Category: Fact Check

A misleading social media post promotes what appears to be a news story that says a journalist covering Hunter Biden has been shot and killed.

“Journalist covering the Hunter Biden case dies after being shot 7 times in his home; no arrests made,” read what looked like an ABC News headline featured in an Oct. 3 TikTok video that garnered thousands of social media interactions.

The headline, however, is fake. 

(Screenshot of TikTok)

TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

On Oct. 2, ABC News posted a story headlined, “Philadelphia journalist shot and killed in his home; no arrests made.” The story is about the fatal Oct. 2 shooting of Josh Kruger, a former city of Philadelphia employee and freelance journalist. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was shot multiple times in his home. On Oct. 6, police issued a warrant for the arrest of 19-year-old Robert Davis.  

Several news outlets have reported that Kruger’s writing focused on LGBTQ+ issues, homelessness, and substance abuse issues — not Hunter Biden. In a review of Kruger’s published writing, PolitiFact did not find any articles about Hunter Biden; Kruger did occasionally comment on Hunter Biden on his social media.

We found no ABC News story with this headline. Mark Osborne, the ABC News editor whose byline appeared in the TikTok screengrab, confirmed to PolitiFact that he never published a story with that headline. 

ABC News has posted several stories about Kruger’s death with headlines such as “Slain Philadelphia journalist Josh Kruger allegedly shot by 19-year-old he was ‘trying to help’: Police,” and “Journalist who advocated for homeless and LGBTQ+ communities shot and killed at home.” 

Fake or edited headlines are a common way to spread misinformation, so always double check a trusted news source.

We rate the claim that an ABC News headline said Kruger died after covering Hunter Biden False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized President Joe Biden about entitlement program enrollment and claimed he’s responsible for adding millions of ineligible recipients to Medicaid.

“Under Joe Biden, we now have more than 42 million people on food stamps and nearly 100 million people on Medicaid. That’s almost a third of the country. Biden sees that as an accomplishment,” the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador told a New Hampshire crowd Sept. 22. “He actually blocked states from moving people from welfare to work. And he put 20 million people on Medicaid who aren’t even eligible, then stopped states from taking them off.”

For this fact-check, we’ll focus on the claim that Biden added 20 million ineligible people to Medicaid and stopped states from taking them off.

The number of Medicaid participants reached record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic because of a provision in a 2020 law that stopped states from removing enrollees. 

Biden extended the pandemic health emergency several times, which also extended the provision. But former President Donald Trump enacted the law, not Biden.

Haley’s claim that 20 million are ineligible for Medicaid is inaccurate, experts told us. It’s based on estimates of how many people could have been removed once removals were permitted.

The figure includes people who could be deemed ineligible because of procedural issues, such as failing to turn in or update paperwork. That sometimes occurs when states have outdated enrollee contact information or when enrollees don’t understand how to complete renewal packets within the allotted time frame.

“The notion that this was President Biden’s doing is certainly a big lie and a radical oversimplification on the amount of people being ineligible,” said Leigh Ku, director of George Washington University’s Center for Health Policy Research. “How many are ineligible is yet to be determined; they are still being processed. It’s a huge undertaking in the states and they are slowly working through those claseloads.” 

When contacted for comment, Haley’s campaign pointed to data showing that Medicaid rolls have ballooned since the pandemic’s onset and referred to reports that estimated around 18 million people would lose coverage by the end of the removal process. Neither is evidence that Biden is responsible for adding millions of ineligible people to the program.

Continuing Medicaid enrollment started under Trump

In March 2020, during Trump’s presidency, Congress passed the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” It included a policy that let states receive extra federal funds for Medicaid if they didn’t remove anyone from the program during the public health emergency. The provision is called continuous enrollment.

During the health emergency’s three-year duration, people were not removed from state programs unless they voluntarily withdrew or moved out of state. During continuous enrollment, Medicaid enrollment grew from 71 million in February 2020 to 94 million in April 2023.

In Congress’ fiscal year 2023 budget, the continuous enrollment provision was no longer linked to the public health emergency and ended April 1. Since then, states have resumed what is typically an annual process of reevaluating enrollees, removing those who don’t meet Medicaid’s requirements.

The Biden administration extended the public health emergency several times before it ended May 11. Concerned that large numbers of people would lose health care coverage, and that moving too quickly could incorrectly disqualify would-be Medicaid recipients, the administration urged states to slow down their reviews.

This concern proved prescient in September, when the federal government found that about half a million people — including a significant number of children — in 29 states had been improperly removed because of computer errors. Their coverage was restored. 

How many are ineligible?

States recently started reevaluating their Medicaid rolls, and it’s not yet clear how many people will be removed. Even if that number reaches or exceeds Haley’s 20 million figure, that doesn’t mean those people weren’t eligible when they signed up.

“They were technically all eligible because the law extended their eligibility,,” Ku said. “Some of them would normally have fallen off eligibility because they got a job, or because they may have aged out of Medicaid or simply because they forgot to turn in their paperwork — that’s one of the major things that happens is people forget.”

As of Oct. 2, around 13.2 million of the 94 million enrollees have had coverage renewed, while 7.8 million were removed, according to KFF. KFF found that around 73% of the people removed from Medicaid were for procedural reasons, not necessarily because they were no longer eligible.

Our ruling

Haley claimed Biden “put 20 million people on Medicaid who aren’t even eligible, then stopped states from taking them off.”

A 2020 law included a policy that let states receive extra federal money for Medicaid if they didn’t remove any enrollees during the COVID-19 public health emergency. That was signed into law by Trump, not Biden.

Haley’s claim that “20 million” are ineligible is based on the large number of people added to Medicaid during the pandemic, and some estimates of how many could be removed during reevaluations. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t eligible when they signed up, or that all are ineligible now. And some will be deemed ineligible for reasons such as failing to turn in paperwork.

States are still reevaluating their Medicaid rolls and available data shows that, so far, about 7.8 million people have been removed. But most were taken off the rolls because of procedural errors, such as paperwork discrepancies, not because they didn’t meet eligibility requirements.

We rate this claim False.

A text message emerged as a central point of contention during House Republicans’ first impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, with members of Congress arguing about its authenticity and context.

During a Sept. 28 segment of Fox News’ “The Five,” host Jesse Watters seized on the moment from the hearing held earlier that day. He quoted just one line from a December 2018 text message exchange between James Biden, the president’s brother, and Hunter Biden, the president’s son. It said, “I can work with you(r) father alone.”

Watters said the line from the message shows that Joe Biden was “in business” with Hunter Biden. Republican lawmakers have been working to build a case that the president was involved in his son’s business deals.

“So there goes the, ‘I was never in business with my son,’” Watters said, referring to the White House’s response to those claims. “Because not only were you in business with your son, you were in business with your brother.”

(Internet Archive)

But Watters misleads by citing only a single line from the text exchange. An investigators’ longer summary  of the message exchange that was included in an IRS whistleblower’s affidavit shows James Biden’s message to Hunter Biden was about personal financial matters, not business. 

We contacted Fox News for comment, but received no reply. 

Here’s how the discussion of the text message at the impeachment hearing unfolded.

A text message kerfuffle

During the Sept. 28 impeachment inquiry hearing, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., displayed an image that looked like an iPhone screenshot.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., showed this image during the Sept. 28, 2023, impeachment inquiry hearing. (Screenshot from C-SPAN)

“Hunter Biden was in a bad way, by the way,” Donalds said, introducing the message. “He was really strung out. He lost a bunch of money. He needed help.” 

Later in the hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the image had been “fabricated” and was “not the actual, direct screenshot from that phone.” She asked to share what she called the “full context” of the message exchange.

“What was brought out from that fabricated image excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning,” Ocasio-Cortez said, holding up a printed document that was a portion of the source material for the message Donalds had displayed.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., shows a printed document with part of Exhibit 402 from an Aug. 2, 2023, IRS whistleblower affidavit. (AP)

The text message exchange is from Exhibit 402 in an Aug. 2 affidavit submitted by Joseph Ziegler, an IRS whistleblower who was part of the agency’s criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. Ziegler described the exhibit as “a summary of WhatsApp messages” that he and the investigative team had drafted using “relevant messages from the various Electronic Search Warrant(s).” 

Read in full, Exhibit 402 provides additional context for the messages between James Biden and Hunter Biden. Ellipses show that some information, deemed irrelevant by investigators, was left out. The exhibit detailed messages between James Biden, referred to as James B., and Hunter Biden, who is sometimes referred to as SM in investigation documents.  

The investigators’ summary of the message exchange is below, copied exactly as it appeared in the affidavit exhibit, including typos. We put in bold the section that was highlighted by both Watters and Donalds: 

SM says, “I can work when I’m in NYC all day every day for the next 3 months from 8-12z But I can’t pay alimony w/o Dad or tuitions or for food and gas. Really it’s all gone. I can go make it up in 15/20 days I’m sure, but he’s basically made it clear that he’s not paying alimony b/c Mom made clear that she won’t do it. Hallie wont allow me to be at the house or lend me or pay me back any money. Ashley moves into momoms house after I told dad that I would move in there. (…) That night I tell dad I want to probably stay in the area and specifically I wanted to live by you and teach my course at Penn and maybe develop another one (…)”

in which James B. responds, “This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work. Let’s talk about it. It makes perfect sense to me. This is difficult to fully vet without talking. Will you please call me on w/A. We can develope a plan together. It can work. I’m going to try to call yo again please Ans. I can and I will. Crisis with Caroline , same problem with “P”, and NY Post. Dealing with it as we speak. She is O K , I believe I have it under control !? I get back to you ASAP.”

The summarized exchange shows that James Biden offered to work with Joe Biden to help Hunter cover alimony payments, tuition and the cost of food and gasoline. James Biden’s message is about Hunter’s personal financial matters, not about business deals. 

After House Republicans released IRS whistleblower documents — including Exhibit 402 — on Sept. 27, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said on X, formerly Twitter, that the documents were “another total bust” and showed “zero evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.”

House Republicans in recent months have released financial records that show an intricate web of foreign payments made to Biden family business associates and at least three Biden family members, including Hunter Biden and James Biden. Those records have not provided evidence that foreign payments went to President Joe Biden or that the president committed wrongdoing.

Our ruling

Watters said James Biden’s text message to Hunter Biden that says, “I can work with you(r) father alone,” shows that Joe Biden was “in business” with Hunter Biden.

But Watters took out of context a single sentence from a longer text exchange. An investigators’ longer summary of the message exchange shows James Biden offered to work with Joe Biden to help Hunter cover alimony payments, tuition and the cost of food and gasoline. The message was not about business deals. 

We rate this claim False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. 

RELATED:  Hunter Biden’s criminal case: What IRS whistleblowers said about Joe Biden, DOJ

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RELATED: Largest share of foreign payments went to Biden associates, not kin, House GOP memos show

As fentanyl deaths have skyrocketed over the past few years, U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher is pointing to China for supplying the deadly drug to the United States.

Gallagher, R-Wis., is chairman of the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has given him a national platform on China-related issues. 

In a recent appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” he said: 

“Beating the Chinese as they attempt to do a variety of things — undermine our sovereignty, send fentanyl into America killing 80,000 Americans a year, threaten war in the Pacific by threatening to take Taiwan — that to me is the biggest national security issue.” 

Here, we’ll fact-check China’s role in getting fentanyl into the U.S. and how many people the drug is killing.

The claim is numerically accurate on fentanyl overdoses but misrepresents China’s role in illicit fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.

Let’s take a look.

Fentanyl deaths are on the rise in the US

When asked for backup, Jordan Dunn, Gallagher’s communications director, pointed us to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s final and provisional data on drug overdoses, saying Gallagher’s 80,000 figure gave a general estimate of the overdose numbers.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that the CDC describes as “50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.” Illegally manufactured versions of the drug have skyrocketed the U.S.’s opioid overdose crisis in the last decade, according to the CDC’s information webpage on fentanyl.

Gallagher’s estimate is close to fentanyl overdose numbers. 

According to the CDC, provisional numbers for overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, hit 77,415 between April 2022 and April 2023. 

In the latest year for finalized CDC data, 70,601 people died in 2021 from overdoses involving synthetic opioids. Fentanyl compromises about 90% of the deaths in that category.

Illicit fentanyl is primarily coming into the US from Mexico cartels 

Regarding the other part of Gallagher’s claim, that China “sends fentanyl into America,” experts say this is a misleading interpretation of the trafficking of fentanyl into the U.S.

Chinese drug producers are primarily creating the chemicals to make fentanyl and sending it to Mexican cartels, not directly to the U.S., said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institute think tank.

Early in the U.S. opioid epidemic, China was the primary source of illicit fentanyl but when the Chinese government banned the production of fentanyl in 2019, Felbab-Brown said producers switched to selling chemicals used in the production of fentanyl.

This created a more roundabout way of getting fentanyl into the U.S.

Other reports have reached similar conclusions: 

According to a 2022 report from the Congressional Research Service, Chinese traffickers no longer send fentanyl directly to the U.S., instead, chemists send the materials to Mexican criminal organizations who then produce the fentanyl.

And according to the 2023 US International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Mexico is now “the source of the vast majority” of illicit fentanyl seized in the U.S.

Our ruling

Gallagher said China sends “fentanyl into America killing 80,000 Americans a year.”

Fentanyl deaths in the U.S. have spiked in recent years, with over 70,601 overdoses from synthetic opioids like fentanyl occurring in 2021 and an estimated 77,415 occurring in 2022, roughly matching Gallagher’s estimate.

But as far as China’s role in supplying fentanyl to the U.S., Gallagher misses the mark. While China used to be the primary source of illicit fentanyl directly to the U.S., finished products primarily come from Mexico which produces the drug using chemicals from China.

We rate this statement Half True. 

 

 

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention falsify data about COVID-19 deaths to encourage Americans to get vaccinated against the disease? 

That’s what a recent headline claims: “CDC admits it faked 99% of COVID deaths to scare public into taking vaccine.”   

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.)

The blog post that published the headline Aug. 31 goes on to say that “newly released data from the CDC reveals that most recorded fatalities that were blanket-blamed on COVID were caused by something else.”

The post’s logic appears to be that because the CDC reported that “just 1.7% of the 324 ‘COVID deaths’ registered in the week ending Aug. 19 had COVID as the primary cause of death,” then “only a fraction of the claimed number of American lives are being lost directly to the virus each week.” The post purported that CDC data showed “99 percent of ‘Covid deaths’ have been faked.”

The post followed an Aug. 28 Daily Mail story that bore the headline: “99% of ‘COVID deaths’ not primarily caused by the virus, CDC data shows.” 

That headline has since been updated to say: “Covid to blame for just 1% of weekly deaths from all causes across the US, CDC data shows.”

“An earlier version of this article claimed 99% of COVID deaths in the past week were not primarily caused by the virus,” a correction appended to the bottom of the article says. “In fact, a footnote at the bottom of the CDC’s COVID data tracker explains the percentage of all reported deaths attributed as COVID-19 is calculated based on the number of deaths from all causes.”

For the week ended Sept. 23, 2.7% of deaths in the United States were caused by COVID-19, the CDC’s data shows.

We rate claims that the CDC admitted it faked data to scare the public into getting COVID-19 vaccines False.

 

Was President Joe Biden’s latest gaffe revealing himself as responsible for the summer wildfires in Maui, Hawaii? 

A recent Facebook post claims as much, captioning a 40-minute video with this clickbait headline: “Joe Biden MISTAKENLY admits shady role in Maui fires.” 

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.)

Anyone who watched the post’s video may have been disappointed. Far from a smoking gun, the footage is a montage of TV broadcasts about the wildfires, including commentary critical of the president’s response. 

But no “shady role” was exposed. 

We rate claims this video shows Biden accidentally admitting to a role in the fires False.

 

A video featuring ominous images of oversized viruses and people in medical masks warns that a pandemic more devastating than the one caused by COVID-19 is here.

“A new deadly pandemic is at our doorstep,” the Oct. 2 Facebook video claimed. “The new threat comes in the form of an unknown virus, more lethal and more contagious than anything we have experienced before.”

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.)

(Screengrab from Facebook)

The Facebook video also mentions World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warning about the next pandemic.

During his May address to the World Health Assembly, Tedros said the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency does not mean the virus is no longer a concern.

“The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains. And the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains,” he said.

Nevertheless, no new global health crisis has been declared.

The World Health Organization maintains a list of “priority pathogens” to identify and prepare for diseases that could cause global outbreaks or pandemics. The current priority diseases are:

According to the World Health Organization, Disease X “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.”

Conspiracy theorists have hijacked the term Disease X to spread baseless narratives that future pandemics are “planned” or “money-making scams.”

The World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities track disease outbreaks around the globe and send alerts to the public about emerging health threats. But, as of Oct. 5, there were no reports of an unknown disease causing widespread infection.

We rate the claim that “a new deadly pandemic is at our doorstep” False.

RELATED: What is Disease X? How conspiracy theorists hijacked pandemic preparedness 

RELATED: COVID-19 lockdowns returning? Here’s why public health experts say that’s unlikely

As United Auto Workers strike against the leading U.S. automakers, former President Donald Trump took credit for saving the auto industry.

“When I came into office, the auto industry was on its knees, gasping its last breaths after eight long years of Obama and Biden,” Trump told nonunion autoworkers Sept. 27 at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, outside Detroit. “It is no exaggeration to state the Trump presidency and the deftly used and applied Trump tariffs and taxes saved the American auto industry from extinction time and time again.”

But recent history shows the reality is the opposite: Trump neither inherited a nearly dead auto industry nor revived it. Experts say the Bush and Obama administrations helped boost the auto industry while Trump administration actions hurt it.

Bush and Obama administrations’ actions

In 2008, as the Great Recession was hurting the U.S., the auto industry was in dire shape. Layoffs were soaring at auto plants and auto parts suppliers. Gasoline prices were up. Buying power was down. General Motors was nearly out of cash to pay its bills and Chrysler was close behind.

Interventions by the outgoing George W. Bush and newly elected Barack Obama administrations pulled the industry back from the brink of collapse. Under Obama, GM and Chrysler underwent quick, taxpayer-financed bankruptcy reorganizations orchestrated by a federal task force and the U.S. Treasury Department. Both auto companies emerged healthily from the Great Recession, adding jobs and production capacity. 

“At its basic level, the car companies got a well-financed restructuring, and the financier was the government,” Mike Ramsey, an automotive analyst and senior research director at consulting company Gartner told Business Insider in 2018. “The companies were essentially given a clean balance sheet and reset to a point that made them viable.”

Manufacturing output of motor vehicles and parts rose along with employment in Michigan’s auto sector during the Obama administration. 

The Center for Automotive Research examined major investments in the auto industry and found that from 2013 to 2016, during the Obama administration, $47.3 billion in work was announced. By comparison, during the Trump years, 2017 to 2020, $38 billion in projects were announced. 

Trump cites trade deals and tariffs that, taken together, did not yield net industry gains

In his Michigan speech, Trump cited several of his trade policies that he said helped the industry. An expert we spoke to pointed to one Trump tariff that led to a small increase in U.S. auto parts production. But the majority of Trump’s policies hurt the industry or had no significant impact during Trump’s presidency.

Tariffs on Chinese imports: Trump imposed tariffs up to 25% on China’s auto production in 2018. Although Trump’s tariffs aimed to punish China, U.S. companies got many parts from other countries, said Katheryn N. Russ, chair of the University of California, Davis’ economics department. At the same time, the U.S. International Trade Commission (see table 6.23) found that these tariffs led to a 3% increase in U.S. domestic gross output in auto parts production.

But China retaliated, raising tariffs on U.S. exports to China. Beijing’s tariffs led to a significant reduction in U.S. auto exports to China, said Brad Setser, a U.S. trade official during the Biden administration. In response to the tariffs, Tesla also bought a subsidiary in China and its Shanghai production began exporting to the EU while U.S. exports of electric vehicles to both China and Europe fell sharply. 

Trump’s campaign told PolitiFact that without the tariffs he imposed on China, the U.S. might have seen the soaring number of car imports from China that the E.U. experienced. 

Renegotiated Korea Free Trade agreement: As part of Trump’s renegotiation of this agreement, he extended until 2041 a 25% U.S. tariff on imports of small pickup trucks.

But James Rubenstein, a Miami University in Ohio geography professor known for his auto industry research, said the tariff is largely “symbolic” because “Hyundai/Kia, which is responsible for most vehicle production in Korea, does not produce a pickup truck.” 

Stopped Trans-Pacific Partnership: In his first month in office, Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from this free trade deal with 11 Asian-Pacific countries. Obama had negotiated the agreement, but it was never implemented. No one knows with certainty what the impact of this deal would have been on the auto industry.

Replaced NAFTA with USMCA: Trump replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, in place since 1994, with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The new agreement took effect July 2020 and aimed to encourage auto manufacturers to source auto parts from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. It required that 75% of an automobile’s components be manufactured in those three countries to qualify for zero tariffs. NAFTA had required that 62.5% of the components be manufactured in those three countries. 

Gary Hufbauer, an economist and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said that although the USMCA changes tightened the auto production rules, they made little difference in the U.S. auto industry.  

That’s partly because auto manufacturers seem to prefer the alternative option of paying the 2.5% Most Favored Nation tariff on imported parts or assembled automobiles from Canada and Mexico, which is often cheaper and simpler than adhering to the rules-of-origin requirements. 

Automotive News’ data shows the number of vehicles assembled throughout the United States by Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler parent Stellantis. In 2008, Obama’s first year in office, 5 million vehicles were assembled. That rose to 6.3 million in 2016, Obama’s final year. In 2019, the last year of Trump’s presidency before the pandemic, the number fell to 4.5 million vehicles. 

Trump steel tariffs hurt auto industry

One of Trump’s tariff actions hampered the U.S. auto industry, sparking the loss of thousands of jobs.

In March 2018, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum, with exemptions for Canada and Mexico. The move was intended to punish China.  

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors found that by mid-2019, increased input costs related to the steel and aluminum tariffs were associated with 0.6% fewer jobs in the manufacturing sector. Based on those figures, Russ and Harvard University economics doctoral student Lydia Cox found that equated to about 75,000 fewer jobs in manufacturing. That figure did not include additional losses experienced by U.S. exporters that faced tariffs levied by other countries in retaliation. 

“It is hard to find a plausible explanation for how levying a tax on a key input for the auto industry would have been beneficial to the auto industry,” Russ said.

Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research, told Reuters in October 2020 that the tariffs hurt the industry. GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler, now part of Stellantis, all closed plants in Michigan since 2018, the year the tariffs were imposed. It cost GM and Ford $1 billion each for increased steel costs in 2018.

We found accumulating evidence that Trump’s overall tariff strategy backfired. A December 2020 summary from the Congressional Research Service, Congress’ nonpartisan policy arm, said most studies “suggest a negative overall effect on U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) as a result of the tariffs” and that most studies found U.S. consumers and companies “bore nearly the entire increased costs associated with the tariffs.”

Our ruling

When Trump took office, “the auto industry was on its knees gasping its last breath.” Trump administration “tariffs and taxes saved the American auto industry from extinction.”

Trump is wrong on both counts. Actions by the Bush and Obama administrations helped revive the auto industry; it was not near death when Trump took office.

The majority of Trump’s trade deals and tariffs hurt the auto industry or had no significant impact during his presidency. In particular, Trump’s 2018 tariffs on steel and aluminum significantly hurt the U.S. auto industry.

We rate this statement False.

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Jon Greenberg contributed to this fact-check.

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The Atlanta prosecutor leading the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny from Trump’s supporters. But a social media claim that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been “busted” for fraud and money laundering is simply wrong.. 

“Georgia D.A Fani Willis BUSTED in MASSIVE Money Laundreing (sic) & Election Fraud Enterprise Scheme,” read the caption of a Sept. 20 Facebook video.

A screenshot of an X post shown in the video read, “The investigators identified in the Fani Willis campaign finance report 222 contributions to her campaign that had ZERO donor information.”

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

(Screenshot from Facebook)

Willis, who is leading an investigation into Trump and his former allies, took office Jan. 1, 2021. The claim in the video stemmed from an Aug. 31 report in The Georgia Record, which centered on contributions made from January 2022 to June 2023.

The Georgia Record, once a local news site, is owned by Creative Destruction Media, a far-right publisher. The Georgia Record publishes articles that favor Republican personalities, and has also promoted anti-vaccine sentiments and those that sow doubt against election integrity.

We downloaded and analyzed the data used in the article, sourced from the Georgia Campaign Finance System. It’s not the smoking gun this post claims it to be. 

“Having anonymous donors in a campaign finance report is not in and of itself an indication of fraud,” Andra Gillespie, Emory University associate professor of political science, told PolitiFact. 

The Georgia Record’s report highlighted only the absence of donor information; it omitted context about how much these anonymous donors contributed, and what the rules are about disclosing donor information. Georgia’s campaign finance laws state that campaign finance disclosure reports should include the donor’s name, occupation, mailing address, contribution amount, contribution receipt date, employer and election for which the contribution was accepted and allocated.

But there’s a caveat: this information is required only for contributions exceeding $100. 

The Georgia Record’s report was mostly accurate in saying there were 222 entries with no donor information. But it missed that, among these entries, 220 of them listed contribution amounts of $100 or less. 

“Information is not required to be collected or released for contributions of $100 or less.  So these small contributions are not evidence of money laundering,” said Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor.

The other two entries with no donor information had the description “Transfer Balance from Legacy System” and were dated Dec. 31, 2020. Gillespie said the transfer date suggested this was surplus money from Willis’ district attorney campaign. Bullock agreed that these may be leftover funds from her previous campaign.

“It’s completely bogus,” Alan Abramovitz, Emory University professor emeritus who specializes in national politics and elections, said of the claim. “These were small donations that are not covered by the disclosure requirement.  And the folks making this phony claim almost certainly know that.”

Our ruling

A report claimed that Willis’ campaign finance disclosure report showing more than 200 donors with no information is proof of a money laundering scheme. 

The data showed contributions from donors with no information amounted to $100 or less. This is in line with Georgia’s campaign finance laws, which require donor information only for contributions exceeding $100.

We rate this claim False.

RELATED: Did Fulton County DA Fani Willis campaign to ‘get Trump’? No, she didn’t say that

Katie Hobbs is still listed as Arizona’s governor on the state’s website, but some recent social media posts suggest she’s no longer in power. 

“BREAKING,” a Sept. 29 Facebook post says. “Katie Hobbs NO LONGER governor of Arizona, Republican taken over | Kari Lake announces.” 

“IT’S OFFICIAL!!” another post says. “ARIZONA HAS A NEW GOVERNOR!!”

A third claims Hobbs was “impeached” and is “no longer governor.”

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

These claims followed a Sept. 27 statement from Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who said she had “been notified that I will be serving as acting governor beginning later this evening until mid-morning tomorrow.”

The Arizona Republic reported that rumors from Fox News of Hobbs’ “mysterious disappearance” included unfounded allegations that the state Senate had indicted her on charges related to conspiring with a Mexican drug cartel. 

The truth won’t make as good of a movie plotline. Hobbs was in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27 for a meeting about border issues with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Republic said. She flew back to Arizona on Sept. 28. 

Arizona’s state constitution details a line of succession for statewide office holders to assume the role of acting governor if the governor leaves the state, however briefly.  

With Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and State Attorney General Kris Mayes all out of state for business meetings, the Republic said, the duty fell to Yee. 

Hobbs told Capitol Media Services that she doesn’t “stop being governor when I leave the state.” 

And she was back in the state by the time these posts claimed she was no longer governor.

We rate these claims False.