Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: Donald Trump recently testified in his civil fraud trial, not someone in a Trump mask

    Former President Donald Trump testified Nov. 6 in his civil fraud trial in New York, but some social media users are pointing to an Instagram video as evidence that Trump himself didn’t take the stand. 

    “So yesterday Donald Trump was in court right? Do you believe this is Donald Trump? Hyper realistic silicone masks are real,” read the text below a video of someone who indeed looked like a Trump impersonator. 

    But that’s because the video has been altered — not because someone was wearing a Trump mask to impersonate the former president in court. 

    An Instagram post sharing the video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    Footage of the trial shared on The Associated Press’ website shows Trump as he actually appeared, looking very much like himself and not the smooth-faced distortion in the Instagram post. 

    Some social media users commenting on the post suggested a TikTok filter was used to film TV coverage of the trial, altering Trump’s appearance. 

    What we do know: This video isn’t evidence that a Trump impersonator appeared at the former president’s trial. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!

     



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  • Fact Check: No, Mel Gibson didn’t post about ‘the end’ of Israel

    Mel Gibson has been accused of antisemitism in the past, but a supposed Nov. 4 anti-Israel social media post attributed to the actor isn’t authentic. 

    “Soon the end and they know it, that’s why they want to destroy everything in the way,” reads what looks like a post from “Mel Gibson yesterday at 18:39.” (18:39 is 6:39 p.m.)

    Below the text is what appears to be a riff on the Israeli flag, with an hourglass in the center  instead of the Star of David. 

    An Instagram post sharing the image 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.)

    We contacted Gibson’s agent’s office about the post, but didn’t immediately receive a reply. 

    However, Alan Nierob, his agent, told Lead Stories that Gibson wasn’t responsible for the post and has no public-facing social media accounts. 

    We looked for but couldn’t find any authentic social media accounts for Gibson, or evidence that he made such a statement. 

    We rate this post False.

     



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  • Fact Check: Video showing Joe Rogan talking about Disneyland child abduction is a deepfake

    Comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan has made a number of dubious comments on his popular Spotify show, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

    But with the rise of generative artificial intelligence, other people are digitally putting words in his mouth.

    A video shared Nov. 6 on Instagram claims to show Rogan talking about a child abduction at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, that supposedly took place Oct. 13 at the theme park. Rogan said the parents saw a man abducting their child “into an underground tunnel that seemed to vanish beneath the floor.” 

    A caption with the video said, “People have been talking about these tunnels for so many years. #CancelDisney.”

    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.)

    We found other examples of the video being shared on social media. But we found no evidence that Rogan has discussed a Disneyland abduction on his podcast and no evidence any abduction has taken place at the park in October.

    (Screenshot from Instagram)

    A story about a child being abducted and taken into a tunnel surely would have made news headlines, if, as the video claims, police responded to the scene. But a Google search revealed nothing about the incident, and an Anaheim Police Department spokesperson said the agency did not respond to any calls about a child abduction at the park.

    “We are not investigating any child abductions at, or near, the Disneyland Resorts,” said Sgt. Jon McClintock, a public information officer at the Anaheim Police Department, who said the claim in the Instagram video “is unfounded.”

    The Anaheim Police Department has officers assigned to work at the Disneyland Resort. They handle all police-related matters, including response to crimes and criminal investigations, while working closely with Disney’s private security team, said McClintock.

    The Instagram video is likely AI-generated. The first clue something was amiss was that Rogan was speaking, but his words don’t match his mouth movements.

    We checked “The Joe Rogan Experience” YouTube page and the show’s Spotify page and none of the headlines or descriptions posted after October mentioned Disneyland or child abductions. 

    We also looked for videos in which Rogan was wearing a T-shirt with the words, “Rumble in the Jungle,” that he wore in the Instagram post.

    We found three YouTube videos this year in which Rogan wore the same “Rumble in the Jungle,” T-shirt. All predated the supposed October incident at Disney.

    Two were posted on March 1. In them, Rogan discussed “Saturday Night Live” and the chemical spill from a derailed train in East Palestine, Ohio. Neither mentioned Disneyland. They were clips taken from Rogan’s March 1 podcast episode 1944 with Tony Hinchcliffe and Brian Redban. 

    Another video clip posted Feb. 21 showed Rogan interviewing comedian Ryan Long. It had the headline, “Brain Implants, Iron Man Suits, and Robot Children,” and nothing about Disneyland. It was taken from episode 1944 of Rogan’s podcast.

    We contacted Rogan through his Instagram page received no response.

    We can’t pinpoint who created this Rogan video. We found a YouTube account that posted the same video Oct. 23, and a similar one with Rogan wearing the same shirt. In the second video, also posted Oct. 23, Rogan supposedly talked about Starbucks ordering its workers to write customers’ names incorrectly on coffee cups.

    It wouldn’t be the first time someone used AI to create a fake Rogan podcast. In the genuine March 1 Rogan podcast episode, at the 2:03.25 mark, Rogan and his guests discussed AI-generated audio of Rogan, including a fake interview between him and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs created by Podcast.ai.

    There’s also a YouTube page called “The Joe Rogan AI Experience” that has several fictional podcasts, including interviews with Donald Trump and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. In 2019, engineers at machine learning company Dessa recreated Rogan’s voice using AI.

    There’s no evidence a child was abducted at Disneyland’s parks in October and we could not find videos of Rogan discussing that. The claim is Pants on Fire!



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  • Fact Check: Fact-checking Chris Christie on U.S. security obligations toward Ukraine

    During the third Republican presidential debate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie explained that his support for Ukraine against the continuing Russian invasion traces back to promises made during the 1990s.

    “In 1992, this country made a promise to Ukraine,” Christie said during the Nov. 8 debate in Miami. “We said, ‘If you return nuclear missiles that were part of the old Soviet Union to Russia, and they invade you, we will protect you.’”

    This makes the U.S. obligation to defend Ukraine sound cut and dried. However, as we’ve previously written, it was anything but.

    Christie’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

    The crack-up of the USSR and the 1994 Budapest agreement

    When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the rest of the world expressed concern over the fate of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, which was spread across not just Russia but also three newly independent states, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. 

    Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to dismantle or return to Russia what they had. But Ukraine looked at the roughly 1,900 warheads on its soil and began seeking something in exchange before it ceded them.

    “Essentially, it was something that they traded off in order to encourage international recognition,” Brian Finlay, a specialist in nonproliferation at the Stimson Center, a military-focused Washington, D.C., think tank told PolitiFact in 2015.

    According to a 2011 report by Steven Pifer, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, Ukraine wanted Russia to promise to respect its sovereignty and its borders, a promise that Russia made but has since broken. Ukraine also wanted money, and it knew that going non-nuclear would open the door to better ties with the West.

    In early 1994, the United States agreed to provide money to dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure, while Russia agreed to forgive Ukraine’s debts. In December 1994, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances. 

    The agreement reaffirmed certain commitments among the parties:

    Pifer described in his report the lengths to which Washington lingered over the precise phrasing of the U.S. security obligations to Ukraine.

    State Department lawyers “took careful interest in the actual language … to keep the commitments of a political nature,” Pifer wrote. “U.S. officials also continually used the term ‘assurances’ instead of ‘guarantees,’ as the latter implied a deeper, even legally binding commitment of the kind that the United States extended to its NATO allies.”

    Pifer wrote that American diplomats made sure that the Russians and Ukrainians understood specifically that the English meaning of “assurance” was not the same as a “guarantee.”

    Has anything changed?

    We asked several experts whether anything had changed since we last covered this topic eight years ago (which also came during a presidential election cycle, in comments by Republican candidates Ben Carson and Ted Cruz).

    The experts agreed that although Russia has continued to break its promise to respect Ukraine’s borders, the U.S. obligations remain the same. The U.S. under President Joe Biden has supported Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia’s invasion, including providing arms and money. But the U.S. has done this by choice, not because the Budapest agreement legally obligates it to do so. 

    Christie seems to be framing it as a pledge akin to NATO’s Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all, obligating a response, said Erik Herron, a West Virginia University political scientist who specializes in Eastern Europe. But such an obligation “is not part of any written agreement,” Herron said.

    Pifer, the former ambassador to Ukraine, told PolitiFact that when negotiating the language, “Ukrainian officials asked us, the U.S. officials, what the United States would do if Russia violated its commitments. We responded that the United States would take an interest and support Ukraine, but we made clear that we were not committing to send U.S. troops.”

    And that is basically what has happened since Russia invaded in 2022, Pifer said. 

    “To my mind, U.S. support for Ukraine over the past two years has lived up to what we told Ukrainian officials in the early 1990s,” he said. 

    Our ruling

    Christie said, “In 1992, this country made a promise to Ukraine. We said, ‘If you return nuclear missiles that were part of the old Soviet Union to Russia, and they invade you, we will protect you.’”

    Setting aside that the agreement was signed in 1994, not 1992, Christie makes it sound as if the U.S. had an ironclad obligation to protect Ukraine if its borders were violated — that it had a “promise” to “protect” Ukraine.

    But the United States carefully avoided making a strong promise. The agreement deliberately steered away from the term “guarantee” in favor of “assurances,” which entails a lesser degree of obligation.

    The United States agreed to respect Ukraine’s borders and go to the United Nations if another power threatened Ukraine’s borders.

    We rate the statement Mostly False.



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  • Taylor Swift Film Is Being Screened in Israel, Contrary to Online Post

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

    Quick Take

    As some celebrities issued statements in response to the Israel-Hamas war, a video posted to social media falsely claimed that pop star Taylor Swift stopped screenings of her new film in Israel. But it was technical difficulties with showtime schedules that made screenings appear unavailable in Israel. Screenings of the film have continued in Israel.


    Full Story

    Some celebrities have made public statements of support for Israelis and concern for Gaza residents amid the fighting between Israel and Hamas, which began with the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

    The Associated Press reported that more than 10,000 Palestinians have died, citing the Gaza health ministry on Nov. 6, and about 1,400 people have died in Israel. AP said the Gaza health ministry “does not distinguish between fighters and civilians,” while most of the Israelis killed were civilians killed in the Hamas surprise attack on Oct. 7.

    The conflict has fueled a firestorm of misinformation on social media, as we’ve previously written, and the online claims recently cast a spotlight on one of America’s most popular cultural figures.

    A video was posted on Instagram on Nov. 6 with the caption, “Taylor Swift Pulls Eras Film Screenings In Israel,” referring to the singer-songwriter’s concert tour movie. The Instagram video is narrated by celebrity news vlogger Rivet Soro. In the video, Soro says, “Looks like Taylor Swift has pulled ‘Eras’ tour screenings in Israel until further notice.” The post has received more than 6,800 likes.

    In the video, Soro shares a screenshot from the film’s official website, in which a search for showings in Israel yields the error message, “All screenings for this country are postponed until further notice.”

    Many commenters, believing the Soro’s post to be accurate, expressed support for Swift. “Great job tay!” wrote one user. 

    But the claim is false. As the entertainment news site TMZ reported, technical difficulties — not a political statement — had made showtime schedules, managed by a third-party company, appear unavailable in Israel. The website now shows numerous results for screenings in Israel. 

    An article in the Jerusalem Post on Nov. 6 featured interviews with Israeli fans of Swift who saw the film in Jerusalem over the weekend. Even as the website said screenings in Israel were postponed, they were still taking place. 

    We were unable to reach Swift’s representatives for comment.

    Swift has faced pressure from both sides of the conflict to speak out. As Newsweek reported, some of Swift’s fans recently started using the hashtag #SwiftiesForPalestine on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Meanwhile, the verified X account for the state of Israel has urged Swift to call for the return of an Israeli hostage who is a fan of the pop star. 


    Sources

    Bigg, Matthew Mpoke. “What We Know About the War Between Israel and Hamas.” New York Times. 2 Nov 2023.

    Brown, Hannah. “Fearless Swift fans celebrate concert film in Jerusalem.” The Jerusalem Post. 6 Nov 2023.

    Christensen, Sean. “Posts Use Fabricated Audio to Misrepresent CNN Report During Rocket Attack in Israel.” FactCheck.org. 23 Oct 2023.

    Hale Spencer, Sara and D’Angelo Gore. “What We Know About Three Widespread Israel-Hamas War Claims.” FactCheck.org. Updated 24 Oct 2023.

    Izevbigie, Blossom. “Online Video Misrepresents Putin Speech Commemorating WWII Victory.” FactCheck.org. 2 Nov 2023.

    Jobain, Najib, Jack Jeffery and Lee Keath. “Israeli forces cut off north Gaza to isolate Hamas as an advance on the urban center looms.” Associated Press. 6 Nov 2023.

    Moorman, Taijuan and KiMi Robinson. “Celebrities call for ceasefire, decry civilian deaths: Hollywood reacts to Israel-Hamas war.” USA Today. Updated 7 Nov 2023.

    Sachdeva, Maanya. “Madonna and Natali Portman lead celebrity reactions to Israel-Hamas conflict.” The Independent. 13 Oct 2023.

    Smith, Ryan. “Israel asks Taylor Swift for Help.” Newsweek. 7 Nov 2023.

    TMZ. “Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ Movie Still Playing in Israel… Despite Rumors to Contrary.” Nov 6 2023.

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  • Fact Check: Blame Mother Nature, not Mexican government, on Hurricane Otis hitting Acapulco

    Hurricane Otis surprised weather forecasters, rapidly intensifying Oct. 25 from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane. Otis sustained 165 mile-per-hour winds before it slammed into the Mexican resort town of Acapulco, leaving dozens of people dead or missing.

    The storm’s winds increased by 115 miles per hour in the 24 hours before Otis made landfall, leaving the city’s residents little time to prepare. In the hurricane’s wake, some social media users are claiming the storm was actually the result of a weather weapon directed by the Mexican government.

    Sticker text atop a Nov. 6 Instagram post’s video read, “Acapulco media blackout. Acapulco destroyed by yet another directed weather attack!” 

    The Instagram post’s video is a clip from an Oct. 28 episode of “Inspired,” a YouTube podcast. In the clip, a podcast guest described the hurricane as a planned attack on Acapulco.

    He claimed to hear gunshots and screaming in poor neighborhoods and suggested it was a “purge” being carried out by the government. He also compared the storm with the Maui wildfires, which he falsely said the U.S. government set intentionally.

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    (Screenshot from Instagram)

    We found multiple social media posts making similar claims. They play into a familiar pattern after natural disasters, when social media users seek to blame governments rather than Mother Nature. PolitiFact has debunked numerous such claims, including about Hurricane Ian in Florida, earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and Canadian wildfires.

    Some forms of weather manipulation exist, the most common being cloud seeding, which involves adding substances such as silver iodide to increase rain or snow. 

    Although the Mexican government has used cloud seeding to bring rain to drought-stricken areas, it banned solar geoenginnering in January after an unauthorized test by a private company.

    But contrary to the Instagram post’s claim, experts told PolitiFact there is no technology that can cause, intensify or direct a hurricane.

    “None whatsoever,” said Steven Siems, co-chair of the World Meteorological Organization’s Expert Team on Weather Modification. “There have been some theoretical studies about how to affect hurricanes/tropical cyclones/typhoons, but the infrastructure simply does not exist. And it would be most evident if it did.”  

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a Nov. 7 statement to PolitiFact that its Weather Program Office “is not aware of any weather modification technology that is capable of influencing a hurricane’s track and intensity.”

    Climate change is a likelier explanation for Otis’ rapid intensification. 

    It’s become increasingly common for storms in the Atlantic Ocean to rapidly intensify, a study published in October said. In the modern era — defined as 2001 to 2020 — 8.1% of tropical cyclones intensified from a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane into a Category 3 hurricane or higher within 24 hours. (Category 1 hurricanes have sustained winds of 75 mph to 95 mph; Category 3 hurricanes, which are considered major, have sustained winds of 111 mph to 119 mph, according to the NOAA’s National Hurricane Center.) By contrast, the escalation from Category 1 to Category 3 or higher happened 3.2% of the time in storms from 1970 to 1990, according to the study, which cited warming oceans as the cause for the increase.

    In September, Hurricane Lee also rapidly intensified in the Atlantic, gaining 80 mph in wind speed over 24 hours to grow into a Category 5 storm. It made landfall Sept. 17 as a post-tropical cyclone in Nova Scotia.

    Andra Garner, an assistant environmental science professor at Rowan University and the October study’s author, said more research is needed to pinpoint all the factors that contributed to Otis’ rapid strengthening, but “it’s reasonable to expect that warm ocean waters played a role.”

    One thing that didn’t play a role, she said, is a manmade effort to steer the storm to Acapulco.

    “I can say with absolute confidence that there is no technology in existence that would allow us to control where a hurricane travels or how it develops or strengthens,” Garner said. “Any claim that such technology exists and is being put to use is outright ludicrous.” 

    There also was no media blackout of the hurricane, as the Instagram post alleged. Major news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, The Associated Press covered the storm the same day it hit, and then covered its aftermath.

    Otis caused massive flooding and left residents without power or internet access. The storm’s effect on the residents of Acapulco’s surrounding low-income neighborhoods may be particularly profound.

    But there’s no evidence the Mexican government wants to remove these people. The podcast guest provided no evidence of a “purge” being carried out by the government, but Mexico did send National Guard troops to keep order amid widespread looting as residents sought food and water.

    The Mexican government on Nov. 1 announced a $3.4 billion recovery plan to rebuild Acapulco. On Nov. 7, it announced a plan to triple the country’s deployment of National Guard troops to the state of Guerrero to provide better security in Acapulco, which the U.S. State Department forbids its employees to visit because of high crime.

    Our ruling

    An Instagram post claimed that Hurricane Otis’ path through Acapulco was a directed weather attack.

    No technology exists that can cause a hurricane, intensify its winds or direct its path, experts said. Otis jumped from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in 24 hours but a recent study showed that such rapid wind intensifications are increasingly common because of a warming climate.

    The claim that the Mexican government directed Hurricane Otis to hit Acapulco is Pants on Fire!



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  • Fact Check: No, Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t be seen slipping down airplane stairs in viral video

    President Joe Biden has slipped on the stairs boarding Air Force One, and a recent video spreading on social media suggests that California Gov. Gavin Newsom stumbles when he flies, too.

    “Newsom and Biden have a lot in common,” reads the text in a video that shows a man slipping and then sliding down a set of airplane stairs. 

    A Nov. 2 Instagram post sharing the video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    A Newsom spokesperson told PolitiFact the video doesn’t feature the Democratic California governor. 

    Alabama Media Group and Newsweek, meanwhile, reported Oct. 16 that the video shows U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., falling down a set of plane stairs in 2014, when hecoached the University of Cincinnati football team. 

    Tuberville’s office did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s query about the video. 

    We rate claims this video shows Newsom False.



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  • Fact Check: Altered video appears to show Jimmy Fallon interviewing Kelly Clarkson about weight loss

    A spate of altered videos appears to show singer Kelly Clarkson letting fans in on her weight loss secret, but they aren’t authentic. 

    A recent one, shared in a Nov. 6 Facebook post, appears to show “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon interviewing Clarkson about a “scientifically backed natural product that helps people to part with fat within a short period of time,” the post says. 

    “You lost 37 L-Bs in a short time,” Fallon appears to say in the altered video. “Share your journey with our viewers.”

    “Good afternoon,” Clarkson seems to reply. “Most people probably know me from music, I’m 41 years old, I wasn’t always happy with my body, but I decided to take action and I lost a total of 37 pounds.” 

    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 original video used to create this altered one doesn’t show Fallon and Clarkson discussing a weight loss product. Rather, Clarkson appeared on “The Tonight Show” in October to talk about her new album, “Chemistry.” 

    We rate claims that this altered video is authentic False.

     



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  • Fact Check: No, NASA didn’t admit space and planets are fake

    A recent Instagram post leans on a 2018 local news broadcast to make a sweeping and unfounded claim: that the country’s space agency has announced space isn’t real. 

    “NASA admits space & planets are fake,” reads the text above a clip of a 2018 broadcast from KHOU-TV, a CBS affiliate in Houston. 

    “They are images that inspire, educate and sometimes just make us say ‘wow,’” a news anchor says in the video. “Over the years, NASA has given us spectacular photos and renderings that reveal a colorful and mysterious universe.”

    “No doubt,” her co-anchor says. “And now, Chris Martinez is introducing us to two of the artists behind some of the most iconic space art in the galaxy.”

    The chyron at the bottom of the screen says: “NASA artists paint picture of other worlds.” 

    The video then cuts to a news report, and Martinez can be heard saying, “In a small bright office, working side by side, Robert Hurt and Tim Pyle bring the universe to life.”

    “What we’re doing does have real science underlying it,” one of the artists says. 

    Martinez: “Robert is an astrophysicist-turned-artist. Tim, once a Hollywood animator, is now a planet illustrator. Together, they produce some of NASA’s most popular images from renderings of how planets light years away could look, to actual photos of stars and galaxies captured by NASA’s powerful telescopes. Many of those images have a dark, grainy start.” 

    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.)

    This news broadcast is not tantamount to NASA admitting that space and planets are fake. Rather, the artists use data to create artistic renderings of the corners of space for which NASA has no images, and bring color to the black-and-white photos it does possess.

    “Without Hurt and Pyle,” CNN reported in 2016, “the images we associate with exoplanets would be a single pixel of light surrounded by the vast blackness of space.” 

    NASA hasn’t admitted that space and planets are fake. We’ve previously fact-checked and found false claims that space is “a hoax.” This claim gets the same rating: Pants on Fire!



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  • FactChecking the Third GOP Primary Debate

    Summary

    The third Republican primary debate included a few arguments, mostly about China, and some misleading claims:

    • Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sparred over their roles as governors in helping to lure Chinese companies to their respective states. Both spun some facts.
    • Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and DeSantis disagreed over whether a DeSantis donor had influenced a Florida bill blocking Chinese nationals from buying property within a certain distance of military bases. Bloomberg News reported that it happened, citing unnamed sources.
    • In vowing to ban TikTok in the U.S., former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie misleadingly said former President Donald Trump “did not ban them when he could have and should have.” Trump tried, but his attempt was blocked by the courts.
    • In talking about Social Security, DeSantis correctly stated that life expectancy in the U.S. had recently declined, but neglected to say that much of the drop is due to COVID-19. 
    • Several candidates misleadingly claimed that Democrats support allowing abortions “up until birth.” Democrats support an exception for bans on abortion after fetal viability if the mother’s health is at risk.
    • Haley and Sen. Tim Scott disagreed over Scott’s support for a federal bill that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. Scott didn’t co-sponsor the bill last year, but did voice support for the idea in April.

    The candidates also repeated claims we’ve heard before on fracking, IRS agents and more.

    The Nov. 8 debate, held in Miami, was hosted by NBC News, with Salem Radio Network, the Republican Jewish Coalition and Rumble as partners.

    Analysis

    DeSantis Attacks Haley on China

    Haley and DeSantis sparred over their roles in helping to lure Chinese companies to their respective states as governor, but both spun each other’s record a bit.

    DeSantis said that when she was governor, Haley “welcomed them [Chinese companies] into South Carolina, gave them that land near a military base, wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were.”

    It’s true that Haley, who served as governor from 2011 to 2017 helped to lure Chinese business to the state and in 2014, she wrote a letter to the Chinese ambassador boasting about “the strong relationship we share with China” and expressing gratitude “for your contributions on the economic front.” The South Carolina Department of Commerce reported that capital investments by Chinese companies in the state grew from $307.8 million in 2011 to almost $669 million in 2015.

    When DeSantis said Haley provided a Chinese company land near a military base, he is referring to Haley’s role in helping to recruit China Jushi, a partially state-owned company that makes fiberglass. An ad from a pro-DeSantis super PAC highlighted Haley’s role in helping to entice the company to bring a manufacturing plant to South Carolina in 2016. Haley called the announcement “a huge win for our state” and touted the 400 jobs it would bring.

    In a fact-check, the Washington Post concluded the ad went too far with claims that the plant brought “China’s eyes and ears — dangerously close” to a military base, Fort Jackson, 5 miles away. “There is no indication it is a spy center for China” the Washington Post Fact Checker wrote, noting that Fort Jackson is not on a list of sensitive military sites for which a foreign entity would need U.S. government approval to locate within a mile.

    In the debate, DeSantis did not go as far as the ad’s conclusion, but why else would DeSantis note that the Chinese company was located on “land near a military base” if not to raise concerns about that.

    At the debate, Haley acknowledged, “Yes, I brought a fiberglass company 10 years ago to South Carolina.”

    Haley Attacks DeSantis on China

    Haley and DeSantis also tangled over Florida’s position on attracting Chinese business to the state.

    “Ron, you are the chair of your economic development agency that, as of last week, said Florida is the ideal place for Chinese businesses,” Haley said.

    “I abolished that agency that she’s talking about. Enterprise Florida? We abolished it,” DeSantis responded.

    They’re both right. And they both were also a little misleading.

    Here’s the deal with Enterprise Florida Inc., a quasi-government agency that was created in 1996 with the intent of bringing business and jobs to Florida.

    As Haley said, it’s true that DeSantis was the chairman of the board of directors for Enterprise Florida.

    It’s also true that the agency recently had posted on its website an annual report for the 2019/2020 fiscal year that said it had focused on “Positioning Florida as an ideal business destination for Chinese companies.”

    But that report is about three years old and the fact that it was still available on the website doesn’t necessarily mean that it reflects the agency’s current goals. A more recent annual report, from 2022, said that Enterprise Florida’s International Trade & Development team had “been working with partners in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico to lure more manufacturing away from China and bring supply chains closer to home and into Florida.”

    That said, Enterprise Florida’s website, which is no longer live as of the first week in November, had said on its page about partnerships in Asia, “China remains Florida’s most important trading partner and export destination in the region.”

    So, Haley was correct in saying that DeSantis chaired the agency and that it had published a report saying that Florida would be an ideal place for Chinese business. But she misled a little in quoting from an outdated report.

    As for DeSantis’ claim that he abolished the agency, that’s sort of true.

    State politicians had been fighting for years about whether or not to dissolve the agency.

    In May, DeSantis signed legislation that “[c]onsolidates the responsibilities and resources of Enterprise Florida, Inc. (EFI) into the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), which the bill also renames as the Department of Commerce,” according to a press release from DeSantis at the time.

    The consolidation did away with some of the agency’s programs and re-distributed others. So DeSantis’ claim that he “abolished” Enterprise Florida overstates the impact of the bill he signed.

    The context of the exchange could also leave the impression that DeSantis was motivated to sign the bill in order to stanch Chinese investment in Florida, but he said nothing about China in his press release on the bill signing and, as one of the bill’s sponsor’s put it, the legislation was drafted because Enterprise Florida has “over-promised and under-delivered for years.”

    Florida’s Ban on Chinese Land Purchases

    When Ramaswamy said that a DeSantis donor successfully lobbied to amend a Florida bill blocking Chinese nationals from buying property within a certain distance of military bases in the state, DeSantis said the claim was not accurate.

    But Ramaswamy was referring to reporting from Bloomberg News.

    “I do have to recognize that Ron DeSantis was correct about acknowledging Nikki Haley’s tough talk when she was ambassador to the U.N., calling China ‘our great friend,’ bringing the CCP to South Carolina,” Ramaswamy started.

    “What you left out, though, Ron, and be honest about it, there was a lobbying-based exemption in that bill that allowed Chinese nationals to buy land within a 20-mile radius of a military base lobbied for by one of your donors. I think we have to call a spade a spade.”

    DeSantis could be heard saying, “that’s not true.”

    DeSantis signed the bill, SB 264, into law in May, and it went into effect in July. Among other things, it restricts nationals of seven “foreign countries of concern,” including China, from owning or acquiring agricultural land or real property in Florida. The law specifically states that they cannot purchase property “within 10 miles” — not 20 miles, as Ramaswamy said — “of any military installation or critical infrastructure facility in this state.”

    In an Aug. 16 article, Bloomberg News reported that “early drafts” of the legislation barred “all Chinese citizens and others from buying real estate within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of military bases and critical infrastructure, such as ports, airports and power substations.”

    The story said that posed a problem for Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of investment firm Citadel, and a donor to DeSantis’ gubernatorial campaign, who planned to relocate hundreds of his company’s employees to a new global headquarters in Miami. Citadel employs 4,500 people, including key executives from China, Bloomberg News reported.

    “So the Citadel founder assembled a network of influence to rework the proposed law, according to people familiar with the matter,” the Bloomberg News article said.

    The version of the bill that DeSantis signed included an exception for individuals with non-tourist U.S. visas, allowing them to buy one residential property in the state that is not on or within 5 miles of any military installation.

    Bloomberg News, again citing unnamed sources familiar with the process, said “Citadel’s lobbyists persuaded lawmakers” to include that “carve out” in the legislation.

    According to the article, of the Citadel’s roughly 250 employees in Miami, “only a handful could have been affected by the harsher version of the law, one of the people close to the situation said.”

    Trump Did Try to Ban TikTok

    Asked if he would ban TikTok or force its sale, Christie said he would impose a ban on Day 1, and he criticized Trump for failing to “ban them when he could have and should have.”

    “This is one of the big failings among many of the Trump administration,” Christie said. “He talked tough about TikTok. I heard him do it many times. But when it came down to it, he did not ban them when he could have and should have. And now since then, we’ve had an additional nearly six years of this type of poison be put out throughout the United States.”

    Trump did more than talk “tough about TikTok.” His administration tried to ban the popular app — which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance — but he was rebuffed by the courts, as Scott said later in the debate.

    In May 2019, Trump issued an executive order that declared a national emergency “to protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services in the United States,” as described in a White House statement.

    No company was named in Trump’s order, but that order was referenced in another executive order issued by Trump in August 2020 that specifically targeted TikTok. “Under authority delegated by the 2020 Order, the Secretary of Commerce issued a list of prohibited transactions, which included maintaining TikTok on a mobile app store or providing internet hosting services to it,” the Congressional Research Service said in a Sept. 28 report.

    In separate lawsuits, TikTok and TikTok users challenged the Trump administration’s restrictions on TikTok’s U.S. operations. “The courts ultimately sided with the plaintiffs and issued preliminary injunctions temporarily barring the United States from enforcing the restrictions,” CRS said. “Both courts described the government actions as effectively banning TikTok from operating in the United States.”

    Life Expectancy and Social Security

    In speaking about Social Security, DeSantis pointed to a falling life expectancy as a reason not to increase the age of eligibility of the program.

    “When life expectancy is declining, I don’t see how you could raise it the other direction,” he said. “So it’s one thing to peg it on life expectancy, but we have had a significant decline in life expectancy in this country. And that is just a fact.”

    It’s true that life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen. According to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in August 2022, life expectancy at birth for 2021 was 76.1 years. The figure reflects a drop of nearly a year of life expectancy from 2020 — and it’s the lowest it has been since 1996. The decline followed an even sharper drop of 1.8 years between 2019 and 2020. 

    But DeSantis failed to mention the primary reason for the large declines: the COVID-19 pandemic. Per the CDC, 74% of the drop in life expectancy between 2019 and 2020 and 50% between 2020 and 2021 was from COVID-19 deaths. Other major factors for the latest decline include increases in deaths from accidents — nearly half of which are attributed to drug overdoses — as well as upticks in deaths from heart disease, chronic liver disease and suicide.

    This is relevant for his claim about Social Security, since as time goes on, COVID-19 is likely to have less of an impact on life expectancy, making these large declines temporary. Moreover, these figures reflect life expectancy at birth, or as the CDC says, the “average number of years a group of infants would live if they were to experience throughout life the age-specific death rates prevailing during a period.”

    What’s actually relevant to the financial status of the program, the Social Security Administration explains, isn’t life expectancy at birth, but rather life expectancy at retirement age and the relative size of the working population compared with the retired population.

    “Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the ‘baby boom’ generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security’s future financial condition,” an archived agency webpage reads.

    Data show that despite recent declines, life expectancy at 65 is still higher than it was for much of the past.

    Abortion

    Just as in the first two debates, some candidates misleadingly claimed that Democrats, or certain states, support allowing abortions “up until birth.” As we’ve explained, Democrats support an exception for bans on abortion after fetal viability if the mother’s health is at risk.

    DeSantis, Scott, Ramaswamy and Christie all made some version of this claim. DeSantis said Democrats “will not identify the point at which there should be any protection, all the way up until birth.” Scott claimed “states like California, Illinois or New York … have abortion up until the day of birth.” Christie said his home state of New Jersey “goes up to nine months that you get an abortion.” And Ramaswamy talked about Ohio, where voters passed a ballot initiative on Nov. 7 to add an amendment on abortion rights to the state constitution.

    “That now effectively codifies a right to abortion all the way up to the time of birth without parental consent,” Ramaswamy said of the measure.

    Ohio’s new amendment — which passed with 57% of votes in favor — said that “abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability,” but not “if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

    As we’ve written, Republicans object to the health exception, claiming the bill would allow abortion on demand at any point in a pregnancy.

    Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis and the author of six books on the abortion debate and the law, told us that “Republicans view those health exceptions as sort of like a blanket permission to have an abortion whenever you want.” Democrats say “it’s an exception for life or health.”

    California, Illinois and New York also have bans on abortion after viability, but exceptions for the life and health of the mother. New Jersey’s law doesn’t specify a point at which abortions would be banned. The state’s Office of the Attorney General says: “New Jersey protects the ability of individuals to make decisions in collaboration with their provider throughout pregnancy.” Dr. Glenmarie Matthews, director of the Reproductive Choice Program at New Jersey Medical School, told our fact-checking colleagues at PolitiFact that, in practice, this means health care providers aren’t performing abortions after 24 to 26 weeks of gestation, which would be around the point of viability.

    The vast majority of abortions in the U.S. occur early in pregnancy. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 93.1% of abortions in 2020 were performed at or before 13 weeks of gestation and less than 1% were performed at or after 21 weeks.

    A 15-Week Abortion Ban

    Scott and Haley argued over Scott’s support for a federal bill that would ban abortions after 15 weeks.

    “I would certainly as president of the United States have a 15-week national limit,” Scott said. “We need a 15-week federal limit.”

    “But Tim, there was a bill last year, Lindsey Graham sponsored it. You didn’t even co-sponsor the bill,” Haley said. “And then when you first were interviewed on this, when you ran, you wouldn’t even say you were for 15 weeks.”

    “That’s just not true,” Scott said.

    It is true, as Haley said, that when Sen. Graham introduced S. 4840, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, in September 2022, Scott was not one of the nine co-sponsors. The bill, which never made it to a vote, sought to make it a crime to perform an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It included exceptions for the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.

    A month before Scott officially announced his candidacy for president, HuffPost reported on April 13 that Scott repeatedly dodged questions about his support for a 15-week abortion ban, responding instead, “I am certainly 100% pro-life, without any question.” The article noted that Scott said he would “definitely” support a 20-week ban.

    But in an interview on Newsmax a week later, Scott laid the issue to rest when he was asked if, as president, he would sign Graham’s bill into law.

    “Every day I would sign that bill into law,” Scott answered. “I would sign the most conservative, pro-life legislation you could bring to my desk.”

    More Repeats

    We also heard several claims we’ve fact-checked before:

    • Haley claimed that DeSantis “banned fracking.” He hasn’t, but he supported it. During his campaign for governor in 2018, DeSantis pledged to ban both fracking and offshore drilling out of concern for Florida’s geological and natural resources. An amendment to ban offshore drilling passed in that same election. DeSantis signed an executive order directing the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to “[t]ake necessary actions to adamantly oppose all off-shore oil and gas activities off every coast in Florida and hydraulic fracturing in Florida.” But legislative attempts to ban fracking have been unsuccessful.
    • Haley referenced the well-worn talking point about “87,000 IRS agents going after middle America.” As we’ve explained many times, this figure refers to the number of employees that could have been hired by the IRS with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. But the Treasury Department told us most of the new hires would replace retiring or departing employees, and most new positions would be in customer service. Some new employees would be tax enforcers but their focus would be high-income tax evaders, not middle America.
    • Ramaswamy repeated the unsubstantiated claim that “Hunter Biden got a $5 million bribe from Ukraine.” As we’ve written, the allegation refers to an FBI report made public on July 20 in which an FBI informant said that years ago, the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, told the informant he was “pushed to pay” bribes of $5 million each to Hunter and Joe Biden for what the informant understood was assurance that the Ukrainian prosecutor general at the time would be fired. But the FBI agent who wrote the report said the claim couldn’t be substantiated. Hunter Biden was paid $1 million a year to serve on the Burisma board between 2014 and 2019, but that was to provide legal and consulting work.
    • Haley, echoing another popular Republican talking point, claimed that President Joe Biden gave Iran “$6 billion to get five hostages home.” Scott, too, said, “President Biden has sent billions to Iran.” To be clear, as we’ve written before, the $6 billion was Iranian money which had been frozen in foreign banks and not U.S. taxpayer money given by Biden. The money was released to banks in Qatar, and could be spent on humanitarian needs in Iran, such as food or medicine. On Oct. 12, amid the war in the Middle East, U.S. and Qatar agreed to block Iran’s access to the $6 billion for the foreseeable future.

    Sources

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    S.B. 264, Interests of Foreign Countries. 8 May 2023.

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    South Carolina Commerce. “Foreign Investment in South Carolina: Highlighting Chinese Investment.” Aug 2011.

    South Carolina Department of Commerce. “China Jushi bringing 80,000-ton fiberglass production line to Richland County.” 31 May 2016.

    Kessler, Glenn. “DeSantis group’s ad attacks Haley with facts but offers false conclusions.” Washington Post. 4 Nov 2023.

    Congress.gov. S.4840 – Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act. Introduced 13 Sep 2022.

    Delaney, Arthur. “Tim Scott Fumbles Abortion Questions After Announcing Possible Presidential Bid.” HuffPost. 13 Apr 2023.

    Enterprise Florida, Inc. Annual Report 2019-2020. Accessed 8 Nov 2023.

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    Turner, Jim. “State House panel backs shuttering Enterprise Florida.” WGCU. 31 Mar 2023.

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