Although Donald Trump is a former president and aspiring to a second term, he doesn’t control the U.S. military, as a recent Facebook post claims.
“Trump controls US military!” the Oct. 4 post says.
It 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 post’s 33-minute video provides no credible evidence to support this claim. Perhaps because there is none.
Rather, it’s a montage of clips including unrelated Fox News broadcasts, TikTok videos and social media posts.
President Joe Biden is commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, giving him authority to make decisions affecting each of the military branches. But, as the bipartisan Stennis Center for Public Service points out, the Constitution also gives Congress power to oversee the military.
Media magnate Oprah Winfrey has been a regular target of misinformation since wildfires ravaged Maui, Hawaii, in August.
Now a Facebook post suggests she’s connected to the disappearance of more than a dozen missing children on the island.
“Oprah FREAKS OUT after 15 kids are finally found on Maui,” reads text over a video shared Oct. 2 on Facebook. The words “save the children” appear below it.
“Why are people speculating about Oprah for this incident?” someone in the video says. “Is she involved in such a horrific alleged act? You are about to find out.”
The narrator later says, “There are still some children unaccounted for, so in light of Oprah’s alleged past involvement in similar incidents, some individuals are now raising awareness about her possible connection to this supposed latest tragedy.”
The video then cuts to a man saying, “Where are the kids, Oprah? It was only two and a half weeks ago, and now we’re not allowed to talk about it, we’re not free in this country.”
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 no credible news reports or other authoritative sources to corroborate this post’s claim. We did find a YouTube video that includes some of the clips in the Instagram post’s video, and it refers to an unfounded and debunked story about Navy SEALs finding “15 missing Maui children imprisoned in padlocked cages lined with piddle pads.”
Around the time that story was published Sept. 17, only one of 31 people unaccounted for was a known minor, according to the Maui Police Department and FBI.
We rate claims that Oprah “freaked out” over this fake news story, much less that she’s responsible for missing minors in Maui, False.
“Big news!” a recent Instagram post said. “Trump is commander & chief.”
The supposed evidence that former President Donald Trump is still running the nation is offered in a video in the Oct. 3 post.
“This was Dan Scavino posting a clip of President Trump departing Costa Mesa,” a narrator in the video said. “You can see President Trump posing there with the police … he’s got those guards all around him and he’s got the Secret Service all around him. Guys, we’ve seen the vehicles all around him. Many people are posting, look, there’s no way that he’s got all those vehicles, medical, comms, truck, unless he’s running the nation, unless he’s the commander in chief.”
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 post refers to a video shared Sept. 30 on Instagram by Dan Scavino Jr., a Trump adviser.
“45 department beautiful Costa Mesa, California!” Scavino wrote. “#TRUMP2024 #MAGA #USA.”
Scavino was in Costa Mesa for a ticketed “special evening event” with the former president.
Scavino’s video shows Trump posing for a photo with several armed police officers, leaving a building and waving at supporters. Flashing lights are visible from emergency service vehicles.
The video then cuts to what appears to be a recording shot from inside Scavino’s moving car. It shows more supporters bearing flags and waving, while some police and medical vehicles line the road.
Trump is not the commander in chief. President Joe Biden now holds that role.
It’s not unusual for a former president to come under protection after leaving office, or for local agencies to help. In June, for example, the Columbus Police Department in Georgia provided a motorcade for Trump.
In 1965, Congress authorized the Secret Service to protect former presidents and their spouses during their lifetime. Major presidential and vice presidential candidates can also receive Secret Service protection.
“In order to maintain a safe environment for the president and other protectees, the Secret Service calls upon other federal, state and local agencies to assist on a daily basis,” the Secret Service says.
We rate claims Trump is commander in chief Pants on Fire!
A headline being shared on social media reads like a misinformation Mad Lib: “FDA wants to replace salt with Bill Gates’ new mRNA fake salt.”
An Instagram post sharing it 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 statement from the Food and Drug Administration said the claim is “fake.”
In April 2023, the FDA issued a proposed rule to amend its “standards of identity” to allow the use of salt substitutes in foods that use salt.
The FDA’s standards of identity were first established in 1939 to “ensure that the characteristics, ingredients and production processes of specific foods are consistent with what consumers expect,” according to the agency’s website.
Consider jams that contain fruits. Because some such products once contained “little fruit,” according to the FDA, the standards of identity for fruit preserves and jams require that products represented as jam contain a minimum amount of fruit.
But back to salt.
“The proposed rule would provide manufacturers with flexibility and facilitate industry innovation to reduce sodium in standardized foods,” said the statement the FDA sent to PolitiFact. “The proposed rule does not list permitted salt substitutes; however, it makes clear that safe and suitable ingredients should be used to replace some or all of the added sodium chloride and that serve the functions of salt in food.”
Information about the proposed rule on the FDA’s website says, “The proposal would not require manufacturers to replace salt with salt substitutes.”
It mentions neither mRNA nor Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates.
Frozen bottles of water, slushy popsicles and melting ice cream get you only so far when the power goes out in a hurricane.
After Hurricane Idalia knocked out power to about a half million northern Florida homes and businesses in late August, President Joe Biden said it would have been worse if the federal government hadn’t improved the state’s electrical grid.
“Under the Obama-Biden administration, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the state of Florida replacing wooden power poles with steel poles, and we buried these electric lines,” Biden said at the White House Aug. 31.
Days later, Biden surveyed damage in Live Oak, Florida, where broken and downed power lines signaled widespread power outages that commonly follow hurricanes and tropical storms. Biden said that FEMA could in the future replace the wooden poles with steel poles.
We wondered if Biden was right about the earlier work: Did the Obama administration spend hundreds of millions to keep the lights on (and, most importantly, air conditioning running!) in Florida?
We contacted multiple federal, state and local government agencies in Florida. We did not find the figure Biden cited.
FEMA provides grants to bury power lines
Hurricanes cause multiple threats to electricity systems, including flooding and high winds. The U.S. Energy Department in 2020 found that weather-related outages cost from $25 billion to $70 billion a year.
Nationwide, most lines are above ground. States and utilities have sought ways to pay for bringing poles underground. Florida has hardened its electricity distribution system with stronger steel poles for the larger, high-voltage transmission lines, said Ed Hirs, who teaches energy economics at the University of Houston. Much of that work came after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.
Burying power lines can cost up to $1 million per mile — an expense that local and state governments have not wanted to cover. And underground lines can flood, said Joshua D. Rhodes, research scientist at University of Texas at Austin. However,an underground system results in “fewer points of failure than having 100s of miles of lines way up,” Rhodes said.
A White House spokesperson referred us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which sent us a spreadsheet of grants given to states over decades for electrical lines or poles mitigation.
None of the Florida grants were approved during the Obama-Biden administration. Most of the grants were obligated — federal jargon for approved — during Donald Trump’s administration. The Florida grants added up to about $38 million. For example, FEMA awarded the town of Palm Beach nearly $8.5 million to bury power lines, and the village of Golf was awarded nearly $1.7 million to remove utility poles and bury overhead electrical lines.
But other agencies spend on hurricane proofing, too. So, we kept looking.
HUD provided hazard mitigation grants to Florida following 2016 hurricanes
In this Oct. 18, 2018 photo, utility crews set up new poles and utility wires in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Panama City, Fla. It’s the greatest need after a hurricane and sometimes the hardest one to fulfill: Electricity. (AP)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also gives hazard mitigation grants. A HUD spokesperson told us that the agency gave about $118 million for Florida after the 2016 hurricanes Hermine and Matthew.
The initial award, about $47 million for St. Johns County, was listed in a Federal Register notice during the last days of the Obama administration.
But the information we received from HUD did not specify how much money, if any, was spent on burying electrical lines or replacing wooden poles.
Florida, through subrecipients, used the money to repair storm-damaged infrastructure, build affordable housing and rehab homes, according to a statement HUD sent us. Burying electrical lines and replacing poles would qualify as eligible activities, although when the money was allocated, HUD prohibited using it to assist private utilities. That block is no longer in place.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management found one electrical project that received $500,000 during the Obama administration: an underground utility lines project in Coconut Creek, a city in Broward County. A city spokesperson confirmed the project.
We sent a summary of our findings about FEMA and HUD grants back to the White House for comment.
In response, the White House pointed to Obama’s 2009 announcement about $3.4 billion in grants being awarded nationwide through the 2009 stimulus act for smart electrical grid projects. Obama’s goal was updating the parts of the grid that handle transmission and distribution, which helps the systems respond to power outages. The second part was modernizing electricity on the customer’s end, ideally so people could decide to use energy at off-peak times, when it’s less expensive.
Florida Power & Light Co., the state’s largest utility, received $200 million to install smart meters, devices that show hour-by-hour energy pricing, in customers’ homes. But nothing in the articles that the White House sent said that the money was for burying electrical lines or replacing wooden poles.
Florida has pursued some of this work on its own. In 2019, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law S.B. 796, which created a new process for utilities to pass along costs of burying lines, and other grid-strengthening projects, to consumers. Florida Power & Light has been burying power lines in various communities.
Florida Power & Light told the Sun Sentinel newspaper’s editorial board that the cost of burying the lines would be up to $35 billion. Florida Power & Light said online that about 45% of its distribution system is underground. That’s the same proportion for Duke Energy Corp., which has about 1.9 million accounts in Florida, a spokesperson told PolitiFact.
Our ruling
Biden said, “Under the Obama-Biden administration, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the state of Florida replacing wooden power poles with steel poles and we buried these electric lines.”
The White House pointed to FEMA grants, which added up to far less than the amount Biden cited, and to smart electrical grid projects, which are not the same as burying power lines.
If Biden had said that during the Obama administration, the federal government invested hundreds of millions of dollars in electrical-related projects, he would have been on firmer ground. But that’s not what he said.
We rate this statement False.
RELATED: All of our fact-checks of President Joe Biden
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The federal government is heading to a shutdown, if Congress doesn’t pass funding legislation by the time the clock strikes midnight on Sept. 30. We’ll explain what that means and what government services could be affected.
Update, Oct. 2: Shortly before the midnight deadline on Sept. 30, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would temporarily fund the government until Nov. 17. The House passed the bill 335-91, and the Senate approved it 88 to 9.
What is a government shutdown?
Each year, Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills or a temporary funding bill — known as a continuing resolution, or CR — to fund the federal government. The federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, so Congress has until midnight on that date to pass the spending bills or a CR.
As of Sept. 26, Congress hasn’t passed any appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, which starts on Oct. 1, and it hasn’t been able to agree on a stop-gap funding bill to buy itself some time.
The U.S. Capitol building. Photo by tanarch/stock.adobe.com.
The U.S. Constitution — Article 1, Section 9, clause 7 — states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” If no law is passed, a government shutdown or partial shutdown will occur on Oct. 1. (A partial shutdown happens when some, but not all, of the appropriations bills become law, as explained by the Congressional Research Service.)
Without approved funding, federal agencies must enact contingency plans to operate on a limited basis — such as requiring some essential employees to work without pay for the duration of the shutdown. (More on that later.)
There have been 20 “funding gaps” of at least one day since 1977, with the last and longest one occurring for 34 days in 2019, according to the Office of the Historian in the U.S. House.
Why might there be a government shutdown?
In the spring, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed on compromise legislation — the Fiscal Responsibility Act — that raised the debt limit and imposed caps on spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The House approved the bill 314 to 117 on May 31, and the Senate approved it a day later 63 to 36. Biden signed it into law on June 3. (See our article “Debt Limit Agreement Breakdown.”)
Although the legislation received broad support in both chambers, a group of House conservatives strongly opposed the deal and criticized McCarthy for agreeing to it. Some of those same Republicans are now blocking McCarthy’s attempts to pass appropriations bills and threatening to remove him as speaker if he moves spending bills through the House without their support.
In order to pass spending bills, McCarthy cannot afford to lose more than four Republicans because the Republicans have such a narrow majority — 221 to 212 — in the House. Last week, a small band of conservatives forced McCarthy to pull a stop-gap spending bill and blocked two attempts to pass a defense spending bill by votes of 212-214 and 212-216. In both cases, no Democrats voted for the bill, leaving McCarthy to rely only on Republican votes. Democrats voted against the GOP-crafted defense bill because it includes spending cuts and language they oppose on such issues as climate change, reproductive rights and health care for transgender service members.
McCarthy is scheduled to take up four spending bills (defense, homeland security, state and agriculture) before Oct. 1, but the outcome again is uncertain.
Any spending bill that passes the House with only Republican support would likely fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leaders are working on a bipartisan short-term continuing resolution that would temporarily fund the government.
The Senate is scheduled on Sept. 26 to begin debate on a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that Schumer plans to use as the vehicle for a continuing resolution that would prevent a government shutdown and give Congress more time to negotiate a compromise.
But whether McCarthy would put the Senate bill up for a floor vote in the House is uncertain, and, if he does, he likely will need Democratic support to pass it.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumed front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has urged Republicans to “SHUT IT DOWN” if they don’t “GET EVERYTHING” they want.
What impact does a shutdown have on federal workers?
During a shutdown, most federal workers are divided into two categories: furloughed, meaning they do not report to work; and excepted, which includes workers who are deemed to be essential and must continue working even during a shutdown. Excepted workers include those whose jobs involve the safety of human life or protection of property, such as air traffic controllers and law enforcement officers.
Federal agencies create contingency plans that spell out which workers fall into the two categories.
During a shutdown in 2013, about 850,000 federal workers were furloughed. In a 2019 shutdown, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian federal employees were furloughed, the Federal News Network reported.
All of those workers will be paid, eventually, but not during the shutdown. According to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act which became law in 2019, whether an employee is furloughed or required to work during a shutdown, the employees must be compensated “at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends.”
Congress is paid during a shutdown. On Sept. 20, Democratic Rep. Angie Craig introduced legislation — the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your Shutdown Act, or MCCARTHY Shutdown Act — that seeks to temporarily block pay for members of Congress commensurate with the number of days a shutdown lasts. But the bill is unlikely to pass.
What government services would be affected by a shutdown?
A lot of government services will continue uninterrupted, but other services, particularly nonessential ones, will cease completely or will only be offered in a limited capacity.
For specifics, visit the Office of Management and Budget’s page with each agency’s most recent contingency plan, which department heads are supposed to submit for review by Aug. 1 in odd-numbered years. Some of the plans include a summary of federal agency activities or services that would stop during a funding lapse.
For example, the Social Security Administration’s 2023 plan says the agency “will cease activities not directly related to the accurate and timely payment of benefits or not critical to our direct-service operations.” Affected services would include benefit verification, which is documentation provided to show an individual receives, has never received, or has applied for Social Security, Supplemental Security Income or Medicare.
In addition, Medicare beneficiaries would not be able to get replacement cards through the Social Security Administration, the contingency plan states.
Also, District of Columbia courts would not issue marriage licenses or perform ceremonies, according to this year’s shutdown plan. And the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights advises that “the public will be unable to submit complaints alleging denial of civil rights because of color, race, religion, sex, age, disability, national origin, or in the administrative of justice.”
It’s unclear, for now, what would happen at the hundreds of U.S. national parks, which were affected in prior shutdowns. An updated plan from the National Park Service is not yet available, at least not publicly.
According to a Congressional Research Service report updated on Sept. 22, during the 2018-2019 shutdown, “The majority of parks — including units such as Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Statue of Liberty National Memorial, and the National Mall in Washington, DC — remained at least partially accessible to visitors throughout the shutdown, with varying levels of services and law enforcement.” The report noted that the NPS contingency plan from January 2019 said “no visitor services” would be available during a shutdown, although “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors.”
The National Zoo and other Smithsonian Institution museums would be closed to the public during a shutdown, according to the Smithsonian’s guidance.
Update, Sept. 29: The Smithsonian announced on Sept. 29 that it would use prior-year funds to keep all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo open through Oct. 7, at least, if the government shuts down.
What about Social Security checks and other direct benefits?
Social Security checks will continue to be issued during a government shutdown. That’s because Social Security benefits are part of mandatory spending, which, unlike discretionary spending, doesn’t need to be appropriated annually, as the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explained in a Sept. 5 article.
But some aspects of mandatory programs could be subject to discretionary spending and therefore affected. As we noted above, benefit verification services will cease.
Mandatory programs also include Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, some nutrition programs, veterans’ benefits, retirement benefits for government employees, Supplemental Security Income (for people with disabilities and seniors), and student loans.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits — formerly known as food stamps — are part of mandatory spending. However, CRFB noted that a shutdown could affect the issuance of benefits over time, “since continuing resolutions have generally only authorized the Agriculture Department (USDA) to send out benefits for 30 days after a shutdown begins.” And “stores are not able to renew their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card licenses, so those whose licenses expire would not be able to accept SNAP benefits during a shutdown,” CRFB said.
Also potentially at risk during a shutdown: Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, which is considered a permanent program but has been funded by discretionary spending since fiscal 2016. The program provides food, breastfeeding support and nutritional services to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, as well as kids up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said on Sept. 25 that there is a USDA contingency fund that could continue WIC “for a day or two,” and some states might have unspent funds that “could extend it for a week or so in that state.” But after that, he said, the nutritional assistance would cease. The program provided benefits to a monthly average of 6.3 million people in 2022.
However, the USDA’s 2021 contingency plan said that WIC, and other core nutrition programs, would “continue operations during a lapse in appropriations” using money such as “multi-year carry over funds,” “contingency reserves” and funds “apportioned by OMB to support program operations during the period of the lapse.”
What other government services would not be affected?
As we said, federal workers who are deemed to be essential must continue working, so the services they provide will continue. While those employees won’t be paid for their work during the shutdown until it’s over, CRFB said that “border protection, in-hospital medical care, air traffic control, law enforcement, and power grid maintenance have been among the services classified as essential” and “some legislative and judicial staff have also been largely protected.”
Still, the fact that employees aren’t getting a paycheck during the shutdown could have some effect. In the 2018-2019 shutdown, some Transportation Security Administration agents didn’t work, leading to long lines at airport security, and 10 air traffic controllers didn’t report to work, halting travel at LaGuardia Airport and causing delays elsewhere, CRFB noted.
Some government services that get income from fees can also continue during a shutdown. The State Department said in its contingency plan that “[c]onsular operations domestically and abroad will remain 100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations. This includes passports, visas, and assisting U.S. citizens abroad.”
The U.S. Postal Service, because it is self-funded, will remain open.
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After a New York judge ruled last month in a fraud lawsuit that former President Donald Trump inflated the value of properties including his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump and his allies argued that New York officials have undervalued the property.
Mike Davis, who has advised Republican senators on confirmation of federal judges, said in a Oct. 1 Facebook video that “the New York Attorney General and this New York judge says” Mar-a-Lago is “only worth $18 million,” which Davis called “ludicrous.” Davis is president of the Article III Project, a group that defends constitutionalist judges.
The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Davis’ comments are misleading because New York officials did not determine the property’s value. The property appraiser in Palm Beach County, where Mar-a-Lago is located, assessed the property and determined its value.
Civil fraud lawsuit says Trump created false valuations
In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump and the Trump Organization created 200 false and misleading valuations of assets in New York, Florida and Scotland to defraud financial institutions. James is seeking $250 million in damages; to bar Trump from serving as an officer in any New York corporation; and to bar him from acquiring any New York real estate over the next five years. Trump has denied wrongdoing, and the civil fraud trial continues as of this publication.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron’s Sept. 26 ruling stated that from 2011 to 2021, the Palm Beach County property appraiser determined Mar-a-Lago’s value was “between $18 million and $27.6 million.” But Trump’s statements of financial condition presented to investors stated that it was worth between $426 million and $612 million, “an overvaluation of at least 2,300%” Engoron wrote.
Trump posted on Truth Social that Mar-a-Lago is worth “50 to 100 times” more than the lowest assessed value, $18 million. Media outlets quoted Palm Beach real estate experts who said $18 million was a very low valuation.
When contacted for comment, a Davis spokesperson said, “To say that Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million is bonkers. There is currently a 2.3 acre lot for sale in Palm Beach for $200 million. It’s an empty lot. Mar-a-Lago, on the other hand, is 20 acres and is a historic property with more than 37,000 sq(uare) feet.”
But we aren’t rating on the Truth-O-Meter the appropriate value for Mar-a-Lago. We are fact-checking a claim about who determined the property’s value.
Engoron asked the media to stop attributing the $18 million figure to him.
“Please, press, stop saying that I valued it at $18 million,” he said in court Oct. 2. “That was a tax assessment. Or, something in that range.”
Mar-a-Lago’s county appraisal takes into account the deed restriction
Mar-a-Lago is not valued by the county as if it were a luxury home because it is a private club. Trump in 1995 signed a deed of conservation and preservation easement, which means he ceded the right to use the property for anything other than a social club.
That means the property appraiser uses an income-based valuation for the property, Becky Robinson, a spokesperson for the property appraiser, told PolitiFact.
“Mar-a-Lago is one of nine deed-restricted clubs in Palm Beach County, and all are valued in the same manner,” Robinson said. “The income approach to valuation capitalizes the net operating income that private clubs could generate. This means that the value of the property is determined based on the amount of income that it generates as a club.”
That’s different from determining the value of a house, when appraisers consider recent sales of nearby homes, and determine a comparable value.
The county appraiser is a government office that assesses properties for taxation purposes only.
Property owners can file a petition to challenge the valuation; usually, they seek a lower value to decrease their taxes. In September 2020, a Mar-a-Lago representative filed such a petition, according to the records sent to us by an official for the Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller. But in November 2020, the representative withdrew the petition, marking a box labeled “petitioner agrees with the determination of the property appraiser or tax collector.”
Mar-a-Lago is currently valued at about $33.4 million by the Palm Beach County property appraiser, based on a 2023 appraisal. A new valuation will be available Jan. 1.
Davis also said the New York attorney general said that Mar-a-Lago was valued at $18 million. In James’ statement to the media announcing the lawsuit, she said that Mar-a-Lago was valued based on the “false premise” that it could be developed and sold for residential use, despite the deed restrictions.
“In reality, the club generated annual revenues of less than $25 million and should have been valued at closer to $75 million,” her statement said. The Article III Project noted that James said in a post on X that the value was “$25 million.”
Our ruling
A Facebook video said New York Attorney General James and Judge Engoron valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million.
James did not value Mar-a-Lago at $18 million.
A ruling by Engoron cited the $18 million figure, but he attributed it to the 2011 value determined by the Palm Beach County property appraiser.
We rate this statement False.
RELATED: More than 900 fact-checks of Donald Trump
RELATED: In context: What NY Attorney General Letitia James said about Trump that Trump’s video left out
Hearst Television, one of our media partners, produced a recent segment of “Get the Facts” partly based on our Q&A article about the updated COVID-19 vaccines.
In the segment, Hearst Washington correspondent Jackie DeFusco gives basic information about the updated COVID-19 shots targeting the latest variants of the disease. DeFusco debunks common myths about the COVID-19 vaccines and then uses our article to answer three questions people might have on the updated shots: who pays for them; can older adults get the updated COVID-19 vaccine, the flu vaccine and the RSV vaccine at the same time; and would people need to get a COVID-19 vaccine every year.
To get the answers to these and other questions, see our full story, “Q&A on the Updated COVID-19 Vaccines.”
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.
One of the biggest casualties of program cuts aimed at balancing the West Virginia University budget were foreign languages.
In the initial round of proposed cuts, the entire WVU Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics was on the chopping block. After an appeal — and a backlash on campus and elsewhere — the university moved to save some Spanish and Chinese courses and five full-time equivalent teaching positions. But courses and degree programs in other languages would be shuttered.
The cuts to foreign languages became perhaps the most controversial element of the administration’s plan, and the Faculty Senate cited it in its proposed resolution of no confidence in President E. Gordon Gee.
The language cuts are “likely to lead to increased state departures as they limit young people’s access to a comprehensive education, quality language education, global perspectives, and the option to further their education in much-needed areas in-state,” the Faculty Senate resolution said. (The resolution passed, but it is nonbinding and Gee remains president.)
Outside the state, critics pounced on the decision to cut back on foreign languages.
“I can tell you that no other state flagship university has forsaken language education for its students or made the kinds of cuts to the humanities that WVU is undertaking,” Paula M. Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, a professional association for U.S. language and literature scholars, wrote to Gee in a letter.
In an interview published Aug. 25 in The Daily Athenaeum, WVU’s student newspaper, Gee defended the proposal.
“Our intent is to continue to have a very robust foreign language program,” Gee said. “Not in the same way that we’ve been doing, but through partnerships. We’re looking at a new delivery system. Any student who wants to have a language experience at this institution will be able to have that language experience.”
Gee added that foreign languages are “not a high priority nationally.” We decided to see whether Gee was correct about that.
We found evidence that fewer students are taking foreign language courses over the past six decades and more recently, though it’s unclear whether this is a question of supply or demand.
Periodic surveys by the Modern Language Association have found that more than 16 college and university students out of every 100 took foreign language courses in 1960, a number that fell to 7.5 per 100 by 2016. This figure also dropped in four surveys taken from 2006 to 2016.
Based on more limited data covering 2020, the Modern Language Association found that foreign language enrollment declined by 15.4% between 2016 and 2020.
Gee’s office also cited data from the National Center for Education Statistics that show the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded annually across all areas of foreign languages, literatures and linguistics has declined 25% nationally and 30% in WVU’s primary recruiting states from 2010 to 2021.
However, enrollment may have declined partly because offerings shrank. The Modern Language Association’s 2016 survey found that the number of language programs fell by 5.3% percent from 2013 to 2016.
This chicken-and-egg problem makes it hard to determine whether Gee’s correct that foreign languages are “not a high priority” because there does appear to be some demand from U.S. companies for foreign-language speakers.
A 2019 survey of 1,200 senior business professionals conducted by the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages found that 32% of officials surveyed said they rely on employees with foreign language skills “a lot,” and 58% said they rely on such workers “some.” Ten percent said they rely “not at all” on workers with foreign language skills.
Meanwhile, a 2019 survey by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences found that adults named foreign languages first among the subjects they wish they’d studied more in college.
Our ruling
Gee said that foreign languages are “not a high priority” nationally.
There is evidence for Gee’s assertion: Enrollment in foreign language classes at U.S. colleges and universities has declined, both since the 1960s and the early 2000s.
However, it’s unclear whether students and employers are the ones making it a lower priority, or whether they are simply reacting to a diminished supply of college-level courses.
