false or a scam.

Two March 2023 Bloomberg News reports said Musk teased a new technology that Tesla may be exploring: heat pumps. These are already used in some Tesla models and could be used to circulate heat in homes. But these are not connected to the product called “Cosmo Heater.”

The product’s website doesn’t mention Musk. 

The product’s origin story contains red flags for misinformation. The articles tell a story of Musk running into Tom Musashi, an old friend “who was an enginneer on the moon mission,” with “engineer” misspelled. Musashi supposedly created a heating technology for NASA that was declassified “just before (former President) Donald) Trump left office.” But NASA’s website didn’t mention Musashi, and a Google search of the name yielded no results about a NASA engineer.

Also, a photo of Musk holding the product in one of the articles was altered from a Sept. 13, 2023, Reuters photo.

This is not the first time Musk was falsely linked to a power-related product; PolitiFact previously debunked a claim that he invented  “Slash Watts” that would reduce power bills.

Musk did not invent the “Cosmo Heater.” We rate that claim False.

President Joe Biden was elected in 2020 after promising to reverse many of Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, including some that limited people’s ability to apply for asylum at the southern U.S. border. But many Republicans, including those seeking to oust Biden in the November election, say his approach isn’t working and that the U.S. now has “open borders.”

As evidence, Republicans cite the historically high number of migrant encounters border officials have recorded. And they compare that count with lower apprehension numbers under previous presidential administrations.

The Biden administration, in response, cites immigration declines after new policies were enacted as evidence that he’s got the problem under control.

But neither the attacks nor the defense tell the whole story. Although the immigration data cited is often accurate, the way it’s presented or the inferences made are misleading or need context.

Here are key facts about immigration data that will help you better understand the oversimplified — or confusing — claims you’ll likely hear in ads and speeches preceding November’s election. 

The many caveats to the immigration data

We often hear that illegal immigration under Biden has reached record highs. There’s some truth to this, but there are also caveats. 

Data at a glance: Encounters under Biden have surpassed the record high 1.64 million apprehensions recorded in fiscal year 2000. It’s happened three times: 

• In fiscal year 2021, which began under Trump in October 2020 and ended in September 2021 with Biden in the White House, Border Patrol stopped migrants at the southern U.S. border 1.66 million times. 

• In fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol recorded 2.2 million encounters.

• In fiscal year 2023, encounters dropped slightly to 2 million. 

Still, “encounter” numbers aren’t exactly comparable with “apprehension” numbers. Border data under both Biden and Trump can’t be directly compared with data from previous administrations because of COVID-19 policy changes. 

Before the pandemic, claims about illegal border crossings generally involved only apprehension data. 

During the pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations performed apprehensions under immigration law plus expulsions under Title 42, a public health policy, to stop people from entering the United States.

Starting in fiscal year 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began reporting encounters, a combination of apprehensions and Title 42 expulsions. (Title 42 enforcement ended in May 2023.) So, the change in immigration data tracking makes it hard to fairly compare how many more people have come illegally during Biden’s presidency than during other administrations.

People expelled under the public health policy faced no legal consequences for repeatedly trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Immigration experts say that encouraged them to try over and over to cross. (Under immigration law, people can face legal penalties for repeat illegal entries.)

Comparing Biden-era staffing versus 2000: In 2000, there were fewer Border Patrol agents, and that likely made it easier to cross the border evading apprehension, the American Immigration Council, an immigrant-rights advocacy group, said in a 2022 report. Immigration officials estimate that 2 million people entered the U.S. without detection that year. In fiscal year 2021, the latest available data, about 390,000 people evaded detection.

So, even though there were more encounters in 2021 than apprehensions in 2000, immigration officials estimate that more people evaded detection in 2000 than in 2021.

What the data counts: Immigration data represents events, not people. If one person tries to enter the country three times and is stopped each time by border officials, for example, that equals three encounters, even if it’s the same person encountered.

Encounters data doesn’t tell us how many people settled in the U.S.

Immigration data can give us a sense of the scale of migration, but it can’t tell us how many people crossed the border and now live here.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis misleadingly said in September that 6 million or 7 million people have “come illegally under Biden.”

There were 7.8 million encounters nationwide under Biden as of October 2023. But this metric doesn’t confirm that 7.8 million people entered the United States. At least 2.5 million encounters ended in expulsions under the public health policy, and hundreds of thousands have been expelled under immigration law.

“There is no authoritative source on how many unauthorized immigrants have joined the U.S. population since President Biden took office,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

President Joe Biden talks with U.S. Border Patrol agents as they walk Jan. 8, 2023. along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas. (AP)

Biden’s response to rising immigration data: Expand legal pathways and deport

The Biden administration has claimed that a “broken immigration system” resulting from decades of Congress not updating immigration laws, and increased global migration contribute to the high numbers of people arriving at the border.

In response, the Biden administration has created and expanded multiple immigration programs to deter and reduce illegal immigration. Among them:

• Humanitarian parole programs that allow hundreds of thousands of people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti to apply for a legal path to live and work in the U.S. for two-year periods. These are countries affected by wars and political instability.

• A smartphone app that lets people seeking asylum schedule appointments at official ports of entry. People who don’t do this must prove they unsuccessfully applied for asylum in another country before reaching the United States; otherwise, immigration officials will presume they are ineligible for asylum. 

• Negotiated agreements with Mexico for it to take certain deported non-Mexicans.

• Resumed deportation flights to Venezuela and other countries with which the U.S. has fraught diplomatic relations. 

To claim success, the administration has said that fewer people have shown up at the border after some of the policies were enacted.

“Since we created the new program the number of Venezuelans trying to enter America without going through a legal process has dropped dramatically,” Biden said in January 2023, referring to a parole program for Venezuelans announced in October 2022.

But a closer look at the data shows the numbers ebb and flow.

Encounters dropped from nearly 22,000 in October 2022 to fewer than 7,000 in November 2022. They also dropped for the next few months, but then rose again to reach nearly 55,000 in September 2023. 

Immigration experts caution against attributing any immigration fluctuations to just one policy. 

New policies can lead to a pause in immigration “while migrants (and smugglers) consider what the changes mean, and then crossings again increase,” Theresa Cardinal Brown, senior adviser for immigration and border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said Dec. 19 on X, formerly Twitter.

A December 2023 report from the Bipartisan Policy Centers found that it’s hard to definitively conclude how single U.S. immigration policies over the past decade have influenced illegal immigration. The numbers alone don’t explain demographic changes or the factors that push people to leave their home countries. 

“Continued fluctuation in numbers of arrivals at the border is expected,” the report said, “if there is no consistent immigration policy to address the ongoing migration crisis.”

RELATED: Ask PolitiFact: How many people on the terrorist watchlist are coming into the United States?

New York’s Clean Slate Act, intended to help convicts secure jobs and housing after they have served their sentences, has come under fire from Republicans, who call the law too friendly to criminals. 

U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican from eastern Long Island, shared claims about the act on Facebook: “Thanks to radical Democrats, violent crimes will be hidden from public view and background checks. These crimes will now be automatically sealed after a set time – like they never happened.” 

We wondered if the new law seals crimes “like they never happened.” 

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Clean Slate Act on Nov. 16 after years of negotiation on the kinds of crimes that would be included and the terms under which they would be hidden from public view, including the length of the waiting period. 

LaLota’s office told PolitiFact that the Facebook post does not claim the records will be expunged. “By definition, sealed information will not appear in criminal background checks, except in the limited circumstances which would be crimes not covered under Clean Slate,” said spokesman Will Kiley.

We found, however, that these records will be sealed for some background checks, but not others. 

The law automatically seals records of some state crimes, but not many Class A felonies, such as murder or terrorism. Sex offenses and sexually violent offenses are also excluded from sealing. In general, after a person is sentenced, or in cases where someone is incarcerated, after they are released, eligible records would be sealed after three years for a misdemeanor and eight years for a felony. If the waiting period is over but the convicted person is still under community supervision, the crimes are sealed when community supervision concludes. If a person with a conviction commits a crime during the waiting period, the clock starts over. 

The law allows convictions to be sealed – not expunged. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges still have access to the records. If people re-offend, their criminal history can be taken into account in any new prosecution and sentence. 

“These records are not getting erased,” said Jillian E. Snider, an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 

Criminal records will remain available to those conducting background checks for jobs that require fingerprinting. These include jobs working in law enforcement or with vulnerable populations, such as children, people with disabilities, and older adults. Rideshare companies will also have access to them to vet contractors, as will the state Education Department. The Department of Motor Vehicles and people who process pistol permit applications will still have access to sealed convictions. 

“This is a bill about second chances and opportunities,” said Ames Grawert, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, an advocate for the legislation. “It’s not a completely wipe-the-record-away sort of law. There are a number of exceptions.” 

The law takes effect a year after it was signed, but it will take four years to implement, because of the complexity of automating the sealing in the state court records system, Grawert said. 

The Facebook meme lists several crimes that are eligible for sealing under the new law, including gang assault, aggravated manslaughter of a police officer, and attempted murder in the second degree. The law enforcement experts we spoke with said those crimes will be sealed under the law. 

Recidivism data shows that if people do not re-offend after seven years, they probably will not do so. That explains the eight-year waiting period, in which people cannot commit another crime or the clock starts over, Snider said. 

The state had a process for sealing some criminal records, but it was very difficult to access and some applications took more than a year to be processed, said Kate Wagner-Goldstein, a lawyer who advocated for the new law. 

Our ruling 

A meme was shared on social media claiming that New York’s Clean Slate Law seals violent crimes after a set time “like they never happened.” 

For people with criminal convictions who do not re-offend and have not been convicted of Class A violent felonies or sex crimes, their records will be sealed for many purposes, including securing housing or many different jobs. 

But for law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and those who grant gun licenses or drivers licenses or hire people to work with vulnerable populations, those records will not be hidden from view. For them, the law will not make it like those crimes never happened. 

Because this claim has an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, we rate this Mostly False.  

 

Electric and natural gas are always on Wisconsin residents’ minds, especially during the winter months. 

Like many other things, the cost of electric and natural gas has been rising.

That’s due to a host of factors, with the increases governed by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, an independent regulatory agency. The body sets new rates and approves major construction projects such as power plants, water wells and transmission lines.

The Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity took note of those increases, which are typically approved only a few at a time, did a little math and posted Dec. 4, 2023 on X, formerly know as Twitter:

“Wisconsin utilities have charged ratepayers more than $1.9 billion of increases since 2019.” 

That’s an eye-popping number, especially at a time when there are concerns about the impact of inflation on the pocketbooks of state residents.

Is the math right? No.

A look at increases approved by the Commission

When we reached out to Americans for Prosperity, spokesperson Emilee Taylor told us the initial post – which was deleted after we asked about it –  contained an error: The $1.9 billion should actually be $1.5 billion. 

A followup tweet used the correct figure. But our practice is to rate initial statements, which typically reach the widest audience.

When asked for more information about how the group reached the $1.5 billion number, Taylor sent a host of links to various Public Service Commission meeting agendas from the past several years, which show approved increases. 

“The Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group used PSC agendas to calculate $1.5 billion in approved rate increases since 2019. In our calculations, we account for both electric and natural gas — operating under the assumption that most Wisconsinites associate the two related as they are sometimes on the same utility bill,” Taylor said in a Dec. 18, 2023 email.

“All items added together—rate cases, fuel cases, and fuel surcharges—for electric and natural gas utilities equals $1.5 billion: $1.3 billion in electric, and $250 million in natural gas.”

When we contacted the commission, communications director Meghan Sovey shared an analysis assembled by employees. 

According to that information, since 2019 there have been nearly $959 million in increases authorized for electric retail customers, and about $269 million in increases authorized for natural gas customers. 

Those numbers include some recently-authorized increases that won’t go into effect until 2024 and 2025. 

Their total: $1.472 billion in increases. 

Of course those increases are split across consumers, and no one person or community is footing the bill for that amount. And, a large portion of the increase is being paid by businesses, and not directly by consumers.

Our ruling 

Americans for Prosperity claimed “Wisconsin utilities have charged ratepayers more than $1.9 billion of increases since 2019.” 

After we asked, the organization said the tweet contained an error, deleted it, then updated the number to $1.5 billion. While AFP did delete the tweet, we are still rating that $1.9 billion claim. 

The lower figure was on point, but as is our practice, we rate the original claim – not what groups and individuals do later to make it more accurate. 

We rate that original claim False.

 

 

See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Once more, with feeling. Michelle Obama is never, was never a man, even if social media users argued otherwise all year long.

False statements about whether Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates was trying to poison people through produce, whether Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes used illegal drugs during the Super Bowl and whether Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., had become suddenly, wildly rich were among 2023’s most clicked-on English language fact-checks from social media.

Three checks involving Michelle Obama’s gender made the top 15, which included nine Pants on Fire rulings. Here they are, all the way to the most clicked-on social media fact-check of 2023: 

15. Instagram posts (translated from the Spanish): “In WhatsApp you can read all the conversations of your partner, “you just have to dial *785# their phone number* # and that’s it.”

Our ruling: False

In May, an Instagram post in Spanish claimed to have a trick that would allow people to spy on other people’s WhatsApp messages, but there’s no such trick. Meta, WhatsApp’s owner, told PolitiFact that the code provided in the post is False and that WhatsApp’s technology does not allow a person to read someone else’s conversations. End-to-end- encryption technology ensures that only you and the person or people you are communicating with can read and hear what has been sent. PolitiFact also tried the supposed trick; the phone screen turned gray and no conversation appeared. 

14. Facebook posts: Actor Isaac Kappy was murdered for exposing Hollywood pedophiles.

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

Social media users claimed actor Tom Hanks killed fellow actor Issac Kappy, whose movie credits include “Thor” and “Terminator: Salvation,” to silence him. During a 2018 episode of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show, Kappy had alleged without evidence that Hanks, among other Hollywood stars, was a pedophile. This claim made Kappy “a minor celebrity in Q-adjacent communities,” Slate said. The Arizona Department of Public Safety said in 2019 that Kappy died that year after jumping off a bridge near Bellemont, Arizona.

13. Facebook posts: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants “quarantine camps” and “imprisonment” if you’re suspected of having a disease.

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

A Facebook post said New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, wanted “quarantine camps” and to “imprison people” suspected of having a disease because her administration was appealing a court decision about coronavirus pandemic isolation and quarantine procedures. Under a disputed New York state rule, quarantine and isolation settings can include temporary housing locations chosen by a public health authority, though in most cases, people would voluntarily isolate in their homes. New York state hadn’t operated camps for people infected with COVID-19, and experts said the state wouldn’t start.

12. Instagram post: Photo shows former first lady Michelle Obama as a man.

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

A May Instagram post purported to prove a conspiracy theory’s notion that Michelle Obama is a man. It showed former President Barack Obama with his arm around Michelle Obama, the former first lady, but the photo had been doctored to make her appear masculine.

11.  Facebook posts: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., “is now worth $29 million dollars.”

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

A March Facebook post showed Ocasio-Cortez’s photo with the text: “A broke bartender elected to Congress … with a salary of $155,000 a year is now worth $29 million dollars?”  Congress members must file financial disclosures that list assets, liabilities and income sources beyond their salaries. Ocasio-Cortez’s September 2022 disclosure report showed assets of $4,004 to $60,000 (a savings account, a checking account, a brokerage account and a 401(k) plan, each valued at $1,000 to $15,000). The report also listed $15,001 to $50,000 in student loans under liabilities. This means Ocasio-Cortez’s liabilities could outweigh her assets — and that her net worth was far from $29 million.

10. Occupy Democrats: “Obama imposed stricter rules on trains carrying toxins. Trump killed them.”

Our ruling: Mostly True

A freight train derailed in February in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling toxic chemicals and forcing residents to evacuate. Afterward, Facebook and Twitter posts claimed former President Barack Obama set tougher regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials that former President Donald Trump later repealed. The Obama administration enacted a rule in 2015 requiring high-hazard flammable unit trains to be outfitted with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes by 2023. In 2018, the Trump administration repealed this rule, citing government reports that found the cost of requiring these kinds of brakes was not economically justified.

9. Instagram posts: An Instagram video shows a man confronting President Joe Biden about an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

An Instagram video appears to show a man confronting Biden about an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. The video spliced together an interview of Biden discussing his performance at a Democratic presidential debate in 2019 and clips from the Dateline NBC reality show, “To Catch a Predator,” which television journalist Chris Hansen hosted. Biden has been the target of pedophilia attacks for years, but we’ve found no credible evidence to support such claims. 

8. Instagram posts: “The day before 9/11 the Pentagon reported $2.3 trillion missing.”

Our ruling: False

Social media resurfaced a conspiracy theory linking the Defense Department to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. One post included a clip of Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, saying, “According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” But that quote is taken out of context. Long before 9/11, government records, news reports and an official’s testimonies detailed accounting entries totaling that amount that lacked adequate audit trails. Rumsfeld mentioned this during a Sept. 10, 2001, speech about Defense Department bureaucracy. “Our financial systems are decades old. By some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.”

7. Instagram posts: Bill Gates is coating your organic produce with a “dangerous chemical.”

Our ruling: False

Health-minded grocery shoppers might have rejoiced when California tech startup Apeel Sciences created an edible coating, made of purified monoglycerides and diglycerides, to improve fresh produce’s shelf life. But some social media users weren’t impressed, and spread unfounded claims about the product’s safety. An April Instagram post shared what it said were safety sheets warning of Apeel’s perils. But those sheets were from Evans Vanodine, a United Kingdom company unrelated to Apeel Sciences that sells a hard surface cleaning product also called Apeel. And though the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, co-founded by Microsoft Corp.’s co-founder, Bill Gates, gave money to Apeel Sciences, experts said there’s no evidence that the plant-based product is dangerous.

6. Facebook posts: A fact-check proves Michelle Obama is “a he.”

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

A Facebook post cited a Sept. 22 Snopes fact-check of claims that newly released images showed the former first lady pregnant. The pictures are clearly fabricated; the face looks different from one image to the next and doesn’t resemble Obama. In one image, a hand has six fingers. The post didn’t corroborate the long unfounded claim that Obama is a man.

5.  Instagram posts: Elon Musk said a new Tesla feature can scan testicles and use that information “to biometrically unlock and start the car.”

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

A March Instagram video claims to show Elon Musk announcing a new feature on the electric cars Tesla, one of his companies, makes. “Yeah, so the newest Tesla feature is that the seat will take a high resolution scan of your balls,” Musk appears to say in the March video. “You can then use your ball print to biometrically unlock and start the car. We call the tech ‘particular testicular detection.’” But this video is a deepfake. A reverse-image search traced the image to Musk’s March interview at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In the real video, Musk discussed misinformation on X and the search for a new X CEO. He never mentioned “particular testicular detection.”

4. Facebook posts: “MMA fighter Victoria Lee died because of a COVID-19 vaccine.”

Our ruling: False

Eighteen-year-old mixed martial arts fighter Victoria Lee died in December 2002. In January, her sister, Angela Lee, shared on Instagram that Lee had died on Dec. 26, 2022. She gave no cause of death, but urged people to “check on your loved ones.” But some social media posts suggested Lee died because of a COVID-19 vaccine. “Murdered by injection,” a Facebook post said. Lee’s sister and the funeral home that published her obituary didn’t answer our request for comment at press time, but remembrances her family or friends shared didn’t mention the vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said reports of people dying after they receive a COVID-19 vaccine are rare, and doctors and experts have said that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing disease, hospitalization and death. In September, Angela Lee, also an MMA fighter, shared in a first-person essay for The Players’ Tribune that Victoria had died by suicide. 

3. Instagram posts: Joan Rivers was killed for revealing that Barack Obama is gay and Michelle Obama is transgender.

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

This check, featuring a video of a 2014 interview with comedian Joan Rivers, posited that Rivers was killed for revealing a “truth” about the Obamas’ sexual orientations. In the video, an interviewer asks about a gay wedding Rivers officiated and says, “Do you think that the United States will see the first gay president or the first woman president?” Rivers replies, “Well, we already have it with Obama, so let’s just calm down. You know Michelle is a  … transgender. We all know.” But the Obamas aren’t gay or transgender. And Rivers, who died in September 2014, wasn’t murdered; she died from complications after a medical procedure to evaluate her vocal cords.

2. X posts: The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win has been “put on hold as NFL plans to launch an investigation on possible (performance-enhancing drug) use by Patrick Mahomes during halftime.”

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

In February, the Kansas City Chiefs erased a first-half deficit and defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. But an X poster claimed the result could be ruled illegitimate, because the National Football League would investigate Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes for using performance enhancing drugs at halftime. “Sources confirm his rapid postgame drug test came back POSITIVE and if guilty the Chiefs could be stripped of the win,” the post claimed. An account labeled Simon Charles, “esteemed sports journalist,” made the post. But the account’s profile picture came from a blog post about headshots, and though the Boston Globe logo looms behind the profile picture, the newspaper’s staff directory listed no Simon Charles. There was no evidence the NFL was investigating players, including Mahomes, for suspected use of prohibited performance-enhancing drugs.

1. Facebook posts: “Official govt docs expose Michelle Obama’s 14 year history as a man.”

Our ruling: Pants on Fire

Michelle Obama. Again. A February Facebook post cited what a July 2022 News Punch blog post described as “official documents obtained from the Illinois State Board of Elections” that supposedly “reveal Obama officially changed her sex to female.” The image in the blog and Facebook posts appeared to show a voter registration card for Michelle Obama. “M” is circled In the space for the applicant’s sex. Obama’s maiden name is misspelled in a section for the applicant’s name, if changed: “Michelle L Robison.” Her maiden name is Robinson. An Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson told PolitiFact his agency doesn’t keep original voter registration cards like the one in the posts. He said that for Michelle Obama, “We have no record of this voter’s record ever indicating any gender other than female.”  

PolitiFact Staff Writer Maria Briceño contributed to this story.