Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: Hunter Biden has been indicted twice, but he has not been sentenced to prison

    Some social media users claim that Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, has been sentenced to prison. But that’s not so. 

    A photo in a Dec. 19 Facebook post had text that read, “Hunter’s Prison Term Announced – Joe Biden STUNNED.”

    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 Facebook)

    Although Hunter Biden has been indicted twice, he has not been convicted of any charges.

    The post’s author in the comments section linked to a Dec. 9 Conservative Brief article about Biden’s new federal charges. On Dec. 7, the Justice Department said a federal grand jury indicted Hunter Biden with three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses. He faces a maximum of 17 years in prison if found guilty of these charges.

    The Justice Department said Dec. 7 that the investigation into Hunter Biden continues and that a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. He is expected to make his first court appearance on these tax charges in January in Los Angeles.

    The indictment alleged that Biden failed to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes owed for tax years 2016 through 2019. It also accused him of evading tax assessment for tax year 2018.

    Biden disclosed in December 2020 that he was under investigation by the Justice Department. He agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors, but this plea deal collapsed.

    In September, Biden was indicted with three felony firearm offenses related to a gun purchase in 2018. The charges included making false statements on a federal firearms form and possessing a firearm while unlawfully using or being addicted to a controlled substance. The Justice Department said Biden faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of these charges. 

    But Biden hasn’t been convicted of any charges. We rate the claim that Biden’s prison term was already announced False.



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  • Fact Check: Elon Musk has not invented an energy-saving device that reduces power bills

    Entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for leading innovating companies such as SpaceX and Tesla. But Facebook posts claiming he has a new invention that will shrink your energy bill are not based in reality.

    According to the Facebook post, Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, has won a nine-month “fight for justice” that would bring an energy-saving product to market.

    “The Department of Justice has dismissed all allegations, recognizing that his energy-saving device has the potential to cut electricity bills by 80%,” the post said. “This not-for-profit device is now legally available for purchase, with power companies unable to intervene.”

    The post is accompanied by a photo of Musk appearing to be emotional in front of a microphone. But the image was likely generated with artificial intelligence, because we could not find a legitimate copy of it online. The post links to a website promising “Half Price for Seniors – Unbeatable Savings!”

    There is no evidence from news reports or statements from Musk’s companies that he has developed or is pushing this kind of device. Musk also has not announced any such legal victory on his personal social media accounts, including X. 

    The accompanying article in the Facebook post promotes Slash Watts, which retails for $49. Before Musk, Slash Watts has been erroneously linked to Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, according to Malware Tips, a website that tracks online scams. Devices purporting to save unsuspecting people are a popular online scam activity.

    The article is also made to look like a Fox News story, but we found no evidence of the news outlet reporting on the product or endorsing it.

    The article also claims Musk invented the device after Dorothy Smith, a Tesla employee, died of heatstroke because she couldn’t afford to keep her home cool. The photo accompanying the article is of James and Donna Muller, a Wisconsin couple who died of their injuries after being struck by lightning outside the White House in August 2022.

    Independent fact-checking organizations have checked similar claims about Musk inventing a power saver and found them bogus. 

    Musk does have interest in solar energy. In 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity to “create the world’s only integrated sustainable energy company, from energy generation to storage to transportation.” But Fortune magazine recently reported that the business has struggled so far.

    We rate the claim that Elon Musk invented an energy-saving device that could “cut electricity bills by 80%” Pants on Fire!



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  • Posts Use Transposed Mugshot of Epstein to Target Kamala Harris

    Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

    Quick Take

    A federal judge has ordered the release of documents that will identify scores of accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. The order has led many social media users to share a digitally manipulated image that purports to show Vice President Kamala Harris posing with Epstein. The original photo showed Harris with her husband, Douglas Emhoff.


    Full Story

    The names of more than 150 people who were associated with Jeffrey Epstein — the financier accused of running a sex-trafficking ring for him and his well-connected friends before killing himself in a Manhattan jail in 2019 — are set to be released in January.

    The publication of those names — many of which have already been made public — is the result of an order to unseal hundreds of documents issued by U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska, who is overseeing a civil suit brought by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime consort.

    Anticipation of the release has prompted many social media users to share an old, manipulated photo made to suggest that Epstein was associated with Vice President Kamala Harris. There is no evidence to support any such association. Text shared with the photo further suggests that this purported relationship might shield others from being revealed.

    The text says, “Maybe this is why we can’t see those flight logs,” which is a reference to lists of passengers on Epstein’s private plane. But, it’s worth noting, hundreds of pages of those flight logs have already been released.

    The photo shown in the social media posts is digitally manipulated. The original picture shows Harris in 2015 with her husband, Douglas Emhoff, at the opening celebration for The Broad, an art museum in Los Angeles.

    A mugshot from Epstein’s 2006 arrest on solicitation charges was transposed over Emhoff’s face to make it appear as though Epstein and Harris were photographed together. They weren’t.


    Sources

    Sisak, Michael and Michael Balsamo. “New details of Jeffrey Epstein’s death and the frantic aftermath revealed in records obtained by AP.” Associated Press. 2 Jun 2023.

    Giuffre v. Maxwell. Case No.1:15-cv-07433-LAP. Order to unseal. 18 Dec 2023.

    Fichera, Angelo and Saranac Hale Spencer. “The Epstein Connections Fueling Conspiracy Theories.” FactCheck.org. Updated 23 Dec 2021.

    Harris, Jerod. “Douglas Emhoff and Kamala Harris attends The Broad Museum Black Tie Inaugural Dinner at The Broad on September 17, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.” Getty Images North America. 17 Sep 2015.

    ABC News. “NY Moneyman Arrested in Teen Sex Scandal.” 25 Jul 2006.

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  • Fact Check: No, migrants aren’t being given US passports when they enter the country

    In the United States, people can obtain a U.S. passport if they were born here or after going through the legal immigration process to become a U.S. citizen. 

    On X, formerly Twitter, some users gave the impression that migrants who entered the country illegally and were just released from immigration processing centers s immediately got U.S. passports and skipped the bureaucratic steps and long wait for citizenship,

    A person shared a photo she took from her airplane seat and claimed she was sitting next to a migrant who had just come from a processing center. The back of a maroon passport is in the person’s lap.

    “My husband and I have been married for over a year and a half and he STILL doesn’t have his green card, yet many migrants have government issued passports making them citizens?!? Absolutely insane,” said one person who reshared the photo.

    We can’t verify the identity or immigration status of the person with the passport. But experts said people born in other countries must first become naturalized U.S. citizens to qualify for U.S. passports, which typically takes years. Also, the standard U.S. passport is blue, and the maroon passport featured in the photo is likely from its poessessor’s home country. 

    A State Department spokesperson told PolitiFact that U.S. passports are travel documents that can be issued only to U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals. A foreign national is not eligible to receive a U.S. passport without proof of U.S. citizenship or nationality.

    Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University immigration law professor, said the X claim is wrong.

    “All non-U.S. citizens must go through the normal immigration process. They may be issued documents allowing them to travel from the border to somewhere else in the U.S., but such documents are just travel documents,” Yale-Loehr said. 

    Before people can become a U.S. citizen and obtain a passport, Yale-Loehr said, they first must get a green card, which requires having a family or employer sponsor. Then, they must wait several years to go through naturalization, which requires taking and passing civics and English language tests. 

    The vast majority of immigrants must first be legal permanent residents for five years before they qualify to apply for U.S. citizenship (the waiting period is three years when married to a U.S. citizen), said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. 

    Our ruling

    An X post claimed that newly arrived migrants who got here illegally are getting U.S. passports after leaving immigration processing centers.

    This is wrong. To get a U.S. passport, people born in other countries must first become naturalized citizens, which typically takes years.

    We rate this post False. 



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  • Fact Check: No, this video doesn’t show Trump promoting $6,400 spending cards

    Ahead of the 2024 election, social media users are claiming that former President Donald Trump is giving out thousands of dollars to Americans.

    A Dec. 15 Facebook video starts with a short clip of Trump talking, followed by clips of a phone screen showing $6,400 and people holding cash.

    “Regardless of what you think of me, this can help everyone,” Trump supposedly says in the video. “I’m about to put over $6,400 in your pocket that you need before Christmas. This new program is an economic incentive program that is open for every single one of you, and most people don’t even know about it.”

    The video then urges people to act now by “clicking the link below,” claiming “Americans have until this END OF DAY” to collect the money offer before it expires. It claims this money can be used on rent, groceries and other personal expenses “with no strings attached.”

    The 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)

    Don’t be fooled, though. It’s not Trump’s voice in the video. The audio has been edited to make it look as if he is promoting this $6,400 giveaway. A reverse-image search found that the video of Trump is from a May CNN town hall.

    Misleading posts promising free and fast money are common on social media. PolitiFact has debunked many similar claims.

    The Facebook post says to receive the $6,400, people can click the link, answer two questions and talk on the phone with a representative.

    The link leads to a website with the URL “subsidyplan.com.” Without answering any questions, the site automatically says, “Congratulations! It looks like you qualify!” To claim the $1,400 monthly subsidy and $0 health plan, the site says to call and talk with a licensed agent.

    The website does not mention Trump or a $6,400 giveaway. We also did a search and found no news articles or announcements from Trump about this offer.

    A disclaimer says the website is a “connecting platform,” not an insurance or operating company. It says some of the plans offered are covered by Medicare Advantage, which is different from Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older adults and people with disabilities.

    Private insurance companies that sell certain plans, including Medicare Advantage, are allowed to offer customers a prepaid debit card, sometimes referred to as a spending card or flex card.

    But there’s no evidence that Trump is advertising $6,400 spending cards. We rate this claim False.



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  • The Whoppers of 2023

    Summary

    Another year of fact-checking is nearly done, which means it’s time for our review of the biggest whoppers we’ve written about over the last 12 months.

    Which false and misleading claims made our annual roundup?

    President Joe Biden expanded on a past whopper about reducing the federal deficit.

    Former President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that countries are sending inmates and people with mental illness to the U.S. illegally.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a presidential candidate and well-known vaccine critic, wrongly said that vaccines are not tested for safety in clinical trials.

    And there was more notable misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, Hunter Biden, the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and other subjects.

    Read on for our full list, which is in no particular order.

    Analysis

    Emptied prisons and “insane asylums.” In his speech announcing his candidacy for president in June 2015, Donald Trump famously said of Mexican immigrants, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume are good people.” For his 2024 campaign, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric, demonizing immigrants even further with unsubstantiated claims that a surge in unauthorized border crossings under Biden is the result of countries around the world “emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending their most heinous criminals to the United States.” Immigration experts we talked to said there’s simply no evidence that is happening. One expert told us Trump’s claim appeared to be “a total fabrication.” More recently, Trump has added to the claim that the people supposedly released from prison and mental institutions from all over the world are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

    More deficit deception. Biden continued to misleadingly claim that his administration’s policies reduced the federal deficit by more than $1 trillion, a claim that made our 2022 Whoppers list. He doubled-down again this year, claiming to have “cut the federal deficit” by making some corporations pay a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax. In fact, the deficit in fiscal year 2023, when the tax went into effect, increased to about $1.7 trillion — up from nearly $1.4 trillion the previous year.

    RFK Jr.’s misinformation campaign. This year, after announcing his bid for the presidency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took his yearslong effort to spread misinformation about vaccines and health to the campaign trail. Now running as an independent, Kennedy has repeated so many false and misleading claims to voters that we ran a three-part series on what he gets wrong.

    One of his most common falsehoods is that vaccines “are the only medical product that is not safety-tested prior to licensure.” All vaccines undergo safety testing prior to authorization or approval. He has continued to push the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism — despite extensive scientific study of childhood vaccines that has found no connection to autism. And then there are his distortions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines. He falsely said that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may have been “ethnically targeted” to “attack Caucasians and Black people,” while Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people are the “most immune” to the disease. Kennedy also has advocated ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as effective treatments for COVID-19, contrary to several large, randomized controlled trials that have found no benefits for COVID-19 patients receiving the medications.

    Involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals. Immediately after Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, testified behind closed doors to the House oversight committee, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Archer told the committee “that he heard Hunter Biden speak to Joe Biden more than 20 times about their business deals. Not about anything else, but about the business deals.” Rep. Lauren Boebert likewise said Archer confirmed that Joe Biden “participated in more than 20 of Hunter’s shady business deals.” But when the interview transcript was publicly released several days later, it showed that Greene and Boebert were wrong. What Archer said is that Joe Biden sometimes dropped in via speaker phone or in person while his son was meeting with business associates, but Archer said Joe Biden only exchanged pleasantries and never discussed business.

    Republicans have repeatedly overhyped, oversold and misleadingly presented new information uncovered in the House impeachment investigation. But as we have written, so far, Republicans haven’t been able to establish that Joe Biden was involved in his family’s business dealings, that the president directly benefited from those deals or that he ever used his position as vice president to assist the companies.

    Jan. 6 conspiracy claims. A mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, convinced by Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. More than 1,200 people have been charged with crimes in relation to the Jan. 6 attack, and 140 police officers were assaulted that day. Yet, Republican presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has embraced the baseless conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack was an “inside job,” claiming that “there were federal law enforcement agents in the field.”

    Earlier this year, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson similarly said: “Federal agents encouraged the violence that day. … That obviously happened.” In November 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, called such claims “categorically false.” Carlson referenced the debunked idea that Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 protester, was really an undercover federal agent. Epps — who was charged in September with disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted area for his role in the Jan. 6 attack — filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News in July, alleging that Carlson’s false claims about him had “destroyed” his life.

    Denying Hamas’ actions. After the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants started a war in Gaza, some social media posts falsely claimed or suggested that elements of the attack did not happen.

    A widely viewed and shared video supposedly correcting “lies about Palestine” said “250 people” were not “killed at a concert” on Oct. 7 and that it was “false” to claim that Hamas militants raped Israelis. But there was plenty of evidence at the time that “at least 260” people were killed at the Tribe of Nova music festival in Israel, as the Associated Press reported. Also, more evidence, including witness testimony, later emerged that “dozens” of Israeli women and men had been raped, according to the head of the Israeli police unit collecting evidence of sexual violence.

    Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference in Florida in July. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

    Another video circulating online falsely suggested that children may not have been killed in the attack in Israel because a since-deleted Instagram post included the names of children killed in prior years. At least 29 children were among the roughly 1,200 people murdered when Hamas attacked Israel in October, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

    Wrong about Fani Willis. In an attempt to discredit Willis, the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney who later filed a 41-count grand jury indictment against Trump and 18 co-defendants in August, the former president made the unsubstantiated claim that Willis had “an affair” with a “gang member” she was investigating for alleged crimes. Trump’s presidential campaign previously had attributed a similarly groundless claim about Willis to a Rolling Stone article that never even hinted at a romantic relationship between her and members of an Atlanta-based rap group she is prosecuting for suspected gang activity.

    Falsehoods about “post-birth” abortion. In his presidential announcement in May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he thought California allowed abortions to occur “post-birth.” The same month, Trump claimed that before the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, “They could kill the baby … after the baby was born.” No, they could not. That would be homicide, and it was and is against the law — including in California.

    Under Roe, states could outlaw abortion after fetal viability, but with exceptions for risks to the life or health of the mother — a position many Democrats support. Many Republicans have objected to the health exception, saying it would allow abortion for any reason. But DeSantis and Trump went well beyond that argument with their claims of infanticide.

    Biden’s climate “doomerism.” Biden has been overly pessimistic in claiming that if the planet reaches 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of global warming, “we’re done,” “we lose it all” and a “whole generation is damned.” Scientists say that while crossing that threshold — which appears likely within the next two decades — would have dangerous effects, it’s not a point of no return.

    President Joe Biden meets with senior advisers in the Oval Office in September. White House Photo by Adam Schultz.

    “I think passing 1.5 C means social and economic ‘chaos,’ but ‘done’ sounds like nothing we do afterwards matters,” Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson told us. “That’s wrong. Every tenth of a degree matters, before and after 1.5 C.”

    Climate scientist Michael Mann said Biden’s “unhelpful” statements contribute to the climate “doomerism” narrative. “If we miss the 1.5C exit ramp, we still go for 1.6C exit rather than give up,” Mann said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Classified documents case. As Trump’s federal indictment related to allegations that he mishandled sensitive documents winds its way through the legal system, Trump has wrongly claimed that the Presidential Records Act “allowed” him to take classified documents after leaving office. Trump has also wrongly claimed he was “negotiating” with the National Archives and Records Administration “just as every other president has done” and “the next thing I knew, Mar-a-Lago was raided by gun-toting FBI agents.” That’s a distortion of the more-than-yearlong effort by the federal government to retrieve classified material and presidential records Trump had at his Mar-a-Lago home.

    In his defense, Trump has made numerous assertions about his case that are contradicted by evidence revealed in the indictment. And he has claimed that Biden’s classified documents case is worse than his, often wrongly claiming, for example, that Biden “won’t give back” 1,850 boxes of documents from his time in the U.S. Senate and “nobody even knows where they are.” They’re at the University of Delaware, and the Justice Department has reviewed them.

    No surge in athlete deaths. Experts in sports medicine told us that there has been no increase in sudden death or cardiac injury among U.S. athletes since the COVID-19 vaccines became available. That contradicted anti-vaccine claims such as this one from Dr. Simone Gold: “I want to remind the public that athletes being incapacitated or dropping dead was not a ‘thing’ prior to 2020. We are now seeing this happen very frequently, and it’s extremely concerning.”

    Gold and others who made similarly dubious claims relied on a published letter to the editor that cited a list of deceased individuals who had various causes of death, including suicide, car accidents and drug overdoses. As we previously reported, the list did not include the COVID-19 vaccination status of the deceased in nearly all cases, nor did it establish a causal relationship between vaccines and the deaths. In some instances, the deaths happened before the vaccines had even become available for use by the departed.

    The baseless theory of a surge in athlete deaths took off after Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle during a football game in early January. Hamlin, who is alive, contrary to bogus claims that he died, said that doctors had diagnosed him with commotio cordis, with the hit to his chest triggering his cardiac arrest.

    An old immigration falsehood. Conservative politicians, pundits and outlets resurrected a zombie claim about the federal government allegedly paying thousands of dollars each month to people who immigrate to the U.S. without authorization. In September, Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman, wrote on X, “Biden is giving each illegal family $2,200 per month plus a free plane ticket and free medical care.” Not true.

    The claim conflates nonrecurring financial aid given to authorized refugees with the limited assistance available to immigrants who entered the country illegally. It started as a falsehood about refugee assistance in Canada in 2004, before someone changed it to the U.S. We wrote about versions of this claim in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2019.

    For more, read our full stories on these claims:

    FactChecking Trump’s Rally, Fox Interview, March 30

    FactChecking Trump’s CNN Town Hall, May 11

    Biden Spins the Facts in Campaign Speech, Dec. 5

    FactChecking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Aug. 9

    What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism, Aug. 10

    RFK Jr.’s COVID-19 Deceptions, Aug. 11

    Republicans Oversell Archer’s Testimony About Hunter and Joe Biden, Aug. 14

    FactChecking the Fourth GOP Primary Debate, Dec. 7

    Explaining the Missing Context of Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 Presentation, March 10

    What We Know About Three Widespread Israel-Hamas War Claims, Oct. 13

    Trump Makes Unsubstantiated Claim About Fani Willis, Aug. 10

    FactChecking Ron DeSantis’ Presidential Announcement, May 25

    Warming Beyond 1.5 C Harmful, But Not a Point of No Return, as Biden Claims, April 27

    FactChecking Trump’s Interview with Carlson, Aug. 24

    Trump’s Distortions of Federal Indictment, June 13

    No Surge in Athlete Deaths, Contrary to Widespread Anti-Vaccine Claims, Jan. 13

    Damar Hamlin Is Recovering and Has Appeared Publicly, Contrary to Online Claims, Jan. 17

    Conservative Politicians, Commentators Recirculate Old Falsehood on Aid for Immigrants, Oct. 4



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  • Fact Check: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sued PolitiFact’s owner in 2020 over flu vaccine fact-check

    PolitiFact has a backstory with the recipient of our 2023 Lie of the Year recipient, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

    In August 2020, Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense sued the Poynter Institute for Media Studies (PolitiFact’s owner and publisher) in federal court alleging PolitiFact wrongly ruled false a third party’s claim that the flu vaccine was “significantly associated” with an increased risk of coronavirus. 

    The lawsuit alleged that PolitiFact blocked the group from displaying the article on its Facebook page, and more generally that it collaborated with Facebook and government entities — including the World Health Organization, the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — “to suppress vaccine safety speech with a ‘warning label’ and other similar types of notices which, while purporting to flag misinformation, in reality censor valid and truthful speech, including content posted by (Children’s Health Defense) on its Facebook page regarding vaccines.”

    Susan Illston, a judge sitting in the U.S. District Court for California’s Northern District, dismissed those claims in June 2021.

    The fact-check examined a claim that the flu vaccine was significantly associated with an increased risk of coronavirus. The claim tracks back to an April 2020 story from the website collective-evolution.com. That story in turn cites research from the U.S. Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch. PolitiFact’s reporting, which relied on expert interviews, found that the Armed Forces study did not support the conclusion and headline of the collective-evolution.com article. The study on respiratory viruses predated COVID-19’s arrival in the United States. 

    Collective-evolution.com changed the headline and article after PolitiFact’s fact-check. The story has since been removed from the website. 

    Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense continue to fight the case in court, appealing the lower-court decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California. Kennedy appeared and spoke at the appellate argument in May 2022 via Zoom. The appeal has sat for nearly 19 months without a decision. 

    “We have never posted a single item of misinformation about COVID countermeasures,” he told a three-judge panel.



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  • Fact Check: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign of conspiracy theories: PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year

    As pundits and politicos spar over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign will factor into the outcome of the 2024 election, one thing is clear:

    Kennedy’s political following is built on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories.

    His claims decrying vaccines have roiled scientists and medical experts and stoked anger over whether his work harms children. He has made suggestions about the cause of COVID-19 that he acknowledges sound racist and antisemitic.

    Bolstered by his famous name and family’s legacy, his campaign of conspiracy theories has gained an electoral and financial foothold. He is running as an independent — having abandoned his pursuit of the Democratic Party nomination — and raised more than $15 million. A political action committee pledged to spend between $10 million and $15 million to get his name on the ballot in 10 states. 

    Even though he spent the past two decades as a prominent leader of the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy rejects a blanket “anti-vax” label that he told Fox News in July makes him “look crazy, like a conspiracy theorist.”

    But Kennedy draws bogus conclusions from scientific work. He employs “circumstantial evidence” as if it is proof. In TV, podcast and political appearances for his campaign in 2023, Kennedy steadfastly maintained:

    • Vaccines cause autism.

    • No childhood vaccines “have ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing.”

    • There is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that psychiatric drugs cause mass shootings, and the National Institutes of Health refuses to research the link out of deference to pharmaceutical companies.

    • Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were discredited as COVID-19 treatments so COVID-19 vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization, a win for Big Pharma. 

    • Exposure to the pesticide atrazine contributes to gender dysphoria in children.

    • COVID-19 is “targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

    For Kennedy, the conspiracies aren’t limited to public health. He claims “members of the CIA” were involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy. He doesn’t “believe that (Sirhan) Sirhan’s bullets ever hit my father,” Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y. He insists the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democratic candidate John Kerry.

    News organizations, including PolitiFact, have documented why those claims, and many others, are false, speculative or conspiracy-minded.

    Kennedy has sat for numerous interviews and dismissed the critics, not with the grievance and bluster of former President Donald Trump, but with a calm demeanor. He amplifies the alleged plot and repeats dubious scientific evidence and historical detail. 

    Will his approach translate to votes? According to polls since November of a three-way matchup between President Joe Biden, Trump and Kennedy, Kennedy pulled 16% to 22% of respondents.

    Kennedy’s movement exemplifies the resonance of conspiratorial views. Misinformers with organized efforts are rewarded with money and loyalty. But that doesn’t make the claims true.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign based on false theories is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year.

    RELATED: Here is PolitiFact readers’ pick for 2023 Lie of the Year

    How an environmental fighter took up vaccines

    Kennedy, the third of 11 children, was 9 when he was picked up Nov. 22, 1963, from the Sidwell Friends school in Washington, D.C., because Lee Harvey Oswald had shot and killed Uncle Jack. He was 14 when he learned that his father was shot by Sirhan Sirhan following a victory speech after the California Democratic presidential primary.

    RFK Jr., who turns 70 in January, wouldn’t begin to publicly doubt the government’s findings about the assassinations until later in his adulthood. 

    As a teenager, he used drugs. He was expelled from two boarding schools and arrested at 16 for marijuana possession. None of that slowed an elite path through higher education, including Harvard University for his bachelor’s degree and the University of Virginia for his law degree.

    He was hired as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan in 1982, but failed the bar exam and resigned the next year. Two months later, he was arrested for heroin possession after falling ill on a flight. His guilty plea involved a drug treatment program, a year of probation and volunteer work with a local fishermen’s association that patrolled the Hudson River for evidence of pollution that could lead to lawsuits.

    Kennedy’s involvement with Hudson Riverkeeper and the National Resources Defense Council ushered in a long chapter of environmental litigation and advocacy.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fishes with his son Bobby, left, and daughter Kathleen, aka, Kick, on Sept. 7, 1993, in Mount Kisco, N.Y. (AP)

    An outdoorsman and falconer, Kennedy sued companies and government agencies over pollution in the Hudson River and New York watershed. (He joined the New York bar in 1985.) He earned a master’s degree in environmental law at Pace University, where he started a law clinic to primarily assist Riverkeeper’s legal work. He helped negotiate a 1997 agreement that protected upstate New York reservoirs supplying New York City’s drinking water. 

    In 1999, Kennedy founded the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international group of local river and bay-keeper organizations that act as their “community’s coast guard,” he told Vanity Fair in 2016. He stayed with the group until 2020, when he left “to devote himself, full time, to other issues.”

    On Joe Rogan’s podcast in June, Kennedy said that virtually all of his litigation involved “some scientific controversy. And so, I’m comfortable with reading science and I know how to read it critically.”

    PolitiFact did not receive a response from Kennedy’s campaign for this story.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., center, president of the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance, speaks Nov. 15, 2016, with Dakota Access oil pipeline opponents near Cannon Ball, N.D. (AP)

    He became concerned about mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants; methylmercury can build up in fish, posing a risk to humans and wildlife. As he traveled around the country, he said women started appearing in the front rows of his mercury lectures. 

    “They would say to me in kind of a respectful but vaguely scolding way, ‘If you’re really interested in mercury contamination exposure to children, you need to look at the vaccines,’” Kennedy told Rogan, whose show averages 11 million listeners per episode.

    Kennedy said the women sounded “rational” as they explained a link between their children’s autism and vaccines. “They weren’t excitable,” he said. “And they had done their research, and I was like, ‘I should be listening to these people, even if they’re wrong.’”

    He did more than listen. In June 2005, Rolling Stone and Salon co-published Kennedy’s article “Deadly Immunity.” Kennedy told an alarming story about a study that revealed a mercury-based additive once used in vaccines, thimerosal, “may have caused autism in thousands of kids.” Kennedy alleged that preeminent health agencies — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization — had colluded with vaccine manufacturers “to conceal the data.”

    Kennedy’s premise was decried as inaccurate and missing context. He left out the ultimate conclusion of the 2003 study, by Thomas Verstraeten, which said “no consistent significant associations were found between (thimerosal-containing vaccines) and neurodevelopmental outcomes.”

    Kennedy didn’t clearly state that, as a precaution, thimerosal was not being used in childhood vaccines when his article was published. He also misrepresented the comments of health agency leaders at a June 2000 meeting, pulling certain portions of a 286-page transcript that appeared to support Kennedy’s collusion narrative. 

    Scientists who have studied thimerosal have found no evidence that the additive, used to prevent germ growth, causes harm, according to a CDC FAQ page about thimerosal. Unlike the mercury in some fish, CDC says, thimerosal “doesn’t stay in the body, and is unlikely to make us sick.” Continued research has not established a link between thimerosal and autism.

    By the end of July 2005, Kennedy’s Salon article had been appended with five correction notes. In 2011, Salon retracted the article. It disappeared from Rolling Stone.

    Salon’s retraction was part of a broader conspiracy of caving “under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry,” Kennedy told Rogan. The then-Salon editor rejected this, saying they “caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences.”

    Kennedy has not wavered in his belief: “Well, I do believe that autism does come from vaccines,” he told Fox News’ Jesse Watters in July.

    Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., left, stands with protesters on Feb. 8, 2019, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash., to oppose a bill to tighten measles, mumps and rubella vaccine requirements for school-aged children. (AP) 

    David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, interviewed Kennedy for a July story. Noting that Kennedy was focusing more on vaccine testing rather than outright opposition, Remnick asked him whether he was having second thoughts.

    “I’ve read the science on autism and I can tell you, if you want to know,” Kennedy said. “David, you’ve got to answer this question: If it didn’t come from the vaccines, then where is it coming from?”

    How COVID-19 helped RFK Jr.’s vaccine-skeptical crusade

    In 2016, Kennedy launched the World Mercury Project to address mercury in fish, medicines and vaccines. In 2018, he created Children’s Health Defense, a legal advocacy group that works “aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures,” its website says. 

    Since at least 2019, Children’s Health Defense has supported and filed lawsuits challenging vaccination requirements, mask mandates and social media companies’ misinformation policies (including a related lawsuit against Facebook and The Poynter Institute, which owns PolitiFact). 

    From the beginning, the group has solicited stories about children “injured” by environmental toxins or vaccines. This year, it launched a national bus tour to collect testimonials. The organization also produces documentary-style films and books, including Kennedy’s “The Wuhan Cover-Up and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race” and “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.” 

    In 2020, Children’s Health Defense and the anti-vaccine movement turned attention to the emerging public health crisis.

    Kolina Koltai, a senior researcher at Bellingcat, an investigative journalism group, had seen anti-vaccine groups try to seize on Zika and Ebola outbreaks, with little success. But the COVID-19 pandemic provided “the exact scenario” needed to create mass dissent: widespread fear and an information vacuum. 

    Children’s Health Defense published articles in March and April 2020 claiming the “viral terror” was an attempt to enact the “global immunization agenda” and a “dream come true” for dictators. The group echoed these points in ads and social media posts and grew its audience, including in Europe.

    On Twitter, Children’s Health Defense outperformed news outlets that met NewsGuard’s criteria for trustworthiness from the third quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a report by the German Marshall Fund think tank, even as Children’s Health Defense published debunked information about COVID-19 and vaccines.

    In 2019, Children’s Health Defense reported it had $2.94 million in revenue, and paid Kennedy a $255,000 salary. Its revenue grew 440% through 2021, according to IRS filings, hitting $15.99 million. Kennedy’s salary increased to $497,013. (Its 2022 Form 990 for tax disclosure is not yet public. Kennedy has been on leave from the organization since he entered the presidential race in April.)

    On social media, the message had limits. Meta removed Kennedy’s personal Instagram account in February 2021 for spreading false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines, the company said, but left his Facebook account active. A year and a half later, Meta banned Children’s Health Defense’s main Facebook and Instagram accounts for “repeatedly” violating its medical misinformation policies. Several state chapters still have accounts.

    As the group’s face, Kennedy became a leader of a collective movement opposed to masks and stay-at-home orders, said Dr. David H. Gorski, managing editor of Science-Based Medicine and a professor of surgery and oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. 

    “The pandemic produced a new generation of anti-vaxxers who had either not been prominent before or who were not really anti-vax before,” Gorski said. “But none of them had the same cultural cachet that comes with being a Kennedy that RFK Jr. has.” 

    Rallying a crowd before the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 23, 2022, Kennedy protested COVID-19 countermeasures alongside commentator Lara Logan and anti-vaccine activist Dr. Robert Malone. The crowd held signs reading “Nuremberg Trials 2.0” and “free choice, no masks, no tests, no vax.” When Kennedy took the stage, mention of his role with Children’s Health Defense prompted an exuberant cheer.

    In his speech, Kennedy invoked the Holocaust to denounce the “turnkey totalitarianism” of a society that requires vaccinations to travel, uses digital currency and 5G and is monitored by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates’ satellites: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.” 

    Days later, facing criticism from his wife, the actor Cheryl Hines, Jewish advocacy groups and Holocaust memorial organizations, Kennedy issued a rare apology for his comments. 

    Asked about his wife’s comment on Dec. 15 on CNN, he said his remarks were taken out of context, but he had to apologize because of his family.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks Jan. 23, 2022, during an anti-vaccine rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP)

    Recycle. Repeat. Repeat. 

    When he’s asked about his views, Kennedy calmly searches his rhetorical laboratory for recycled talking points, selective research findings, the impression of voluminous valid studies, speculation, and inarguable authority from his experience — the concerned mothers, his own children and their food allergies and asthma. He refers to institutions, researchers and reports, by name, in quick succession, shifting points before interviewers can note what was misleading or cherry-picked. 

    There is power in repetition. Take his persistent claim that vaccines are not safety tested.

    • In July, he told “Fox & Friends,” “Vaccines are the only medical product that is not safety tested prior to licensure.”  

    • On Nov. 7 on “PBS NewsHour,” Kennedy said vaccines are “the only medical product or medical device that is allowed to get a license without engaging in safety tests.”

    • On Dec. 15, he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that no childhood vaccines have “ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing.”

    This is false. Vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines, are tested for safety and effectiveness before they are licensed. Researchers gather initial safety data and information about side effects during phase one clinical trials on groups of 20 to 100 people. If no safety concerns are identified, subsequent phases rely on studies of larger numbers of volunteers to evaluate a vaccine’s effectiveness and monitor side effects. 

    Kennedy sometimes says that some vaccines weren’t tested against inactive injections or placebos. That has an element of truth: If using a placebo would disadvantage or potentially endanger a patient, researchers might test new vaccines against older versions with known side effects. 

    But vaccines are among “the most tested and vetted” pharmaceutical products given to children, said Patricia Stinchfield, a pediatric nurse practitioner and the president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

    Kennedy encourages parents to research questions on their own, because doctors and other experts are invariably compromised. 

    “They are taking as gospel what the CDC tells them,” Kennedy said on Bari Weiss’ “Honestly” podcast in June. 

    Public health agencies have been “serving the mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical companies, and you cannot believe anything that they say,” Kennedy said.

    Experts fret that the Kennedy name carries weight.

    “When he steps forward and he says the government’s lying to you, the FDA is lying to you, the CDC is lying to you, he has credence, because he’s seen as someone who is a product of the government,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrics professor in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s infectious diseases division and the director of the Vaccine Education Center. “He’s like a whistleblower in that sense. He’s been behind the scenes, so he knows what it looks like, and he’s telling you that you’re being lied to.” 

    President Bill Clinton chats with Ethel Kennedy and Robert Kennedy Jr., before a memorial mass on the 25th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy Sr.’s death, June 6, 1993, at the Arlington National Cemetery. (AP)

    Kennedy name-drops studies that don’t support his commentary. When speaking with Rogan, Kennedy encouraged the podcaster’s staff to show a particular 2010 study that found that exposure to the herbicide atrazine caused some male frogs to develop female sex organs and become infertile. 

    Kennedy has repeatedly invoked that frog study to support his position that “we should all be looking at” atrazine and its impact on human beings. The researcher behind the study told PolitiFact in June that Kennedy’s atrazine claims were “speculation” given the vast differences between humans and amphibians. No scientific studies in humans link atrazine exposure to gender dysphoria.

    In July, Kennedy floated the idea that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to “attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” The claim was ridiculously wrong, but Kennedy insisted that it was backed by a July 2020 study by Chinese researchers. That study didn’t find that Chinese people were less affected by the virus. It said one of the virus’s receptors seemed to be absent in the Amish and in Ashkenazi Jews and theorized that genetic factors might increase COVID-19 severity.  

    Five months later, Kennedy invoked the study and insisted he was right: “I can understand why people were disturbed by those remarks. They certainly weren’t antisemitic. … I was talking about a true study, an NIH-funded study.” 

    “I wish I hadn’t said them, but, you know, what I said was true.”

    Kennedy answered using scientific terms (“furin cleave,” “ACE2 receptor”), but he ignored explanations found in the study. He didn’t account for how the original virus has evolved since 2020, or how the study emphasized these potential mutations were rare and would have and would have little to no public health impact.

    Public health experts say that racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality — in the U.S., Black and Hispanic people often faced more severe COVID-19 outcomes — resulted from social and economic inequities, not genetics.

    Kennedy says “circumstantial evidence” is enough.

    Antidepressants, or SSRIs, are linked to school shootings, he told listeners on a livestream hosted by Elon Musk. The government should have begun studying the issue years ago, he said, because “there’s tremendous circumstantial evidence that those, like SSRIs and benzos and other drugs, are doing this.”

    Experts in psychiatry have told PolitiFact and other fact-checkers that there is no causal relationship between antidepressants and shootings. With 13% of the adult population using antidepressants, experts say that if the link were true they would expect higher rates of violence. Also, the available data on U.S. school shootings show most shooters were not using psychiatric medicines, which have an anti-violence effect.

    Conspiracy theories, consequences and a presidential campaign

    The anti-censorship candidate frames his first bid for public office as a response to “18 years” of being shunned for his views — partly by the government, but also by private companies.  

    “You’re protected so much from censorship if you’re running for president,” Kennedy told conservative Canadian podcaster and psychologist Jordan Peterson in June. 

    In June, Kennedy’s Instagram account was reinstated — with a verified badge noting he is a public figure. Meta’s rules on misinformation do not apply to active political candidates. (PolitiFact is a partner of Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking Program, which seeks to reduce false content on the platform.)

    In July, he was invited to testify before the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. He repeated that he had “never been anti-vax,” and railed against the Biden White House for asking Twitter to remove his January 2021 tweet that said Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron’s death was “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly,” weeks after Aaron, 86, received a COVID-19 vaccine. The medical examiner’s office said Aaron died from unrelated natural causes.

    Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., prepares to sign a book after testifying July 20, 2023, at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on what Republicans say is the politicization of the FBI and Justice Department. (AP)

    Throughout 2023, alternative media has embraced Kennedy. He has regularly appeared on podcasts such as Peterson’s, and has also participated in profiles by mainstream TV, online and print sources.

    “You’re like, ‘But you’re talking right now. I’m listening to you. I hear your words. You’re not being censored,’” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon who researches how news media covers conspiracy theories and their proponents. “But a person can believe they’re being censored because they’ve internalized that they’re going to be,” or they know making the claim will land with their audience.

    Time will tell whether his message resonates with voters.

    Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Kennedy may be a “placeholder” for voters who are dissatisfied with Trump and Biden and will take a third option when offered by pollsters.

    The only 2024 candidate whose favorability ratings are more positive than negative? It’s Kennedy, according to FiveThirtyEight. However, a much higher percentage of voters are unfamiliar with him than they are with Trump or Biden — about a quarter — and Kennedy’s favorability edge has decreased as his campaign has gone on.

    Nevertheless, third-party candidates historically finish with a fraction of their polling, Kondik said, and voters will likely have more names and parties on their fall ballots, including philosopher Cornel West, physician Jill Stein and a potential slate from the No Labels movement.

    Kennedy was popular with conservative commentators before he became an independent, and he has avoided pointedly criticizing Trump, except on COVID-19 lockdowns. When NBC News asked Kennedy in August what he thought of Trump’s 2020 election lies, Kennedy said he believed Trump lost, but that, in general, people who believe elections were stolen “should be listened to.” Kennedy is one of them; he still says that the 2004 presidential election was “stolen” from Kerry in favor of Republican George W. Bush, though it wasn’t. 

    American Values 2024 will spend up to $15 million to get Kennedy’s name on the ballot in 10 states including Arizona, California, Indiana, New York and Texas. Those are five of the toughest states for ballot access, said Richard Winger, co-editor of Ballot Access News.

    Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks Oct. 9 during a campaign event at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. (AP)

    Four of Kennedy’s siblings called Kennedy’s decision to run as an independent “dangerous” and “perilous” to the country. “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” the group wrote in a joint statement.

    Kennedy brushes it off when asked, saying he has a large family, and some members support him.

    On her podcast, Weiss asked whether Kennedy worried his position on autism and vaccines would cloud his other positions and cost him votes. His answer ignored his history. 

    “Show me where I got it wrong,” he said, “and I’ll change.”

    In a campaign constructed by lies, that might be the biggest one. 

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.​

    RELATED: Looking back at PolitiFact’s Lies of the Year, 2009-2022



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  • Fact Check: Ve los reportes de PolitiFact en Español en estaciones de Telemundo en Florida

    PolitiFact en 2023 se alió con estaciones de Telemundo en Florida para compartir nuestras verificaciones con el público de la reconocida cadena de televisión hispanohablante.

    Los reportes de PolitiFact en Español salieron al aire en los mercados de Miami, Orlando y Tampa, resaltando los hechos detrás de los temas más destacados.

    Ve la entrevista aquí. 

    Acá, un resumen de nuestras entrevistas y colaboración con Telemundo.

    Debates de los candidatos republicanos a la nominación presidencial

    Los debates de los candidatos republicanos a la nominación presidencial de 2024 generaron mucha polémica y afirmaciones engañosas sobre temas como la inmigración, la economía, y el acceso al aborto. Después de los debates, la reportera de PolitiFact Marta Campabadal resumió lo que verificamos.

    Después del primer debate contamos por qué la declaración del gobernador de Florida Ron DeSantis que los demócratas permiten el aborto “hasta el momento del nacimiento” es Falsa. 

    El presidente Joe Biden y los demócratas han dicho que apoyaban accesso al aborto a nivel nacional, según los parámetros establecidos en caso Roe v. Wade, el fallo de la Corte Suprema federal de 1973.

    Pero Roe no proporcionó un acceso sin restricciones al aborto. Más bien permitió a los estados restringir o prohibir el aborto una vez que el feto es viable, normalmente a las 24 semanas de embarazo. Las excepciones a ese plazo sólo se permitían cuando la vida o la salud de la madre estaban en peligro.

    Ve la entrevista aquí.

    En otra ocasión, Tim Scott, senador republicano de Carolina del Sur, dijo engañosamente que la frontera suroeste de EE.UU. bajo la presidencia de Biden está “muy abierta e insegura” y conectó eso a la muerte de 70,000 estadounidenses al año debido a sobredosis de fentanilo. 

    Aunque las muertes por fentanilo se dispararon un 23% en el primer año de mandato de Biden, hasta superar las 70,000, estas llevan aumentando desde 2014.

    Los expertos afirman que la mayor parte del fentanilo que entra en Estados Unidos desde México lo hace a través de puertos de entrada legales. Además, la gran mayoría de las personas condenadas por tráfico de fentanilo son ciudadanos estadounidenses.

    Ve la entrevista aquí.

    Inmigración

    Asimismo, políticas de inmigración, los datos alrededor del número de inmigrantes en los Estados Unidos y los cruces fronterizos ilegales son unas de las materias que genera mucha información falsa y engañosa.

    DeSantis dijo que seis o siete millones de personas habían “venido ilegalmente” bajo la administración de Biden. Eso lo calificamos como Mayormente Falso. 

    Durante la presidencia de Joe Biden, las autoridades de inmigración se han encontrado con migrantes unas 7.2 millones de veces en los puertos de entrada y entre ellos. Pero esa cifra no indica cuántos inmigrantes entraron y permanecieron en el país. 

    Los datos federales registran sucesos, no personas, y una misma persona puede ser registrada varias veces por repetidos intentos de cruzar la frontera. 

    Ve la entrevista aquí.

    Guerra entre Israel y Hamas

    Además, conversamos con Telemundo sobre la desinformación relacionada a la guerra entre Israel y Hamas.

    Hablamos sobre los retos de mandar ayuda humanitaria a Palestina sin que pase por manos del grupo terrorista Hamas, y sobre el origen de las armas que está usando Hamas. 

    Lea más sobre nuestra alianza con Telemundo aquí. 

    Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.


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



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  • Fact Check: Edited images falsely depict Donald Trump talking about deadly Panera Bread lemonade

    Former President Donald Trump did not talk about deadly Panera Bread lemonade in an Iowa speech, although images with fabricated captions appear to show that he did.  

    Four screenshots of Trump delivering a Dec. 13 speech in Coralville, Iowa, were shared on Facebook, and the first was overlaid with text that read, “Everything is bad under Biden. Even the lemonade is killing people. Did you see that? People drink lemonade and die.” 

    One of the other screenshots read, “The lemonade didn’t kill you when I was President. It was tasty and fun to drink. We loved the lemonade, didn’t we?”

    Earlier this year, two Panera Bread customers who drank the company’s caffeine-charged lemonade died from cardiac arrest. 

    The 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 full video of Trump’s speech shows he did not make these remarks. 

    The screenshots appeared to have originated from a Dec. 15 post on comedian Keaton Patti’s X account, where it earned a community note. 

    We rate the claim that during a speech Trump said “even the lemonade is killing people” under Biden Pants on Fire!



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