A Facebook post from Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show” promises to show viewers “new police bodycam footage” of George Floyd’s arrest “that changes the narrative completely.”
But the footage Kelly shows in the video has been public since August 2020, and a transcript of the audio was published a month before then.
Kelly did not respond to our request for comment.
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.)
Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, after police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder in the case.
A new movie, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” claims to uncover “what really happened” on the day of Floyd’s death.
On her Nov. 15 show, Kelly interviewed the film’s producer Liz Collin and director JC Chaix. An eight-minute clip of Kelly’s hourlong interview with Collin and Chaix starts with Collin’s retelling of the events leading up to Floyd’s death. Collin said she wanted people to see body camera footage before Floyd’s death which shows Floyd’s interaction with officers Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng.
The clip showed Lane approaching the car Floyd was in, tapping the window with a baton and asking to see both of Floyd’s hands.
Floyd seemed startled repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry,” as he opened the car door.
Within seconds, Lane drew his gun and pointed it at Floyd.
There are cuts throughout the video Kelly showed. After one cut, Lane asked Floyd multiple times to step away from the vehicle while Floyd pleaded with him, “Please don’t shoot me.” After another cut, Lane forcibly pulled Floyd from the car.
Body camera footage has been public for three years
On Facebook, Kelly characterized the footage as “new.” However, the footage she showed from Lane’s body camera has been publicly available for more than three years. Collin herself makes that clear in the interview.
“And that’s what people should question. Why this information has been kept from them for so long,” Collin said. “Nearly two and a half months before the body camera footage came out.”
In the days following Floyd’s May 25 death, video from bystanders’ cellphones and footage from nearby building’s security cameras helped piece together the events that led up to the incident. Some of the security video showed Lane and Keung’s interaction with Floyd.
The Minneapolis Park Police Department released redacted police body camera footage on May 27, 2020. However, it took months for the Minneapolis Police Department to release officers’ body camera footage, citing the ongoing investigation.
Here’s a timeline of when Lane’s body camera footage became public:
July 8, 2020: A transcript of Lane’s body camera footage becomes public after his lawyer filed a motion to dismiss charges.
July 13, 2020: A coalition of news organizations request public access to body camera footage.
July 15, 2020: Media outlets and members of the public are allowed to view body camera footage by appointment only. The footage cannot be copied or recorded.
Aug. 3, 2020: The Daily Mail releases a leaked recording of body camera footage. The video Kelly showed Nov. 15 is included in this leak.
Aug. 10, 2020: Body camera footage is released to the public.
Whether Lane’s body camera video “changes the narrative completely,” as Kelly claims, is an opinion. However, in March 2021, jurors in Chuavin’s case saw the body camera footage that Kelly says is “new.” The jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder.
Lane pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in May 2022, and Keung pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in December 2022. Neither officer had a trial.
Our ruling
In a Facebook post, Kelly said, “New police bodycam footage” of George Floyd’s arrest “changes the narrative.”
But the body camera footage Kelly showed has been publicly available since August 2020 and was shown during Chauvin’s trial in March 2021, which eventually led to his conviction.
On the same day Joe Biden held the annual presidential “turkey pardon,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre used Thanksgiving to make a point about slowing inflation.
“As we start preparing our Thanksgiving meals, grocery inflation is at its lowest level in over two years, with prices for eggs, milk, bacon and fresh veggies lower than last year,” she said in her Nov. 20 press briefing. “In fact, according to the American Farm Bureau, the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner fell this year. Prices are down for turkey, stuffing, peas, cranberries, pie crust and whipping cream. … Because wages are rising, this Thanksgiving dinner is the fourth-cheapest ever as a percentage of average earnings.”
A skeptical reader asked us to check whether Jean-Pierre was correct that rising wages have made the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner particularly low this year.
We ran the math and found that, although Jean-Pierre erred in describing the calculation, on substance she has a point.
If this feels at odds with lived experience — you don’t need to show us your receipts! — it illustrates something economists have long known: People tend to think about the prices they pay regularly, such as gasoline and groceries, without doing the mental math to factor in their own incomes. Prices may be rising, but if your income is rising faster, those goods may be more affordable now than they were before.
That’s what seems to be happening with a specific Thanksgiving dinner tracked over recent decades.
Jean-Pierre cited the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual Thanksgiving dinner cost tracker.
Every year since 1986, the federation has tracked the typical cost of a basket of Thanksgiving staples, including a 16-pound turkey, pumpkin pie mix, milk, a carrots-and-celery tray, rolls, pie crusts, green peas, fresh cranberries, whipping cream, sweet potatoes and cubed stuffing.
Since 2018, the group has calculated costs for both this “classic” dinner and an updated version that adds a 4-pound boneless ham, russet potatoes and green beans.
In the long view — looking only at the nominal cost and not adjusting for inflation or income — prices have been rising. Although the basic basket cost $28.74 in 1986, it now costs $61.17.
As Jean-Pierre noted, that’s down from $64.05 for the classic meal in 2022.
The cost of the more expansive meal basket increased by $3.45 from 2022 to 2023; Jean-Pierre did not mention ham, potatoes or green beans in her briefing.
Economists always caution against looking just at nominal dollars when trying to gauge long-term trends. One method to hold nominal prices to a common standard is to consider affordability, rather than just price. You can do this by figuring out how much something costs compared with how much money someone has to buy it. If the price of something goes up, but your income goes up faster, the item is more affordable despite the price increase. We’ve used a similar method to track the impact of higher gasoline prices.
Asked for its methodology, the White House pointed us to a Nov. 15 blog post by Jeremy Horpedahl, an associate economics professor at the University of Central Arkansas.
In it, Horpedahl took the Farm Bureau’s annual dinner cost going back to 1986 and divided it by the median usual weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers, 16 years and older. To be consistent, he used nominal dollars for income — that is, the amount not adjusted for inflation — paralleling the dinner basket’s prices, which were also nominal only.
That calculation shows that, over the long term, Thanksgiving dinner is taking a smaller bite out of median wages today than it used to. That’s because wages have risen faster than Thanksgiving dinner prices have.
Thanksgiving dinner represented 7.9% of median weekly income in 1986 but fell as low as 4.8% in 2020. It rose again in 2021 (to 5.3%) and 2022 (to 5.9%) before easing again in 2023 to 5.5%.
That’s not only well below where the percentage was in 1986, but it’s also tied for fourth-lowest of any subsequent year.
Today’s percentage of median income is higher than it was during the last pre-pandemic Thanksgiving in 2019 — 5.5% rather than 5.2% — though the difference is small.
Jean-Pierre could have described the calculation more carefully.
Technically, 2023 is tied for the fourth-lowest cost, not fourth-lowest on its own.
Also, the calculation looked at median earnings (the middle of the data set) rather than average earnings (total earnings divided by the number of all earners); economists generally prefer median figures.
Perhaps most important, the data set goes back only to 1986, so we cannot say whether it’s in the running for cheapest Thanksgiving dinner “ever.”
Our ruling
Jean-Pierre said, “Because wages are rising, this Thanksgiving dinner is the fourth-cheapest ever as a percentage of average earnings.”
She made a few errors in describing the data, notably that the data goes back only to 1986. Nevertheless, her statement squares with a comparison of Thanksgiving dinner costs relative to wages.
Since 1986, when the American Farm Bureau Federation began calculating the typical price of a Thanksgiving dinner, only three other years have had Thanksgiving dinner costs represent a smaller percentage of median weekly income.
A viral video on Facebook showed a heated exchange between U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat.
In a 2022 hearing, Nehls cited some of President Joe Biden’s gaffes, relating it to Buttigieg’s criticism of former President Donald Trump’s state of mind. The clip included this exchange:
Nehls: “Have you spoken with any other Cabinet members about implementing the 25th amendment on President Biden?”
Buttigieg: “First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle. And —”
Nehls: “Answer the question.”
Buttigieg: “I will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president of the United States —”
Nehls: “Have you spoken to any —”
Buttigieg: “Of course not.”
The 25th Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet, or another body as determined by Congress, to declare a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
But a Facebook post misinterpreted what Buttigieg said: “SAVAGE: Troy Nehls FORCES Pete Buttigieg to admit that Biden is unfit to serve,” the Nov. 17 post’s caption says.
Screenshot from Facebook
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.)
The four-minute video does not show Buttigieg admitting Biden is unfit to serve.
The video was clipped from a July 2022 hearing. The exchange happened around the three-hour mark, when Nehls started asking Buttigieg about Biden’s capacity to serve as president.
After Buttigieg said he has not spoken to any other Cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment, he added, “The (president) of the United States is as vigorous a colleague or boss as I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Nehls’ time for inquiry expired after that exchange.
Later in the Facebook video, a man provided commentary and said, “So, Congressman Troy Nehls absolutely corners Pete Buttigieg here, practically forcing him to admit, or at least see very clearly, undeniably, that Biden is unfit for office mentally and in many other ways.”
But the video doesn’t show Buttigieg making such a declaration. We rate that claim False.
Building mass detention camps, suspending the refugee program and invoking a centuries-old law to deport people without due process. A key adviser told The New York Times that these are among former President Donald Trump’s immigration plans if he wins the White House in 2024.
Stephen Miller, who led Trump’s first-term immigration agenda, provided The New York Times an overview of Trump’s second-term immigration proposals. Some of the plans mirror Trump’s 2016 campaign promises; others go further.
The Trump campaign pushed back against The New York Times article in a statement saying “reports about personnel and policies that are specific to a second Trump Administration are purely speculative and theoretical.”
However, The New York Times said the Trump campaign referred reporters’ questions about Trump’s immigration plans to Miller. Additionally, Trump has mentioned many of the plans outlined in The New York Times article in campaign appearances.
Two Supreme Court cases have limited the power federal courts have to halt such plans. Below is an analysis of six proposals Miller outlined, what Trump has said about them, how they fared during Trump’s term and how today’s altered legal landscape could affect their viability.
Build mass detention camps and try to revoke Flores settlement
The U.S. has never had enough detention space to hold every person who crosses the border seeking asylum. To combat this, Miller told The New York Times, Trump would build large camps in Texas to detain migrants. He said there are no set plans on how these camps would look, but they would likely resemble detention facilities already on the border. PolitiFact did not find evidence that Trump has publicly spoken about plans to build mass detention camps.
But if he were to build these camps, Trump would need funding from Congress. Miller told The New York Times that if Congress didn’t appropriate sufficient resources to the project, Trump would redirect money from the military budget. The former president did this during his first term. He declared a national emergency in 2019, allowing him to access Defense Department funding for southwest border fencing.
Miller acknowledged that the camps would be mainly used to detain adults traveling without children. Children cannot be detained indefinitely, according to standards set in the 1997 Flores Settlement — a court agreement that established national standards for the detention, release and treatment of migrant children. In a CNN town hall Trump did not rule out whether he would bring back the controversial family separation policy, which separated children and parents traveling across the border. Parents were detained, and children were placed in government custody.
In 2019, Trump attempted to overturn the Flores Settlement to allow for the indefinite detention of family units. However, a federal judge blocked his efforts, and the case didn’t reach the Supreme Court. Miller told The New York Times Trump would try again.
Recreate the ‘Eisenhower model’ and oversee mass deportations
In a September rally in Iowa, Trump once again promised “to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” by recreating what is known as the “Eisenhower model.” That’s a reference to the derogatorily named “Operation Wetback” launched in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Miller discussed plans for mass deportations, but The New York Times didn’t quote him speaking specifically about Eisenhower’s program.
Controversial and sometimes deadly, Eisenhower’s operation utilized hundreds of border patrol officers who carried out raids across the southwestern U.S. and deported agricultural workers it deemed were illegally in the U.S. and sent them to Mexico on trucks, trains, planes and ships.
During his first administration Trump promised and failed to deport every immigrant who was in the U.S. illegally.
Cancel visas for foreign students who participated in Pro-Palestine rallies and expand ideological screening questions
“Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities and we will send them straight back home,” Trump said in Iowa Oct. 16. He said that he would institute “strong ideological screening of all migrants to the United States,” to which he added, “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or the ideology behind Hamas, you’re disqualified. And if you’re a communist, Marxist or fascist, you are disqualified.”
PolitiFact reached out to Trump’s campaign to ask what this ideological screening would entail, but we did not receive a response. This was not among the plans that Miller shared with The New York Times.
Federal officials already conduct background checks on applicants, including monitoring social media. But the pro-Palestinian angle is new. Petra Molnar, a lawyer and anthropologist who studies the impacts of migration technologies on people crossing borders, said because this backgrounding technology is already in use, it would not be hard to expand.
But Molnar said doing so raises privacy concerns and could have a chilling effect on public discourse and visa applications.”It makes the person feel like they are already a criminal or an unwanted person unless proven otherwise,” said Molnar.
Terminate temporary protection programs and deport beneficiaries
According to Miller, Trump plans to revoke the status of hundreds of thousands of people who are allowed to live and work in the U.S. under a variety of protection programs including Temporary Protected Status, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and humanitarian parole. Those programs benefit around 1.4 million people.
Immigrants who have been in U.S. for years, march to The White House asking for work permits for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), programs in Washington, Nov. 14, 2023. (AP)
In 2017 and 2018, Trump tried to end “temporary protected status” designations for around 400,000 people from five countries, including El Salvador. The program provides temporary protections to immigrants whose home countries are considered unsafe. Courts blocked Trump’s attempts, but in September 2020, a federal appeals court ruled Trump could end the protections. According to the 2-1 decision, the Homeland Security Secretary, not the court, has the power to grant, extend or terminate temporary protected status.
Miller said Trump would again try to end DACA, the Obama-era program that protects close to 580,000 people from deportation who came to the U.S. illegally as children. Beneficiaries can also apply for two-year work permits.
Trump tried to end the program in 2017, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him in a 5-4 decision. The program’s legality is still up in the air as the case is expected to once again end up in the Supreme Court.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Afghanistan are allowed to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole programs started by President Joe Biden’s administration. They could also lose their protections, according to The New York Times article.
In a video on Trump’s campaign website, Trump said he would “stop the outrageous abuse of parole authority,” and “terminate all work permits for illegal aliens.”
Suspend the refugee program
During his presidency, Trump drastically cut the refugee program, but this time he’s proposing suspending it entirely, according to The New York Times.
Refugees, as defined by U.S. law, are people outside of the U.S. who fled their home countries because of persecution related to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. They have been given refugee protections by the U.S. before they enter the country.
Asylum seekers, on the other hand, also must meet the refugee definition, but they have to be physically present in the U.S. to seek protections.
People can apply for asylum within one year of their arrival, whether they entered the country legally or illegally.
Refugee resettlement is regulated through the Refugee Act of 1980, which standardized resettlement services for all refugees admitted to the United States. The president, in consultation with Congress, determines the highest number of refugees to be resettled in the United States over a fiscal year. So although unprecedented, Trump could technically lower the resettlement caps to zero.
During his first term, Trump paused the refugee resettlement program for 120 days. He considered lowering the cap to zero but instead reduced the cap each year from former President Barack Obama’s limit of 110,000 in fiscal year 2017 to a record low of 15,000 in fiscal year 2021.
Invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against drug cartels and criminal gangs
Trump has said he plans to invoke a centuries-old law to deport known or suspected gang and drug cartel members from the U.S.
“I’ll also invoke immediately the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members … the drug dealers, the cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all,” Trump told Iowa supporters in a Sept. 20 rally.
But he’s likely to run into some legal issues.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was created when the U.S. feared an impending war with France. The law gives the president the ability to arrest, detain and deport people without due process if they are from a country the U.S. is at war with, has been invaded by or has engaged in a raid, legally termed a “predatory incursion.” The law was used during the War of 1812, and World Wars I and II.
Trump would face two legal obstacles if he attempted to use the law against gang and cartel members, wrote George Fishman, a legal fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors low immigration levels.
Gang and cartel activities would have to qualify as an invasion or a “predatory incursion.”
Gangs and cartels would have to be considered a foreign nation or government, because only actions by these two can trigger the act.
Even if courts agreed there is an invasion of criminal gangs or cartels and that they count as foreign nations or governments, Fishman said there is still another problem: Not all gang and cartel members are from the same country. So if courts agreed that Mexico, for example, had invaded the U.S., only Mexican citizens could be deported without due process. Suspected cartel members who are citizens of other countries could not be deported using the Alien Enemies Act.
Supreme Court cases have limited federal court actions in immigration cases
Many of these proposals could run into legal challenges from immigrant-rights groups or Democratic states, as they did during Trump’s first term. But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant-rights advocacy group, wrote a Nov. 13 X post that this time around, it might be more difficult for courts to stop certain policies.
An absence of congressional action on immigration laws for decades has led presidents to make immigration policies and changes via executive actions. In response, states and advocacy groups on all sides sue administrations. These cases often take a long time, so litigants can file injunction requests asking courts to halt policies they claim cause immediate harm or to restart policies they argue prevent harm.
But two 2022 Supreme Court decisions limited the power of federal courts to issue injunctions in immigration cases.
In one case, the Supreme Court said federal courts couldn’t issue injunctions on immigration enforcement, removal or detention policies in classwide lawsuits. Similarly, another case determined lower courts can rule on whether an immigration program is legal but have limited abilities to provide relief or issue injunctions.
However, Reichlin-Melnick noted that not all of Trump’s immigration proposals deal specifically with immigration law — so even if they have implications for immigration law, they can be litigated on grounds outside of immigration enforcement. In such cases, federal courts could have more leeway. For example, the Alien Enemies Act falls under the War and National Defense section of the U.S. Code. Reichlen-Melnick said that means if Trump is sued for invoking the law, a federal court could feasibly issue an injunction blocking its use while the case is heard.
Are innocuous black and white bar codes on consumer product packages telling a story of political deception? That’s what one TikTok video claims.
Above a hashtag that reads, “#boycottisrael,” the Nov. 11 video implored people to share the news.
“Israel has changed their barcode from *729* to *871*,” words across the 13-second video warned. “Bar code changed as the public was boycotting Israeli products. Please share!”
A photo then shows two bar codes, one that begins with the number 729 and another that starts with 871. Both mean the product was “made in Israel,” the video claimed.
TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)
That’s because these bar code numbers do not necessarily show that a product is made in Israel, nor are different numbers assigned in response to boycotts.
Agence France-Presse fact-checked this same claim in 2021 and found it misleading. It also fact-checked a similar claim about Chinese products in 2020.
GS1, a New Jersey-based nonprofit, standardizes barcodes and assigns them to companies. Its website says that “GS1 Prefixes do not identify the country of origin for a given product.”
Bar code prefixes are assigned based on the location of the companies that request them, but global supply chains mean products can be manufactured anywhere in the world. “The GS1 Prefix does not indicate that the product was manufactured in a specific country or by a specific manufacturer; it may have been produced anywhere in the world,” GS1 said.
Some companies sell bar codes to companies in other countries.
Although a hypothetical product with a 729 code could have been manufactured in Israel, it could also have been manufactured by a small business in Guatemala that bought the code to help grow the business’s accounting and inventory practices. Bar code prefixes are not an authoritative way to determine a product’s country of origin.
Also, codes 870 to 879 are already assigned to companies in the Netherlands and not Israel, according to a list published by GS1. Again, it does not mean that only Dutch companies use those codes, it simply means that the company that requested for the codes had a presence in the Netherlands.
The Israel-Hamas war has reignited calls by some pro-Palestinian groups to boycott goods made in Israel. But Israel has not responded in the way this TikTok post says.
We rate the claim that “Israel has changed their bar code from 729 to 871 … as the public was boycotting Israeli products” False.
Following news that House Speaker Mike Johnson would release 44,000 hours of footage from Jan. 6, 2021, social media users are claiming pre-existing videos of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., from that day show the Capitol attack was staged.
A Nov. 19 Instagram reel showed two clips from Jan. 6, 2021, of then-House Speaker Pelosi speaking on the phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence about when members of Congress would be able to safely return to the Capitol after rioters stormed the building.
In the first clip, Pelosi stands by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and holds a phone. Pence says on speaker phone: “I’m at the Capitol building. I’m literally standing with the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. … They believe that the House and the Senate will be able to reconvene in roughly an hour.”
The second clip shows Schumer holding the phone with Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, listening as Pence says the same three sentences.
“Exact same recording. Two different shots. One with Grassley — one without Grassley,” text on the video read.
The Instagram post’s caption said, “Some of you are confused. It’s called a movie, with great actors, central casting ‘cause it’s all a show.”
(Screengrab from Instagram)
Another Instagram post, also shared Nov. 19, showed the same video clips of Pelosi and made a similar claim that the Capitol attack was a setup. These 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.)
Although the video clips in the Instagram posts appear to have the same audio recording, a full video of the Congress members’ phone call with Pence shows that’s not so.
A short clip of the conversation with Pence was released Oct. 13, 2022, by the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack. CNN obtained and published a longer video of that conversation the same day. Both videos were filmed by Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker and Nancy Pelosi’s daughter.
In the full video, Nancy Pelosi holds the cellphone beside Schumer as Pence says the Capitol Police chief believes the House and Senate will be able to reconvene in an hour. Pence later says he will call Schumer, unless Schumer is present, and Pelosi hands the phone to Schumer.
At this point, about a minute and a half later, Grassley walks up to Pelosi and Schumer and listens to Pence relay the same information about when Congress can reconvene. But the audio from earlier in the clip is not repeated, as it is in the Instagram posts.
This footage shows congressional leaders coordinating with the vice president to resume certifying the 2020 election after rioters stormed the Capitol. It does not prove that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were scripted or part of a movie.
In the nearly three years since the Capitol attack, PolitiFact has fact-checked numerous false claims about the attack and found no evidence that it was contrived. Falsehoods about the attack were named PolitiFact’s 2021 Lie of the Year. It was a real event with real consequences.
Hundreds of people, fueled partly by the false belief that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying the election results. The rioters, many armed and clad in Trump-branded apparel and combat gear, scaled walls, broke windows, forced their way into the building and repeatedly clashed with police.
One woman was fatally shot by police during the attack. And five police officers who served at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, died soon after, The New York Times reported.
In February 2021, the cost of the attack, including repairs, enhanced security and increased mental health services, was estimated to exceed $30 million, The New York Times reported.
Since the attack, more than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes, including obstruction of Congress, use of a deadly or dangerous weapon, and causing serious bodily injury to an officer. Of those, 714 have pleaded guilty and 709 have been sentenced, according to an NPR analysis.
We rate the claim that videos of Nancy Pelosi from Jan. 6, 2021, show the Capitol attack was staged False.
As Americans gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, both the White House and the Republican National Committee have served up some political spin: They claimed this year’s dinner was either cheaper or more expensive. And they’re both right.
Whether the turkey and all the fixings cost more or less depends on the comparison point.
Biden pardons Liberty, the national Thanksgiving turkey, during a Nov. 20 ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
On Monday, the RNC posted an item on its website about the “Thanksgiving Price Shock,” lamenting that the “price of a traditional Thanksgiving meal has surged by 25 percent since 2019.” The next day, the White House issued a press release boasting that “Prices Are Down.” Citing the same source as the RNC — the American Farm Bureau Federation, a nonprofit advocacy group — President Joe Biden’s administration said “the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner fell this year, and it’s cheaper than last year to buy favorites like turkey, stuffing, pie crusts, and whipping cream.”
As often happens in politics, both Democrats and Republicans were able to find something they liked in the same report. The American Farm Bureau Federation announced last week that the national average cost for a “classic Thanksgiving feast for 10” this year is about $61.17, “a 4.5% decline from historically high prices last year, driven by a decline in the price of the Thanksgiving dinner centerpiece – the turkey.” But, it added: “Despite the year-over-year relief, the cost is still 25% higher compared to 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.” (The price hike is 30% compared with 2020, AFBF’s figures show.)
Neither the White House nor the RNC mentioned the part of the report that was favorable to the other side. It’s a classic example of how political rhetoric relies on the selective use of statistics and not telling the whole story.
This is the 38th year for the AFBF’s admittedly “informal” survey, which relies on volunteer shoppers to check grocery store prices in person and online. This year’s figures come from 245 surveys with prices from all U.S. states plus Puerto Rico.
The average cost of a 16-pound turkey, which AFB pins at $27.35 this year, may actually be lower than that for many Americans. That’s because the price information was collected Nov. 1 through 6, “before most grocery store chains began featuring whole frozen turkeys at sharply lower prices,” AFBF said. And the reason for the price cut in 2023? A drop in cases of avian influenza — which caused supply issues and helped drive up prices last year.
The White House and RNC also offered competing narratives about gasoline prices. The White House said “gas prices are down $1.70 from their peak,” while the RNC noted that “prices remain nearly $1/gallon higher than when Biden took office.” Yes, those are both accurate statements again.
The national average price of regular gasoline was $2.38 per gallon the week before Biden took office in January 2021. It peaked at $5.01 the week of June 13, 2022, and is now down to $3.29 for the week ending Nov. 20.
As we’ve noted before, while a president often takes credit or gets blamed for high or low inflation and gas prices, market forces beyond a president’s control typically drive such economic indicators.
So, if a family squabble erupts at the dinner table on Thursday over whether grocery prices are up or down, be prepared to play peacemaker. Tell your relatives they’re both right. Happy Thanksgiving.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Editor’s note: This story contains references and links to graphic images and videos. The story is a revised version of one we published Oct. 20. We corrected and recast that story following an article by the Center for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis. See this note from our editor-in-chief for more explanation.
More than a month into the Israel-Hamas war, footage and firsthand accounts lay bare the atrocities caused by the fighting.
During Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, militants raided communities and a music festival, killing more than 1,200 people, including children, and taking 240 more as hostages, Israeli authorities said.
Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza have killed more than 11,000 people, a majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-controlled government and the only official source for casualties in the territory. The Health Ministry said the death toll has increased, but as of Nov. 10 it could no longer provide updates on casualties because of communications outages, The Washington Post reported.
Amid bloodshed and devastation, reports of Hamas militants beheading babies rose to prominence in the news and on social media.
With conflicting reports from officials and media on the ground, journalists without access to the area and local autopsy or medical records struggle to independently verify accounts. Israeli officials have not released footage of beheaded babies, unlike other documentary evidence of gruesome acts on Oct. 7. In the weeks since, several Israeli military officials and witnesses have maintained that they saw babies without heads, using the word “beheaded” or “decapitated.”
PolitiFact examined the origins of reports that babies were beheaded, including how the Israeli military has discussed local reports, how political leaders in the United States and Israel addressed it, and how a more specific narrative about “40 beheaded babies” spread.
Early mentions of the claim
On Oct. 10, three days after Hamas’ attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces allowed news outlets to report from the site. Reporter Nicole Zedeck of i24 News, an Israeli news channel, said Israeli soldiers told her infants had been killed in the attack.
“The Israeli military still says they don’t have a clear number (of the casualties), but I’m talking to some of the soldiers, and they say what they’ve witnessed is they’ve been walking through these different houses, these different communities — babies, their heads cut off. That’s what they said,” Zedeck said during her broadcast from Kfar Aza.
Similarly, reporter Margot Haddad of the French news channel LCI posted Oct. 11 on X that Israeli soldiers told her babies had been beheaded in Kfar Aza. Other reporters on the ground in Kfar Aza from CNN, +972 Magazine and Le Monde said they either did not see evidence of beheaded babies in that location or were unable to confirm the report.
Hamas has denied allegations that its militants beheaded children and attacked women. CNN reported Oct. 11 that Hamas spokesperson and senior official Izzat al-Risheq said these reports “spread lies about our Palestinian people and the resistance” and that there was “no evidence to support such claims and lies.”
Multiple news outlets have reported that women and children were among the people killed or taken hostage in Hamas’ surprise attack.
How the Israeli military addressed reports of beheadings
When we inquired with the Israel Defense Forces North American Media Desk, we received a statement Oct. 12 that said women, children, toddlers and older people were “brutally butchered” in Kfar Aza during Hamas’ attack.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said in an Oct. 11 broadcast on X that, based on reports, he could say “with relative confidence” that babies were beheaded in Kibbutz Be’eri, about 10 miles southwest of Kfar Aza. He said these reports came from eyewitnesses and an Oct. 11 CBS News interview with Yossi Landau, the southern region’s head of operations for Zaka, Israel’s civilian emergency response organization.
Landau’s accounts to news outlets about the attack’s aftermath have varied, and it’s unclear from these interviews where Landau saw mutilated bodies. In an Oct. 17 interview with CNN, Landau said he saw a teenager who had been beheaded. To India’s Republic World on Oct. 13, he described Hamas “chopping off the heads” of children. To Fox News on Oct. 17, he described extreme violence, some of which involved children, without specifically mentioning beheadings. In a Hebrew-language interview with Now 14 Israel, Landau said he picked up bodies of children and babies without heads.
PolitiFact contacted Zaka about Landau’s account but did not hear back before publication.
A third Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Major Libby Weiss, told CBS News on Oct. 11 that Israeli soldiers reported finding in Kfar Aza “beheaded children of varying ages, ranging from babies to slightly older children,” along with adults who had been dismembered.
A spokesperson with the Israel Defense Forces’ North American Media Desk told PolitiFact on Nov. 13 that Conricus and Weiss were accurate in their statements.
Col. Golan Vach, head of the Israeli military’s search and rescue unit, told The New York Times, NBC News and AFP that he saw one decapitated baby in Be’eri. Col. Haim Weisberg, head rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, has echoed these accounts of beheadings in interviews with NPR, Jewish Insider and The Daily Mail.
The Israel Defense Forces has shown some journalists footage of Hamas’ attack, compiled from cellphones, body cameras and surveillance systems, The Associated Press, ABC News and CNN reported. While viewing the footage, journalists were not allowed to record or access their phones.
ABC News reported that the footage its reporters viewed did not show beheaded babies. An unnamed Israeli military official told ABC that such images existed, but would not be shown to journalists or the public.
How Israeli and U.S. officials talked about the claim
Political leaders in Israel and the U.S. have publicly discussed the reports of beheaded babies. Their statements have not always aligned.
On Oct. 11, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN that babies and toddlers were found in Kfar Aza with their “heads decapitated.” The next morning, CNN cited an unnamed Israeli official who told the network that the Israeli government could not confirm the claim.
President Joe Biden also mentioned the report of beheaded babies during an Oct. 11 roundtable with Jewish leaders, saying, “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.”
The White House later told CNN that Biden had neither seen photos nor received confirmation that Hamas beheaded babies or children. Biden was referring to reports from media outlets and public comments by Israeli officials.
A week later in Israel, Biden described, “Children slaughtered. Babies slaughtered. Entire families massacred. Rape, beheadings, bodies burned alive.”
During a Nov. 15 press conference, Biden referred to beheadings a third time: “Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again like they did before, to where they were cutting babies’ heads off to burn — burning women and children alive.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Oct. 12 that Israeli officials had shown him documentation of “an infant riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded, young people burned alive.”
During Blinken and Biden’s visits to Israel on Oct. 12 and Oct. 18, respectively, Netanyahu said Hamas beheaded people. He did not specify whether the victims were infants.
The Israeli prime minister’s office on Oct. 12 shared on X photos of babies it said were “murdered and burned” by Hamas. White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said the same day that there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of these images since they came from the prime minister.
The National Center for Forensic Medicine, part of Israel’s Ministry of Health, allowed journalists to view bodies of Hamas attack victims. The Media Line, an American news agency covering the Middle East, reported Oct. 20 that Dr. Chen Kugel, the center’s director, said the victims ranged in age from 3 months to 90 years old, and many bodies are without heads.
“Asked if they were decapitated, Kugel answered yes. Although he admits that, given the circumstances, it’s difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded, ‘whether cut off by knife or blown off by RPG,’ he explained,” the Media Line reported. (RPG stands for rocket-powered grenade.)
How claims of Hamas beheading 40 babies emerged
Another viral claim specified a number of beheaded victims: There were 40 babies, it said. This appears, however, to conflate two different on-the-ground reports.
On Oct. 10, the same day i24 News reporter Zedeck broadcast live from Kfar Aza, she also shared Israeli soldiers’ testimony on social media. On X, Zedeck said, “One of the commanders told me they saw babies’ heads cut off.” Thirty-five minutes later, she posted again, saying “soldiers told me they believe 40 babies, children were killed.”
Several social media posts melded these claims:
Actor Noah Schnapp, who has 25 million Instagram followers, said in an Oct. 11 post on the platform, “40 babies were beheaded and burned alive in front of their parents by Hamas.”
The State of Israel’s official X account, with a following of 1.5 million, posted Oct. 15, “Lots of sick people fighting about whether or not Hamas beheaded 40 babies or whether they were just burned alive or just butchered. Shame on you.”
An Oct. 10 TikTok video that has been viewed more than 488,000 times showed a woman crying and text that read, “40 babies. Hamas has beheaded 40 Israeli babies in a single Israeli community.”
In the war’s first week, Google searches for “Hamas beheaded 40 babies” peaked. NBC News reported Oct. 12 that of all Google searches related to the war, the phrase “Did Hamas kill babies” saw the largest uptick in queries.
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told PolitiFact on Nov. 13 that verified testimonies state some people were beheaded, but they could not confirm how many.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.
In a Fox News interview about the Israel-Hamas war, Sen. Ted Cruz said “literally from within minutes of when this horrific attack began on Oct. 7, the Biden White House has been telling Israel, do not retaliate, cease-fire, stop, do not kill the terrorists.” But the Texas Republican has thin support for his claim.
The senator’s office referred us to an Oct. 7 post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs that urged “all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.” The State Department told the Washington Free Beacon that it removed the post the same day because it “was not approved and does not represent U.S. policy.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. State Department Middle East negotiator, told us Cruz is “wrong.” President Joe Biden and top administration officials “have been nothing other than completely supportive” of Israel, even as they have tried more recently to pressure Israel to limit civilian casualties in Gaza, allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and consider how Gaza will be governed after the war, Miller said.
Biden’s Reaction to Hamas Attack
On Oct. 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel, the White House issued a statement from President Joe Biden about his phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel has a right to defend itself and its people,” Biden said, adding that he pledged to Netanyahu that the U.S. would provide Israel “all appropriate means of support.”
That same day, the White House held a background briefing with a “senior administration official” to “flesh out” Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu. That official said, “We have made it absolutely clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu, but to Israeli officials up and down, across the political spectrum and their national security spectrum, that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel. And Israel has a right to defend itself and its people. Full stop.”
But on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Cruz had a different take. In a Nov. 12 interview, the Texas Republican said “the White House and the State Department have been undermining Israel” since Oct. 7.
“At every stage, the White House and the State Department have been undermining Israel,” Cruz said. “They have been urging Israel — literally from within minutes of when this horrific attack began on Oct. 7, the Biden White House has been telling Israel, do not retaliate, cease-fire, stop, do not kill the terrorists.”
As we said earlier, the senator’s office referred us to the Oct. 7 deleted post by the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs. We also found that Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s X account posted a tweet on Oct. 8 — the day of Blinken’s phone call with the Turkish foreign minister. In that post, which was also deleted, Blinken said he “encouraged Türkiye’s advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas immediately.”
In an Oct. 10 press conference, State spokesperson Matthew Miller said the Oct. 8 tweet was deleted because it was “unfortunately worded” and “did not capture” Blinken’s phone call a day earlier with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The same day as the tweet, the State Department had released a statement on Blinken’s call with Fidan that was worded in a slightly different way that was meaningfully significant. It said, “The Secretary encouraged Türkiye’s continued engagement and highlighted the United States’ unwavering focus on halting the attacks by Hamas and securing the release of all hostages.”
“I think you would have to be intentionally misunderstanding what our position is, given the number of statements that we have made about supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, about supporting Israel taking direct action against Hamas,” Miller said. “The secretary spoke to that publicly on Sunday, on the Sunday shows. The president has spoken to it forcefully and we’ve issued a number of statements making that clear.”
Experts we spoke with agreed.
“The U.S. has been quite clear that it will not seek a cease-fire – at least right now – and I think that has been demonstrated most clearly on Secretary Blinken’s multiple visits to the region, and Biden’s own visit, and of course in U.S. actions, including voting against a U.N. resolution calling for cease-fire,” Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Program, told us in a phone interview.
Aaron David Miller, who served in the State Department under Democratic and Republican administrations between 1978 and 2003, said the Biden administration’s position on the Israel-Hamas war is framed by two public pronouncements — one early in the war and one a few days ago: Biden’s Oct. 10 speech to the nation about the Israel-Hamas war and his Nov. 18 op-ed in the Washington Post.
In his Oct. 10 speech, Biden spoke extensively about the brutality of the Oct. 7 attack against Israeli civilians. “So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear,” Biden said. “We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”
“His speech was incredibly powerful, perhaps one of the best of his presidency,” said Miller, who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “In that speech, the president sent an unmistakable signal that it will give Israel the time, the space and the support it needed to destroy Hamas as a military organization.”
A day after that speech, Biden reiterated his “unshakeable” support for Israel’s right to defend itself in remarks at the White House to Jewish community leaders.
“In the days ahead, we’re going to continue to work closely with our partners in Israel and around the world to ensure Israel has what it needs to defend its citizens, its cities, and to respond to these attacks,” Biden said. “As I said yesterday, my commitment to Israel’s security and the safety of the Jewish people is unshakeable.”
Biden Rejects Cease-Fire
In recent weeks, liberals have spoken out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and some have criticized Biden for what they see as unconditional support for Israel. Some members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have called for a cease-fire.
Biden, however, has rejected calls for a cease-fire, including most recently in his Nov. 18 op-ed in the Washington Post.
“As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace,” Biden said in his opinion piece. “To Hamas’s members, every cease-fire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again. An outcome that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would once more perpetuate its hate and deny Palestinian civilians the chance to build something better for themselves.”
Biden and administrative officials have called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to flow into Gaza — but not a cease-fire. (Asked on Oct. 24 about the difference between “humanitarian pauses” and a cease-fire, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said it’s “a question of duration and scope and size.”)
“The U.S. is seeking humanitarian pauses – you are talking about hours or maybe a few days – to allow food, water, energy supplies, medical aid for humanitarian purposes,” Panikoff of the Atlantic Council told us. “Those pauses are far different than a cease-fire. They allow Israel to resume military operations.”
On Oct. 18, the U.S. voted no on a U.N. resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” in Gaza, because it “made no mention of Israel’s right of self-defense,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement. Six days later, Blinken for the first time publicly called for “humanitarian pauses” at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Oct. 24 to allow “essential humanitarian assistance … to flow into Gaza.”
Miller, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Biden has been pressing Israel to consider three things. The first is to determine “how to prosecute the common objective that the administration and Israelis have – which is destroying Hamas’ capacity and to end its sovereignty in Gaza,” he said. “Second, how do you surge humanitarian assistance in the middle of a conflict and, third, what should be done after the military campaign.”
What the administration has not done is tell Israel to stop killing terrorists, as Cruz claimed, Miller said, adding that Cruz deserves “four or even five Pinocchios,” referring to the Washington Post Fact Checker’s rating system. (Four Pinocchios, the Post’s highest rating, is reserved for “whoppers.”)
“I don’t see the administration even telling Israel – you need to wrap this up,” Miller said. “They may reach that at some point” but not now.
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