Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: Top 5 fact-checks: Republican candidates take aim at Biden’s foreign policy in Miami debate

    MIAMI — President Joe Biden wasn’t among the presidential candidates debating Nov. 8, but his foreign policy took center stage among the Republicans vying for their party’s nomination.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., called Biden’s evacuation efforts for Americans in Israel “atrocious.” U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said there was “blood dripping” from Biden and former President Barack Obama’s hands after they sent money to Iran. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy criticized spending American tax dollars to help Ukraine, saying the country is not a “paragon of democracy.”

    PolitiFact examined 21 claims from the debate. Here, we’ll focus on five exchanges on foreign policy that stood out and needed context.

    1. DeSantis focused on Florida’s Israel evacuations, omitting State Department flights.

    DeSantis said he did more to rescue Americans stranded in Israel after it was attacked by Hamas than Biden did. 

    “I actually did something about it,” DeSantis said. “Biden’s neglect has been atrocious. We had Floridians that were over there after the attack. He left them stranded. They couldn’t get flights out. So I scrambled resources in Florida. I sent planes over to Israel and I brought back over 700 people to safety.”

    DeSantis did do something about it. So did the Biden administration.

    On Oct. 12, five days after the Hamas attack, the Biden administration said the U.S. government would arrange charter flights the next day so U.S. citizens and their immediate family members could depart Israel.

    The federal government offered 6,900 seats by air, land and sea to Americans in Israel. Through Oct. 31, about 1,500 U.S. citizens and their family members had left Israel via federal government transport, a State Department spokesperson told PolitiFact. 

    DeSantis signed an Oct. 12 executive order allowing Florida to evacuate Americans from Israel. Approximately 700 Americans have flown from Israel to Florida on four flights, according to information reported Oct. 24 by DeSantis’ office.

    DeSantis also said, “There could have been more hostages had we not acted.” But by the time the flights DeSantis chartered took place, Israel had already secured towns for days.

    Hamas took about 240 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack. Israel secured towns in the area by Oct. 10. The first flight DeSantis offered landed in Tampa on Oct. 15.

    2. DeSantis and Haley sparred over ties to China.

    Two of the former governors onstage, DeSantis and Nikki Haley, tore into the other’s efforts to recruit Chinese business to their state. 

    DeSantis accused Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, of having “welcomed” China into South Carolina, which she once governed, and giving them “land near a military base.” He also said she wrote the Chinese ambassador “a love letter saying what a great friend they were.” 

    DeSantis is right about the letter and the land. As South Carolina’s governor, Haley recruited multiple Chinese companies to the state, including fiberglass company China Jushi, which has connections to the Chinese Communist Party. 

    China Jushi was given land in Richland County, about 5 miles from the U.S. Army’s Fort Jackson training center.

    According to its contract with Richland County, China Jushi would receive nearly 200 free acres of land as long as it made certain investments, and created a certain number of jobs. If the obligations weren’t met, China Jushi had to pay back part of the land’s $4.9 million value.

    Haley wrote to Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai in 2014 during her governorship, according to Fox News. Fox reported that the letter said, “We consider your country a friend and are grateful for your contributions on the economic front.” 

    In turn, Haley attacked DeSantis’ government for recruiting Chinese business, too. 

    “You have a company that is a manufacturer of Chinese military planes. They are expanding to training sites at two of your airports now, one which is 12 miles away from a naval base,” she said.

    This is accurate. In 2022, Cirrus Aircraft — a subsidiary of China’s Aviation Industry Corp. — opened two locations in Florida, one of which was at the Orlando Executive Airport, about 12.7 miles from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division. The company manufactures planes, fighter jets and helicopters for the Chinese military. 

    Florida also had other contracts with Chinese companies through its former business-recruitment agency, Enterprise Florida, which DeSantis dissolved earlier this year. 

    Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, told PolitiFact that Cirrus came to Florida “of their own accord” under an anonymous project name. The Washington Post Fact Checker reported that it found no evidence that DeSantis recruited the company or gave it any state incentives.

    3. Scott took issue with Biden’s stance on Iran.

    Scott criticized Biden for a policy of “appeasement” toward Iran, which is both a major antagonist for U.S. foreign policy and a major supporter of Hamas in Gaza.

    “I would tell President Biden with great clarity, if you want to stop the 40-plus attacks on military personnel in the Middle East you have to strike in Iran,” Scott said. “You cannot just continue to have strikes in Syria, on warehouses. You actually have to cut off the head of the snake, and the head of the snake is Iran and not simply their proxies.”

    Scott said, “President Biden has sent billions to Iran.” This has been a common Republican talking point, but it’s misleading.

    In August, the U.S. announced an agreement with Iran to secure freedom for five U.S. citizens who’d been detained in the country in exchange for allowing Iran to access $6 billion of its own funds that had been frozen in South Korean banks. The money consisted of Iranian oil revenue sequestered since 2019, when then-President Donald Trump imposed a ban on Iranian oil exports and sanctions on its banking sector. (The $6 billion was not U.S. taxpayer money.)

    Even before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the agreement was politically divisive. But the White House has said that the money hasn’t been disbursed. And the deal required that Iran could access this money only to pay for humanitarian items, such as medicine and food.

    Nevertheless, experts say money is fungible: Once you have money or expect to get it soon, you can spend it however you want. 

    4. Ramaswamy criticized Ukraine and support for it by Biden and GOP rivals.

    Besides sparring over Israel and Hamas, the candidates criticized one another over another major world hotspot: Ukraine.

    Ramaswamy has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine more than some of his rivals. After raising Ukraine’s efforts to restrict opposition parties in this debate and the last one, he brought up religion this time, too.

    “Do you want to use U.S. taxpayer money to fund the banning of Christians? That is actually what’s happening. They’re using the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They have banned them. The Ukrainian parliament just did this last week, supported by our dollars.”

    We found this needs context.

    In October, Ukraine’s parliament took a step toward banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, though a ban has not been fully approved. The church was targeted for a ban because of alleged links to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

    Most Ukrainian Christians belong to a different entity, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was formed by a 2018 merger of two churches that have no Russian ties. 

    The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the religious home of about 4% of the Ukrainian population, Reuters reported, citing data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church opposes the proposed ban, arguing that it severed ties to Russia after the invasion. But a government commission ruled the church is still canonically linked to Russia, Reuters reported.

    5. Hugh Hewitt really wanted to talk about naval ships, so the candidates did.

    Hugh Hewitt, a conservative broadcaster who co-hosted the debate with NBC News, asked the candidates for their positions on U.S. naval capabilities.

    He asked Haley, who served in Trump’s Cabinet, about Trump’s “goal” of “a 355 ship Navy. … It got to 300. it’s now at 291. Is that big enough to deter and if necessary, defeat an invasion of Taiwan?”

    Haley agreed that this was a concern. “China has the largest naval fleet in the world,” she said. “They have 350 ships, they’ll have 400 ships in two years, we won’t even have 350 ships in two decades.”

    Haley’s numbers were about right, though comparing ship counts doesn’t tell the full story.

    The Pentagon’s 2022 China Military Power Report said that China’s navy had about 340 warships and is expected to grow to 400 in the next two years. The U.S. fleet is smaller than 300 ships, with a goal of 350 by 2045, according to the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan for 2022.

    Naval ship counts have been a presidential campaign topic going back to 2012. As we noted in a fact-check then, ship counts sidestep other factors, including ships’ capabilities and advanced technologies the ships might deploy.

    The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has called ship counts “a one-dimensional measure.” 

    Lance Janda, a Cameron University military historian, cautioned against exaggerating the comparison between the two countries.

    “The U.S. Navy has greater tonnage by a pretty wide margin, which is a fancy way of saying we have more large vessels,” Janda said. “The Chinese build a lot of smaller ships, and their fleet is still primarily a regional force. Ours is a true blue water navy capable of deploying anywhere in the world for an extended period, and we have many more aircraft carriers, far more naval aircraft, more advanced submarines, and a larger Marine Corps.”



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  • Fact Check: Fact-checking the third GOP presidential debate in Miami

    This is a developing story. Refresh your browser to read the most up-to-date version.

    MIAMI—Five Republicans seeking to oust President Joe Biden from the White House in 2024 sparred over the Israel-Hamas war, the threat from China and the U.S. approach to terrorism in the third presidential primary debate.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., gathered at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.

    They repeatedly expressed support for Israel and decried Hamas, while criticizing Biden for his administration’s response. They also ventured into familiar stump topics, including how to secure the southern border, how to fight fentanyl flow and when to ban abortions. 

    A half-hour’s drive away, at a rally in Hialeah, Florida, former President Donald Trump painted a grave picture of America under Biden, attacking his policies on immigration, the economy and oil production. Trump proclaimed himself as the one to fix America — reprising his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” — and as the only candidate who could prevent a potential World War III.

    Here are some of the claims we checked during the Miami debate:

    Israel-Hamas war

    Ron DeSantis: “We had Floridians that were over there after the attack. He (Biden) left them stranded; they couldn’t get flights out. So I scrambled resources in Florida. I sent planes over to Israel and I brought back over 700 people to safety.” 

    This gives the misleading impression that the Biden administration failed to evacuate Americans, but that’s not the case.

    On Oct. 12, the Biden administration announced that the next day that the U.S. government would arrange charter flights to assist U.S. citizens and their immediate family members to depart Israel.

    The federal government offered 6,900 seats by air, land, and sea  to Americans in Israel. Through Oct. 31, about 1,500 U.S. citizens and their family members had left Israel via federal government transport, a State Department spokesperson told PolitiFact. 

    DeSantis signed an Oct. 12 executive order allowing the state of Florida to evacuate Americans from Israel. Approximately 700 Americans have flown from Israel to Florida on four flights, according to information reported Oct. 24 by DeSantis’ office.

    The Florida Division of Emergency Management told PolitiFact that the flights will cost about $32 million. The flights were free for passengers.

    DeSantis: “There could have been more hostages” had Florida not sent planes to Israel to evacuate Americans. 

    We can’t rate a hypothetical, but this statement ignores the timeline of when hostages were taken.

    Multiple media outlets reported that Hamas took about 240 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

    Israel had secured towns in the area by Oct. 10.

    On Oct. 12, DeSantis signed an executive order allowing Florida to evacuate Americans from Israel. The first flight offered by DeSantis landed in Tampa on Oct. 15.

    Chris Christie: While U.S. attorney in New Jersey after 9/11, “We stopped any hate crimes that were going on, either against Jewish Americans in New Jersey or Muslim Americans in New Jersey.”

    The Asbury Park Press ran the numbers in 2016. Hate crimes did, in fact, drop.

    Total reported hate crimes in 2010 numbered 775, the newspaper reported. The total number of hate crimes then dropped each year through 2015 — from 606, to 553, 459, 373 and, finally, 367 in 2015.

    Religiously motivated hate crimes also trended downward until 2015. That year they increased nearly 10 percent in New Jersey.

    DeSantis: “I already acted in Florida. We had a group Students for Justice of Palestine; they said they are common cause with Hamas, they said we’re not just in solidarity, this is what we are. We deactivated them.”

    This doesn’t tell the whole story. There were no Florida chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine that made public statements about aligning with Hamas.

    The group’s national body referred to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel as “the resistance” in an Oct. 12 toolkit that included advice campus chapters could use to host protests in support of Palestinians. In one section, the toolkit stated that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.” 

    This language spurred DeSantis to close chapters on Florida campuses, citing a state law about “knowingly provid(ing) material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.” This affected chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.

    First Amendment and constitutional law experts expressed doubt about DeSantis’ use of the law and said the anti-terrorism statute doesn’t apply to speech.

    Tim Scott: “I believe that we have sleeper terrorist cells in America. Thousands of people have come from Yemen, Iran, Syria and Iraq.”

    This needs context. 

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection releases the number of times immigration officials encounter a known or suspected terrorist each fiscal year. But the government doesn’t disclose the nationalities of the people apprehended.

    Data about how many people from Yemen, Iran, Syria and Iraq have crossed U.S. borders under President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t available. 

    In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2023, CBP encountered a person on the terrorist watchlist 591 times. The majority of those encounters occurred at ports of entry on the northern border.  People from this list who are encountered at the border can be denied entry into the United States.

    Scott’s comment came as he discussed southern border security. However, Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, recently testified to Congress that his analysis of terrorist attacks in the U.S. from 1975 to 2022 showed that none of the people involved had crossed the southern border illegally.

    Russia-Ukraine war

    Vivek Ramaswamy: “Do you want to use U.S. taxpayer money to fund the banning of Christians? That is actually what’s happening. They’re using the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They have banned them. The Ukrainian parliament just did this last week, supported by our dollars.”

    This needs context.

    In October, Ukraine’s parliament took a step toward banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, though a ban has not been fully approved.

    Ramaswamy glossed over that the church was targeted for a ban because of alleged links to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

    Most Ukrainian Christians belong to a different entity, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was formed by a 2018 merger of two churches that have no Russian ties. 

    The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the religious home of about 4% of the Ukrainian population, Reuters reported, citing data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

    The Ukrainian Orthodox Church opposes the proposed ban, arguing that it severed ties to Russia after the invasion. But a government commission ruled the church is still canonically linked to Russia, Reuters reported.

    Ramaswamy: “Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden got a $5 million bribe from Ukraine. That’s why we’re sending $200 billion back to that same country.”

    Bribery allegations against Hunter Biden are unsubstantiated. They stem from a 2020 form that FBI agents use to record unverified reporting from confidential human sources. An FBI official told the House Oversight Committee that allegations on the confidential reporting forms aren’t verified. 

    An unnamed informant said that Mykola Zlochevsky, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma who was under investigation for money laundering and tax evasion, paid $5 million to both Joe Biden and Hunter Biden to convince the elder Biden to advocate for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

    News stories said the Justice Department closed an investigation into the matter after reviewing the claims and finding them not credible. 

    Devon Archer, who served on Burisma’s board with Hunter Biden, denied the bribery allegations in August testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

    Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. Congress has allocated $113 billion for Ukraine. Citing the Ukrainian government, Fox News reported in February that the U.S. had provided $196 billion in total military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but that number has been called into question.

    Environment

    Nikki Haley: DeSantis “has opposed fracking. He’s opposed drilling.”

    This is Half True.

    During his 2018 gubernatorial run in Florida, Ron DeSantis promised on his campaign website to “work to ban fracking” in Florida and “fight to prevent oil drilling off Florida’s coast.”

    In November 2018, Florida voters also approved a constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling for oil and natural gas on lands beneath state waters.

    As a presidential candidate, DeSantis has said he will honor Florida’s ban, but is open to fracking elsewhere.

    DeSantis: “I’m taking all the Biden regulations, the Green New Deal, ripping it up and throwing it in the trash can where it belongs.” 

    This is misleading. The Green New Deal — a congressional resolution that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and take other steps to curb climate change — has not passed.

    The Green New Deal was introduced in 2019 in both the House and the Senate and reintroduced in both chambers this year. But it didn’t get far. It has been only referred to the appropriate committees in both chambers.

    The resolution would be nonbinding and not legislation, even if passed.

    Abortion

    Scott: “Three out of four Americans agree with a 15-week limit” on abortion.

    Survey data varies on this question. 

    A June 2023 poll sponsored by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, and conducted by the Tarrance Group, found that 77% of respondents said abortions should be prohibited at conception, after six weeks or after 15 weeks. But this poll was sponsored by a group with a position on the issue, and both questions told respondents that fetuses can feel pain at 15 weeks — an assertion that is not universal consensus among medical experts.

    Independent polls varied on the question of an abortion ban after 15 weeks.

    A July 2022 survey from Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies and the Harris Poll found that 23% of respondents said their state should ban abortion after 15 weeks, 12% said it should be banned at six weeks and 37% said it should be allowed only in cases of rape and incest. Collectively, that’s 72% who supported a ban at 15 weeks or less.

    In two subsequent polls, the support for abortion at 15 weeks or less was less strong. A September 2022 Economist/YouGov poll found that 39% of respondents supported a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, and 46% opposed it. And a June 2023 Associated Press-NORC poll found that for abortion up to 15 weeks, 51% of respondents said they would allow it, and 45% said they would ban it.

    Scott: States like California, New York and Illinois “allow for abortions up until the day of birth.”

    This is misleading.

    Reproductive health experts say this rhetoric gives the impression that abortions often happen this late in a pregnancy. But this is not so, even in states with liberal abortion laws.

    In California, New York and Illinois, abortion is legal up until fetal viability, or at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion in these states is also legal when the mother’s life is at risk.

    The vast majority of abortions in the U.S., about 91%, occur in the first trimester. About 1% take place after 21 weeks, and less than 1% occur in the third trimester, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    U.S. southern border

    DeSantis: “If someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fentanyl across the border when I’m president, that’s gonna be the last thing they do. We’re gonna shoot them stone-cold dead.”

    Experts told us DeSantis’ proposal to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border wouldn’t lower fentanyl flow. And the use of deadly force against people trafficking fentanyl would likely violate domestic and international law.

    Most fentanyl is seized at official ports of entry, while most migrants try to cross the border between official points of entry, CBP data shows. And in 2022, 89% of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers were U.S. citizens. 

    Sending troops across the U.S. southern border without Mexico’s consent would be considered an act of war, foreign policy experts told us, though they said it’s unlikely the Mexican government would respond with force or declare war against the U.S. 

    Immigration officials may use deadly force, but “only when necessary” in situations in which someone poses “imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death” to those officials or other people. And killing people over suspicions that they are carrying drugs would be considered an extrajudicial killing, an expert told us.

    China’s military power

    Haley: “China has the largest naval fleet in the world. They have 350 ships, they’ll have 400 ships in two years, we won’t even have 350 ships in two decades.”

    Haley’s numbers are about right, but comparing ship counts doesn’t tell the full story.

    The Pentagon’s China Military Power Report for 2022 said that China’s navy had about 340 warships and is expected to grow to 400 in the next two years. The U.S. fleet is smaller than 300 ships, with a goal of 350 by 2045, according to the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan for 2022.

    But, as we noted in 2012, ship counts sidestep other factors, including those ships’ capabilities and advanced technologies the ships might deploy.

    The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has called ship counts “a one-dimensional measure.”

    The agency said ship counts “can shed some light” on the long-term trajectory of a naval force’s size. But the group added that using ship numbers on their own to compare China and the U.S. “are highly problematic as a means of assessing relative U.S. and Chinese naval capabilities and how those capabilities compare to the missions assigned to the two navies.”

    DeSantis: Haley “welcomed” China into South Carolina, “gave them land near a military base (and) wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were.” 

    DeSantis’s claims about the letter and the land are accurate. As South Carolina’s governor, Haley recruited multiple Chinese companies to the state, including a fiberglass company China Jushi, which has connections to the Chinese Communist Party. 

    China Jushi was given land in Richland County, about 5 miles from the U.S. Army’s Fort Jackson training center.

    According to the contract between China Jushi, and Richland County, the company would receive nearly 200 free acres of land as long as it made certain investments, including creating a certain number of jobs. If the obligations weren’t met, China Jushi had to pay back part of the land’s $4.9 million value.

    Haley wrote to Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai in 2014 during her governorship, according to Fox News. Fox reported that the letter said, “We consider your country a friend and are grateful for your contributions on the economic front.” 

    Haley in recent years has become increasingly aggressive about China and throughout her presidential campaign has warned against growing Chinese investments in the U.S.

    Taxes and the economy

    Scott: “When we cut taxes in 2017, I wrote the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Everybody said, ‘Well, guess what? Revenue will go down.’ Well, in 2018 … revenue went up by 3%, and the next year, it went up by another 3%.”

    This cherry-picks the data.

    If you look at the sheer number of dollars collected, irrespective of inflation, the overall economy’s size or other factors, tax revenue increased, but only by 0.4% from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2018. It rose faster from 2018 to 2019, by 4%.

    Another way to examine Scott’s claim is by looking at tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product, a measure of all economic activity.

    By this measure, tax revenue as a share of GDP declined 0.8% from 2017 to 2018. From 2018 to 2019, tax revenues remained flat at 16.4%.

    Ramaswamy: Says he will implement a “75% head count reduction” among federal employees.

    The claim that a president could unilaterally undertake sweeping federal layoffs is contested.

    Ramaswamy has argued that he could circumvent laws prohibiting the firing of civil servants for political reasons by laying them off en masse instead of individually. The power to order layoffs rests with federal agency heads, so Ramaswamy has said he would appoint people prepared to undertake mass layoffs. He has said he plans to shutter entire federal agencies including the FBI, the Education Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Food and Nutrition Service.

    Legal experts say that maintaining and eliminating federal agencies requires congressional approval. Congress could challenge Ramaswamy’s argument in court on the grounds that it never authorized the president to make sweeping cuts, experts said.

    Conservative Supreme Court justices, who comprise the current court’s majority, have been wary of presidential powers that Congress has not clearly authorized.

    PolitiFact Staff Writers Grace Abels, Louis Jacobson, Samatha Putterman, Jeff Cercone, Madison Czopek, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Amy Sherman, Aaron Sharockman, Sara Swann and Loreben Tuquero contributed to this report.​



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  • Fact Check: No, this video doesn’t show New York Attorney General Letitia James criticizing President Joe Biden

    A recent Facebook post makes it look as if New York Attorney General Letitia James is criticizing her party’s leader: President Joe Biden. 

    “LETITIA JAMES: I believe this president is an embarrassment to all that we stand for,” the Oct. 30 post says. 

    In the post’s video, James says, “I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president” and “I believe that this president is incompetent” as clips of Biden appear. 

    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 video footage of James is authentic, but she was talking about then-President Donald Trump, not Biden. The clip comes from a 2018 video James made when she was campaigning to become New York’s attorney general. 

    We rate claims that the video shows James criticizing Biden False.

     



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  • Fact Check: Pro-Palestinian protest video shows flags of an Indian political party, not Italy’s

    A video of a pro-Palestinian demonstration is being shared on social media as an example of a gaffe. 

    In the video, people can be seen walking down the street waving flags with a green, a white and a red stripe.

    Signs read: “Save Gaza,” “Stand with Palastine” — misspelling “Palestine” — and “Welfare Party Kerala.” 

    Text over the video says: “Protesters in Kerala India accidentally brought the Italian flag instead of the Palestine flag to pro-Hamas protest.”

    An Oct. 21 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.)

    Although the flags demonstrators wave in the video resemble the Italian flag, they’re actually flags for the Welfare Party of India. An illustration of the green, white and red flag appears next to the words “Welfare Party” on one of the signs.

    The Kerala branch of the Welfare Party posted on X on Oct. 22 that “the Welfare Party Kerala State Committee organized a massive rally and public conference in the city of Kozhikode, Kerala, to protest Israel’s war crimes and massacres in Gaza and express solidarity with the people of Gaza.”

    “It has come to our attention,” the party continued on X, that some people are “spreading false propaganda” and claiming “that the national flag of Italy was used instead of the Palestinian flag in the aforementioned rally. This campaign is rooted in the similarities between the colors of the Welfare Party flag and that national flag of Italy.” 

    We rate claims protesters in India accidentally used an Italian flag instead of a Palestinian one False.

     



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  • RFK Jr. Incorrectly Denies Past Remarks on Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness

    In a “PBS NewsHour” interview, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly denied previously saying that “no vaccine” is safe and effective. But Kennedy said exactly that on the Lex Fridman podcast in July.

    Kennedy, who is a former Democrat, also repeated a favorite — but incorrect — talking point that vaccines are the “only medical product … that is allowed to get a license without engaging in safety tests.” As we’ve written before, when detailing many of the misleading or false claims Kennedy has made about vaccines while on the campaign trail, all vaccines undergo safety testing prior to authorization or approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

    Kennedy’s false statements about his past comments on vaccines occurred about two-thirds of the way into an interview with “PBS NewsHour” co-anchor Amna Nawaz, when he objected to her description of him being “part of the anti-vaccine movement” and having “controversial views on vaccines.”

    Nawaz, Nov. 7: Let me ask you, if I may, let me ask you about a specific concern your family has expressed in the past, which is your controversial views on vaccines and being part of the anti-vaccine movement.

    (Crosstalk)

    Kennedy: Well, what are my views on vaccines?

    Nawaz: Well, you have said previously that no vaccine is safe or effective, which is…

    (Crosstalk)

    Kennedy: I have never said that.

    Nawaz: You did say that in a podcast interview in July.

    Kennedy: No, I never said that.

    Nawaz: You did say that. There are quotes, and that recording is there.

    Kennedy: You are wrong. And you’re making something up.

    Kennedy proceeded to deny saying “no vaccine” is safe and effective when he avoided answering Nawaz’s question of whether he believes in the statement.

    Nawaz: So you do not believe the statement that no vaccine is safe and effective?

    Kennedy: I never said that.

    Nawaz: According to these reports and the recordings, you have, in a podcast interview in July.

    (Crosstalk)

    Kennedy: That’s the problem. If you are reading reports about me in the mainstream media, including this network, they’re almost all inaccurate.

    Kennedy ended the exchange by asking for Nawaz to show him “a statement, not evidence of a statement.”

    Kennedy, in fact, made the claim in a July episode of the Lex Fridman podcast.

    Fridman, July 6: You’ve talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer, and you’ve said that you’re not anti-vaccine, you’re pro-safe vaccine. Difficult question: Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?

    Kennedy: I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

    At the time, Fridman pushed Kennedy on the issue, noting that those were “big words” — and asked about the polio vaccine. Kennedy then misleadingly suggested that the polio vaccines given to his generation caused cancer — despite no evidence that this is true.

    Kennedy: The polio vaccine contained a virus called simian virus 40, SV40. It’s one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man. In fact, it’s used now by scientists around the world to induce tumors in rats and guinea pigs in labs. But it was in that vaccine — 98 million people who got that vaccine, and my generation got it, and now you’ve had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that killed many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.

    So if you say to me, “The polio vaccine, was it effective against polio?” I’m going to say, Yes. And if you say to me, “Did it kill more people … did it caused more death than averted?” I would say, “I don’t know, because we don’t have the data on that.”

    As we’ve explained before, a portion — but not all — of the approximately 100 million Americans vaccinated between 1955 and 1963 for polio received vaccines that were contaminated with SV40. But the virus, which causes cancer in rodents, has not been shown to cause cancer in humans. And there isn’t evidence that people who were vaccinated developed cancer at a higher rate than those who were not.

    In the course of denying his past statements in the “PBS NewsHour” interview, Kennedy also repeated a go-to line about vaccine safety testing.

    “I’m happy to say that my views are that vaccines should be tested, like all other medications are tested. They should have placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure,” he said. “It’s the only medical product, the only medical product or medical device that is allowed to get a license without engaging in safety tests.”

    This is incorrect or misleading on several fronts, as we’ve explained before. All vaccines undergo safety testing prior to authorization or approval. But — just as with drugs — the safety tests do not have to be placebo-controlled trials that use water or saline as a placebo.

    There are valid scientific and ethical reasons not to use placebos, such as when debuting a newer version of an existing vaccine. Moreover, numerous vaccines — most notably the COVID-19 shots — were in fact tested in placebo-controlled trials.

    After authorization or approval, vaccine safety continues to be monitored, as no medical product is 100% safe, and even very large trials may not be able to detect rare side effects. This ensures the benefits of a vaccine outweigh the risks.


    Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.

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  • Fact Check: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe permitted ‘Zuckerbucks’ in 2020 is Pants on Fire

    A new TV ad attacking Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for not impeaching Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s top elections administrator, repeats misleading claims about Wolfe’s involvement with outside funding given to Wisconsin local clerks during the 2020 election.

    The ad claims Wolfe permitted clerks to accept money from an election assistance group backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg and his wife. A full-page newspaper ad that ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes a similar claim.

    “She permitted the ‘Zuckerbucks’ influence money,” a voiceover narrates in the ad.

    However, Wolfe did not decide to accept money from the Zuckerbergs’ group, nor did she have power over decisions by local clerks to do so.

    Impeachment articles riddled with falsehoods

    First, in an earlier review, we found all 15 impeachment articles against Wolfe contain misleading or false claims about how elections administration works in Wisconsin.

    That hasn’t stopped the Wisconsin Election Committee, Inc. from running ads on Milwaukee-area TV and radio stations threatening to recall Vos or launch a primary challenge if he doesn’t move forward with impeachment against Wolfe. 

    Vos advanced the impeachment articles to an Assembly committee shortly after the ad launched.

    More: PolitiFact: Impeachment articles against Meagan Wolfe riddled with false and misleading claims

    The group is led by Adam Steen, who unsuccessfully launched a primary challenge against Vos in 2022, and Harry Wait, a Racine County man who was charged last year for fraudulently obtaining absentee ballots.

    The group’s TV ad makes multiple false claims about Wolfe, one of which blames her for allowing local clerks to accept more than $10 million from the Zuckerburgs’ group, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, founded to help conduct the presidential election during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The ad also makes false claims about Wolfe’s role in Wisconsin Elections Commission decisions ahead of the 2020 election and falsely blames her for mismanaging Wisconsin’s voter rolls.

    More: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe refused to ‘clean up’ voter rolls is Pants on Fire

    More: Claim that Wisconsin official Meagan Wolfe allowed absentee drop boxes, ballot harvesting is false

    When asked to provide evidence for the ad’s claims, Wait provided documents from summarizing state lawsuits that HOT Government, a group focused on false election claims, cited as proof Wolfe acted illegally. The documents did not cite grants from Zuckerberg’s group.

    He also provided an election report from former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman that found no evidence of election fraud.

    Local clerks, not Wolfe, accepted money

    Most of the funds were directed to Wisconsin’s five largest cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine, where Democratic voters are concentrated. 

    However, local municipal governments legally voted to accept the funding. It was not a decision made by the WEC and Wolfe. 

    Republicans have tried but failed on nearly a half dozen occasions in court to claim local clerks’ decisions to accept private grants and outside consultants for state elections administration was illegal.

    More: Grants to five cities are at the heart of Wisconsin Republicans’ election review. Here are the activities under scrutiny

    More: Judge: No apparent law against cities using private grants to help stage elections during pandemic

    Our ruling

    In a TV ad, the Wisconsin Election Committee claims Wolfe “permitted the ‘Zuckerbucks’ influence money.”

    But that funding, from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, was accepted by local clerks. The commission and Wolfe played no role in soliciting, collecting or distributing the money. That makes this claim not only false, but ridiculous.

    We rate it Pants on Fire.



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  • Fact Check: Claim that Wisconsin official Meagan Wolfe allowed absentee drop boxes, ballot harvesting is false

    A new TV ad attacking Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for not impeaching Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s top elections administrator, pushes previously debunked election disinformation about absentee ballot drop boxes and ballot collection.

    “It’s Ms. Wolfe that allowed for the use of illegal drop boxes and ballot harvesting,” a voiceover narrates in the ad. A full-page newspaper ad that has run in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes a similar claim.

    However, Wolfe did not make decisions about illegal ballot drop boxes or ballot harvesting, nor does she have the power to do so.

    Impeachment articles riddled with falsehoods

    First, in an earlier review, we found all 15 impeachment articles against Wolfe contain misleading or false claims about how elections administration works in Wisconsin.

     

    That hasn’t stopped the Wisconsin Election Committee, Inc. from running ads on Milwaukee-area TV and radio stations threatening to recall Vos or launch a primary challenge if he doesn’t move forward with impeachment against Wolfe.

    Vos advanced the impeachment articles to an Assembly committee shortly after the ad launched.

    More: PolitiFact: Impeachment articles against Meagan Wolfe riddled with false and misleading claims

    The group is led by Adam Steen, who unsuccessfully launched a primary challenge against Vos in 2022, and Harry Wait, a Racine County man who was charged last year for fraudulently obtaining absentee ballots.

    The group’s TV ad makes multiple false claims about Wolfe, one of which blames her for decisions made by the bipartisan panel of six commissioners who oversee the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

    The ad also makes false claims about Wolfe’s role in third-party financial assistance for 2020 election operations and falsely blames her for mismanaging Wisconsin’s voter rolls.

    More: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe refused to ‘clean up’ voter rolls is Pants on Fire

    More: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe permitted ‘Zuckerbucks’ in 2020 is Pants on Fire

    When asked to provide evidence for the ad’s claims, Wait provided documents from summarizing state lawsuits that HOT Government, a group focused on false election claims, cited as proof Wolfe acted illegally.

    He also provided an election report from former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman that found no evidence of election fraud.

    Some lawsuits cited were irrelevant to the impeachment case against Wolfe. Those that were relevant framed Wolfe’s communications to local clerks as allowing or permitting actions Wolfe did not have voting power to determine. That power lies with state elections commissioners. 

    Even then, the commission decisions cited as unlawful were legally unchallenged when commissioners voted on them in 2020.

    Wolfe follows WEC policy but does not make it

    Wolfe in her position is bound by law to execute duties based on commissioners’ decisions. She cannot vote on the decisions.

    Therefore, Wolfe did not “allow” the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election, something that was unchallenged in 2020 but deemed illegal in a July 2022 state Supreme Court ruling that applied to elections going forward. Drop boxes were used for decades before the 2020 elections.

    Furthermore, Wolfe did not make the decision to allow so-called “ballot harvesting,” or collecting absentee ballots, in nursing homes. The commissioners who oversee her position unanimously voted in March 2020 to send absentee voting ballots to long-term care facilities without the use of special voting deputies in the 2020 presidential election. 

    Commissioners said they advised mailing absentee ballots to the facilities to protect a population vulnerable to COVID-19 and ensure the ballots got to the voters in enough time to cast them because most facilities were barring visitors at the time.

    More: How nursing home voting in Wisconsin became a focus of Republicans scrutinizing the 2020 election

    Our ruling

    A TV ad from Wisconsin Elections Committee, Inc. claimed Wolfe “allowed for the use of illegal drop boxes and ballot harvesting.”

    Both claims against Wolfe blame her for decisions she did not make and peddle misleading claims that have already been debunked. That said, the commission itself does have a role to play in this area, which in our view did not push the claim to being considered ridiculous.

    We rate this claim False.



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  • Fact Check: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe refused to ‘clean up’ voter rolls is Pants on Fire

    A new TV ad attacking Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for not impeaching Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s top elections administrator, misleadingly accuses Wolfe of mismanaging state voter rolls.

     

    “She refuses to clean up our voter rolls,” a voiceover narrates in the ad. A full-page newspaper ad that ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes a similar claim.

     

    However, alleged voter roll issues cited in the impeachment case the ad supports ignore state law governing Wisconsin’s voter lists – and falsely place the blame at Wolfe’s feet.

     

    Impeachment articles riddled with falsehoods

     

    First, in an earlier review, we found all 15 impeachment articles against Wolfe contain misleading or false claims about how elections administration works in Wisconsin.

    That hasn’t stopped the Wisconsin Election Committee, Inc. from running ads on Milwaukee-area TV and radio stations threatening to recall Vos or launch a primary challenge if he doesn’t move forward with impeachment against Wolfe. 

     

    Vos advanced the impeachment articles to an Assembly committee shortly after the ad launched.

     

    More: PolitiFact: Impeachment articles against Meagan Wolfe riddled with false and misleading claims

     

    The group is led by Adam Steen, who unsuccessfully launched a primary challenge against Vos in 2022, and Harry Wait, a Racine County man who was charged last year for fraudulently obtaining absentee ballots.

     

    The group’s TV ad makes multiple false claims about Wolfe, one of which accuses her of mismanaging Wisconsin’s voter rolls.

     

    The ad also makes false claims about Wolfe’s role in third-party financial assistance for 2020 election operations and falsely blames her for absentee voting decisions made by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

    More: Claim that Wisconsin official Meagan Wolfe allowed absentee drop boxes, ballot harvesting is false

    More: Claim that Wis. elections official Meagan Wolfe permitted ‘Zuckerbucks’ in 2020 is Pants on Fire

    When asked to provide evidence for the ad’s claims, Wait provided documents from summarizing state lawsuits that HOT Government, a group focused on false election claims, cited as proof Wolfe acted illegally. The documents did not cite cases alleging Wolfe mismanaged voter rolls.

    He also provided an election report from former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman that found no evidence of election fraud.

     

    Impeachment articles inflate number of registered Wisconsin voters

     

    The impeachment articles against Wolfe misleadingly state Wisconsin has more than 7 million voters on its rolls. For reference, Wisconsin’s state population was 5.9 million in the 2020 census.

    The problem is that lawmakers who drafted the impeachment articles added more than 3.5 million inactive voters — people who are dead, moved to another state or are in any other way deemed ineligible to vote — to the number of active, registered voters to reach an inaccurate figure.

     

    Inactive voters are not registered voters. Wisconsin law requires WEC to maintain an active and inactive voter list, meaning Wolfe cannot purge the inactive voter list.

     

    State law also bars inactive voters from voting in Wisconsin elections unless they reregister and provide proof of in-state residence. 

     

    Furthermore, neither the WEC nor Wolfe is responsible for removing voters who may have moved from the rolls. State law assigns that responsibility to local elections officials, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2021, and anyone who may have moved must affirm their address before receiving a ballot.

     

    The WEC’s most recent voter registration data from Nov. 1 found Wisconsin had approximately 3.5 million active registered voters.

    Our ruling

    A TV ad from the Wisconsin Election Committee claims Wolfe “refuses to clean up our voter rolls.” 

     

    However, the ad relied on impeachment articles that make false claims about the number of registered voters in Wisconsin, a process outlined in state law that Wolfe cannot change. Indeed, the responsibility for purging the vioter rolls belongs to local election officials, not to the state commission or Wolfe.

     

    That makes the claim not only false, but ridiculous. 

     

    We rate it Pants on Fire.

     



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  • Fact Check: Video does not show Israel bombing hospitals; footage predates the current crisis

    What appears to be closed-circuit television footage that shows explosions in a medical facility is being mischaracterized as violence in the Israel-Hamas war continues. 

    “Israel Zionist blowing up people in hospitals,” reads text above the video. 

    A Nov. 3 Instagram post sharing the footage 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.)

    These video clips have been online since at least July 2016. 

    AMC Media Production, which describes itself as a “Middle Eastern documentary film production company” that emerged in 2012 amid the Syrian Civil War, posted the footage on YouTube that year with this description, translated from Arabic to English by Google: “Moments documenting the crime: ‘The airstrike that targeted Omar bin Abdulaziz Hospital in mid-July.” 

    The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders told The Washington Post in November 2016 that Omar bin Abdul Aziz Hospital in Aleppo, Syria, had been attacked 30 times since “government-allied forces besieged the area in July.” 

    “Over the course of 45 days this summer in June and July, Omar Ibdn Abdel Aziz was hit by at least three airstrikes,” The Intercept said in July 2016. The Syrian Civil War continues.

    But we rate claims this video shows Israeli airstrikes in 2023 False.

     



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  • Fact Check: How to watch the third Republican debate, follow live fact-checks

    It will be a smaller crowd on the third Republican primary debate stage in Miami, with stricter qualifying criteria and former Vice President Mike Pence’s exit from the race trimming the pack.

    Five candidates will debate Wednesday, Nov. 8, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.

    Former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, will not attend the debate and will hold a rally the same night in Hialeah, Florida, according to The Associated Press. 

    PolitiFact is hosting a live staff roundtable discussion on debate night for United Facts of America, our annual festival of fact-checking. Join us at 7 p.m. ET for this behind-the-scenes look at our process. 

    How to watch the third Republican debate

    The Republican National Committee has partnered NBC News, the Republican Jewish Coalition, Salem Radio Network and Rumble for the third debate, which starts at 8 p.m. E.T.

    NBC News will host, with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt, “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker and Salem Radio Network host Hugh Hewitt moderating the event. Viewers can also stream the debate on NBC News’ website or Rumble. 

    How can I follow PolitiFact’s live debate fact-checks?

    PolitiFact will fact-check the debate live on our website and across our social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). We’ll be working again with our partner ABC News to provide fact-checking of candidates on the ABC debate live blog.

    If you prefer a roundup of the most notable claims from the debate, subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get our fact-checking sent straight to your inbox. 

    Hear something we should check? Suggest a fact-check of a candidates’ claim by emailing [email protected]

    How has PolitiFact rated the GOP candidates participating in the third debate? 

    Here’s how PolitiFact has rated statements made by the Republican presidential candidates using our Truth-O-Meter, which helps us rate claims based on their relative accuracy. 

    Ron DeSantis has been rated 54 times since 2013.

    Nikki Haley has been rated 20 times since 2012. 

    Chris Christie has been rated 106 times since 2011.

    Tim Scott has been rated 10 times since 2012. 

    Vivek Ramaswamy has been rated eight times since 2023. 



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