Category: Fact Check

Celebrities can be powerful spokespeople, but a recent Facebook post starring actor Brad Pitt as a hair loss product pitchman isn’t authentic. 

“Brad Pitt’s new approach to hair problems, discover how thousands of people are fighting hair thinning,” a caption on an April 30 Facebook video said.

In the video, Pitt appears to give a personal account.

“I suffered from severe hair loss in 2020 — this was my darkest period. Back in 2020 his hair loss was pretty noticeable,” Pitt seems to say, confusingly since he’s supposedly talking about himself. “And then he just went for the bald look. Out of necessity, I had to cut my long hair and began looking for ways to restore hair growth. But check this out, this year my hair started to grow back, I’ve been using this thing called RenewHairX. … Some people even think I’m wearing a wig, can you believe it?”

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.)

A reverse-image search led PolitiFact to the original video of Pitt that appears in the Facebook post. It’s a 2013 W Magazine interview in which he talks about fellow actors Gary Oldman and Jodi Foster, but not hair loss. 

We looked for but found no evidence that Pitt is affiliated with the product the video mentions.

We rate this post False.

 

Satire shared out of context often creates confusion. Such was the case with a social media post offered as an example of someone advocating gender sensitivity toward household pets. 

“Misgendering a pet can result in serious microsubconscious distress,” read what looked like an X post from someone named Ann Lesby. “Your pet will let you know his/her/their/cir identity through things like body language, toy preferences, and reaction to gendered pet clothing. #PetGender #TransPets”

“#WTFthoughts … ” said a May 1 Facebook post sharing a screenshot of the X post.

This 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.)

The X bio for @AnnLesbyPhD describes her as a “reinstated head of gender studies” at a university and the “bestselling author of ANTIRACIST FETUS.” It also says she’s an “⅛ Black semitrans lesbian who dates men.” If that’s not suspect enough, the next line spells it out: “RIP S.A. Tyre.”

The bio also links to Lesby’s “author page” on OUTspoken, a website that seeks to amplify the voices silenced or belittled by “left-wing political structures.” It’s affiliated with the Log Cabin Republicans, an advocacy group that seeks to make the Republican Party more inclusive on gay and lesbian topics. 

There are three posts there, all labeled as “humor.”

We rate claims that these are the authentic words of a university professor Pants on Fire!

 

A video showing a fight on a TV set before cutting to Fox News host Sean Hannity might look like a segment about — as the chyron reads — “a revolutionary new remedy.”

But it’s yet another scam featuring celebrity doctor and former U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. 

“An attempt on the life of a doctor on the air,” Hannity appears to say in a May 1 Facebook post. “The Dr. Oz came to tell about a new innovative tool that always you to clean blood vessels and normalize blood pressure in a few days. Who is against this medical progress and why?”

The video then shows Oz standing before a microphone with what looks like a bruised face and discussing blood pressure.

“Dr. Oz is sure that absolutely everyone can cleanse their own vessels and in this way improve their health and well-being,” a caption on the video said.

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

This video is a deepfake. The audio does not match the movement of Hannity’s or Oz’s lips, Fox News never reported on a supposed fight, and the clip of the fight comes from a Polish TV show that  didn’t feature Oz. The clip showed two journalists who fought after one called the other’s ancestors communist fascists, the Mirror reported in 2017.

The clip of Oz speaking at the microphone, meanwhile, was also altered. In the original, from 2014, he testified before Congress about misleading advertisements for weight loss supplements. His face wasn’t bruised as it appears in the Facebook video.

This post is similar to one PolitiFact checked in February and another we checked in March, both of which claimed to show Fox News host Laura Ingraham reporting on an attempt on Oz’s life. Both used unrelated video of televised brawls that did not involve Oz. Both employed AI to make it appear as if Ingraham said something she did not.

Those videos were fake, and so is this one. We rate it False.

 

Former President Donald Trump repeated a bevy of inaccurate claims on the economy during an interview with WGAL-TV, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, television station.

Here is a rundown.

Trump policies “created the greatest, strongest economy in the history of our country, probably in the history of the world.”

Economists have previously told PolitiFact that this is False.

The strongest evidence in favor of this assertion, at least in the U.S. context, is the unemployment rate. On Trump’s watch, the unemployment rate fell to levels untouched since the early 1950s.

However, the annual increases in gross domestic product — the sum of a country’s economic activity — were broadly similar under Trump to what they were during the final six years under his predecessor, Barack Obama. And GDP growth under Trump was well below that of previous presidents.

Wage growth also didn’t set records under Trump. Adjusted for inflation, wages began rising during the Obama years and kept increasing under Trump. But these were modest compared with the 2% a year seen in the 1960s. 

Another metric — the growth rate in personal consumption per person, adjusted for inflation — wasn’t higher under Trump than previous presidents. For many families, this statistic serves an economic activity bottom line, determining how much they can spend on food, clothing, housing, health care and travel. 

In Trump’s three years in office through January 2020, real consumption per person grew by 2% a year. Of the 30 nonoverlapping three-year periods between 1929 and the end of his presidency, Trump’s ranked 12th from the bottom.

Biden “ruined it because he screwed up energy so badly that inflation went crazy.”

Gasoline prices are higher today than they were under Trump, but most of the blame goes to factors beyond Biden’s control.

Experts say Biden’s policies may have marginal affected gasoline prices. But the price of gasoline — whether it’s high or low by historical standards — is mostly not something presidents can significantly control. 

Gasoline prices initially rose on Biden’s watch because of the recovery after the worst of the pandemic. As economic activity, commuting and travel rebounded, fuel demand rose faster than global supplies did.

Then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. NATO countries and allies sought to reduce their purchases of Russian crude oil as punishment for its war, which hampered supply. And other major oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have largely resisted requests to increase production to fill the void. 

Overall, this has kept global crude oil prices high, even though the price has fallen since its peak in summer 2022.

Trump’s low average price was shaped by the opposite phenomenon that Biden experienced. Most of Trump’s final year in office occurred early in the pandemic, when automobile use was sharply reduced. This drove gasoline prices to unusually low levels. 

Meanwhile, one factor Biden does have some control over — oil production in the U.S., some of which occurs on federally leased lands — has set a record on his watch.

“We have among the highest inflation we’ve ever had. … it’s sticking. It’s not going down at all.”

The first part of Trump’s talking point would have been valid in summer 2022, but that’s no longer so.

The highest U.S. inflation rates were recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the annual price increase sometimes hovered between 12% and 15%. The highest rate on Biden’s watch was around 9% in summer 2022.

Since then, however, inflation has fallen. It was at 3.5% year over year in March 2024, the most recent month available. 

On whether inflation is “sticking,” Trump has a point.

Inflation fell consistently from its 9% peak to around 3% between June 2022 and June 2023. But since then, year-over-year inflation has bounced between about 3% and 3.5%. The Fed believes that’s still too high to start lowering interest rates, because it wants to see sustained inflation closer to 2%.

“In California (gasoline) sells for $7 a gallon.”

This is incorrect.

The statewide average gasoline price in California is $5.23, which is higher than it is for the nation as a whole ($3.77). But that’s well short of $7.

More to the point, not one of the 10,526 gas stations in California tracked by GasBuddy.com had gas costing $7 a gallon on the day Trump did the interview, according to data provided by GasBuddy gasoline price analyst Patrick DeHaan.

“We had the best job numbers ever.”

This is inaccurate.

During Trump’s entire presidency, the U.S. lost a net 2.7 million jobs. In comparison, every president since Harry Truman (who served from 1945 to 1953) has gained jobs during his tenure.

When looking at job creation patterns under a president, timing matters. For Trump. the coronavirus pandemic emerged during his fourth year in office. The resulting rapid economic contraction wiped away all the employment gains on his watch, and then some.

But even looking only at the prepandemic period, Trump’s job creation record wasn’t the best of the last five presidents, let alone all of them.

During his first three years in office, Trump oversaw a 4.6% employment increase. Two other presidents — Joe Biden and Bill Clinton — saw significantly bigger increases, of about 10% and 8%, respectively.

“I gave the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country, bigger than the Ronald Reagan tax cuts (and the) people that benefited the most were low income people.”

Both parts of this statement are wrong.

The part about the biggest tax cut is a falsehood that Trump shared repeatedly during his presidency. (Our colleagues at the Washington Post Fact Checker found that this was Trump’s second-most-commonly repeated false claim, shared 295 times during his presidency.)

In inflation-adjusted dollars, the tax bill Trump signed was the fourth-largest since 1940, and as a percentage of GDP, it ranked seventh.

Meanwhile, the part about low-income taxpayers benefiting more “is not correct,” based on modeling from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center and other think tanks, John Buhl, the Tax Policy Center’s communications director, told PolitiFact earlier this month.

The Tax Policy Center analysis found that the Trump-signed legislation would, on average, cut taxes for households in each income group, but that taxpayers in higher-income households would see the biggest benefits.

For instance, the lowest one-fifth of taxpayers — people earning up to $25,000 — would see their average federal tax rate drop by 0.4 percentage points in 2018. The drop in tax rate would be larger for each successive one-fifth of the income spectrum, with the top one-fifth seeing its tax rates drop by 1.8 percentage points. The biggest gains would go to households in the top 1% to 5% of incomes (from $307,900 to $732,000); their tax rates would drop by 3.1 percentage points. 

The numbers were similar for changes through 2025, the Tax Policy Center found.

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, PolitiFact Staff Writers Samantha Putterman and Maria Ramirez Uribe and PolitiFact North Carolina Staff Writer Paul Specht contributed to this article.

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying Bragg  brought forward the case against him after other investigative bodies passed.

In remarks to reporters after court May 6, Trump also singled out the actions of the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. attorney’s office in New York’s southern district.

“The FEC said they threw it away,” Trump said, referring to the Federal Elections Commission. “They said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Southern district didn’t bring the case. Nobody brought the case and then Alvin Bragg brought the case.”

Trump said Bragg brought the case “when I am running and leading” in the polls. He said, “They all want to keep me off the campaign trail.”

Trump omitted the full story about the FEC’s actions. The independent federal agency administers and enforces federal campaign finance law. Six commissioners lead it, no more than half of whom can belong to the same political party. 

Trump is charged in Manhattan with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. (Daniels’ real name is Stephanie Clifford.)

FEC commissioners split their vote on general counsel’s recommendation

Trump’s statement that the FEC “threw away” the case and replied “you’ve got to be kidding” could be interpreted to mean the agency tossed the case quickly. That’s not what happened. The complaints were filed with the agency early in 2018 and not closed until three years later.

The FEC received complaints against Trump; his lawyer Michael Cohen, who handled the payoff to Daniels; Trump’s campaign; and a few other people and entities.

The complaints alleged that Cohen, Trump and others violated the Federal Election Campaign Act, the federal law regulating political campaign fundraising and spending, at Trump’s direction to influence the 2016 election.

In a 70-page report released in December 2020, the commission’s Office of General Counsel recommended that the commission find there was reason to believe that the contributions were illegal and went unreported.

“The available information indicates that Michael Cohen paid Stephanie Clifford $130,000 … with Trump’s express promise of repayment, for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election” by preventing Clifford from publicizing the allegation, it said. 

However, in February 2021, the FEC deadlocked on a 2-2 vote on whether Trump willfully violated federal law. The commission often deadlocks along partisan lines when it considers controversial cases. (In this case, the FEC was down from six commissioners to four. One commissioner, an independent, was absent; and one commissioner, a Republican, opted to recuse.)

The Republican commissioners, Sean J. Cooksey and James E. Trainor III, didn’t address the charges’ validity. They argued Cohen’s guilty plea in federal court made the public record “complete,” and that “pursuing these matters further was not the best use of agency resources.”

The Democratic commissioners, Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, argued that the charges against Trump — that he “knowingly and willfully accepted contributions nearly 5,000% over the legal limit to suppress a negative story mere days before Election Day” — were “well-grounded.”

Book raises questions about Trump administration pressure on federal prosecutors

In his 2022 book, “Holding the Line,” former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman described ways that he said the Trump administration interfered in political prosecutions. Trump appointed Berman to the New York’s southern district in 2018. Berman’s office prosecuted Cohen although Berman recused himself. 

Berman’s office also investigated Trump lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. News reports said there were tensions between the prosecutor’s office and the White House in 2020. In June 2020, Attorney General Bill Barr asked Berman to resign and Berman refused, leading Trump to fire him.

Berman wrote that before Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to charges connected to the Trump hush money case, a Justice Department official “badgered” Berman’s office “without success to remove all references to Individual 1, President Trump, from the charging document.”

When Bill Barr took over as attorney general in February 2019, “he not only tried to kill the ongoing investigations, but — incredibly — suggested that Cohen’s conviction on campaign finance charges be reversed,” Berman wrote.

Barr summoned a deputy in Berman’s office to challenge the basis of Cohen’s plea and “the reason behind pursuing similar campaign finance charges against other individuals,” Berman wrote.

Instructions from Barr and his administration were explicit, Berman wrote: “Not a single investigative step could be taken, not a single document in our possession could be reviewed until the issue was resolved. … It certainly seemed clear that Barr did not want the Cohen case spiraling in new directions.”

Another deputy in Berman’s office later persuaded Barr to continue the investigation. It did not result in charges. The New York Times’ article about the book in September 2022 said that spokespersons for Barr and Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

We asked a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign if he had any evidence for us to consider related to the allegations in Berman’s book about pressure from Barr and did not receive a response. 

New York investigation into Trump has roots during his presidency

Although Trump criticizes his trial’s timing, he omits numerous factors that caused the case to take years to reach the charging stage.

The Manhattan investigation into Trump began in 2018, during Trump’s presidency. It was subject to many twists, turns and delays amid the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and prosecutorial turnover. 

After Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. began investigating the payments, Politico reported.

Federal prosecutors could not charge Trump then because Justice Department policy bars bringing criminal charges against a sitting president, Politico reported.

After federal prosecutors concluded their investigation, Vance in August 2019 subpoenaed Trump’s personal and corporate tax records. Trump’s lawyers fought the subpoena, and the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2020 ruled in Vance’s favor.

By the time Vance obtained the records, it was February 2021, early in Joe Biden’s presidency. Bragg was elected to replace Vance and took office in January 2022.  

The next month, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, two prosecutors who were heading the investigation into Trump’s business dealings, resigned.

Days later, Bragg’s office said a new prosecutor had been assigned to lead the case. 

But even then it wasn’t clear whether Bragg was pursuing the case against Trump. In March 2022, The New York Times published Pomerantz’s resignation letter, in which he told Bragg that he disagreed with his decision not to prosecute Trump and take the case to a grand jury. 

Bragg said in an April 7, 2022, statement that the investigation against Trump was continuing. The grand jury indicted Trump in March 2023 and Bragg announced the charges in April 2023.

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this article.

CORRECTION, May 8, 2024: The Federal Election Commission’s general counsel reviewed complaints, issued a report and recommended the commission find reason to believe that Trump engaged in wrongdoing. An earlier version of this fact-check used less precise terms to describe this process. The story has been updated.

RELATED: Trump says business records case about hush money is a “Biden trial.” It’s a Manhattan trial

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RELATED: Read all of PolitiFact’s coverage on Donald Trump indictments

Many celebrities walked the 2024 Met Gala red carpet in extravagant looks inspired by nature, in keeping with this year’s theme. But contrary to social media users’ claims, Rihanna was not among them.

A May 6 Facebook post included an image of singer Rihanna wearing a cream-colored dress with a long floral train and a dramatic, circular silhouette covered in branching green leaves, flowers and birds.

The caption read, “Rihanna attends The #MetGala.”

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 Met Gala benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year’s theme was “The Garden of Time.” But Rihanna wasn’t there.

Rihanna told ExtraTV about a week before the Met Gala that she planned to attend. People magazine reported May 6, the day after the event, that Rihanna didn’t attend because she had the flu.

The singer and entrepreneur is known for her buzz-worthy red carpet looks. The most recent Met Gala she attended was in 2023. The photo in the Facebook post does not match any of Rihanna’s past Met Gala looks.

Looking closely at the photo reveals hints that it was likely generated with artificial intelligence.

(Image from Facebook)

The carpet doesn’t match the 2024 Met Gala carpet, which was cream colored and had moss green accents along the edges. And the fake photo’s flower-studded hedges along the carpet’s perimeter are the wrong color; the flowers were white.

The photographers in the background also had some inconsistencies common among AI-generated images, including distorted hands.

PolitiFact recently fact-checked different photos that falsely claimed to show Katy Perry at the Met Gala. These images were AI-generated.

We rate the claim that a photo shows Rihanna at the 2024 Met Gala Pants on Fire!

Are the stars and stripes getting a multicolored makeover?

Some social media users said the classic red, white and blue banner could be on the chopping block: “Democrats are calling to redesign the American Flag to make it more inclusive,” said a May 3 X post that is being screenshotted and reshared on Facebook.

The viral post includes a photo of a massive flag with pale pink stars and rainbow stripes.

(Screenshot of X post)

But the featured image is not part of a “redesign.” The photo was taken in 2015 at a protest. After searching for news reports and reviewing Nexis news archives, PolitiFact found no evidence of such calls for a redesign of the American flag by Democrats.

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

Our star-spangled banner has been the same since July 4, 1960, when Hawaii was incorporated as a state. With 50 stars for the 50 states and red and white stripes representing valor and innocence, the flag has become an iconic symbol of patriotism and fodder for misinformation. (We do a lot of flag fact-checks!)

Despite some state flag redesigns and calls from specific individuals such as singer Macy Gray for a more inclusive design, the American flag has not been altered — nor are Democrats calling for it now.

The American flag shown in the viral post blends the structure of the American flag with the colored stripes of the LGBTQ+ pride flag. Protesters carried it outside the U.S. Supreme Court almost a decade ago during the fight to legalize gay marriage.

It is not uncommon for movements to use an altered image of the American flag to make a political statement. For example, black-and-white flags featuring one blue stripe are often used to signal support for law enforcement.

We rate the claim that “Democrats are calling to redesign the American Flag to make it more inclusive” by featuring rainbow colored stripes False.
 

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has been the subject of several false claims that have drawn the attention of social media users critical of the athlete’s participation in women’s sports. 

Among them, circulating on a Facebook post: “The US Women’s team has made it clear they will resign immediately if the Olympic Committee allows Lia Thomas to try out.” 

“‘We don’t need an outsider,’ the Coach stated,” the April 30 post said. “‘We are champions solely composed of females. We don’t welcome male participation.’” 

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 evidence that the claim in the Facebook post, or the quote attributed to “the Coach,” is true. Searching for credible news reports or public statements online, we discovered none. 

Rather, this post seems to be a variation of an old fake news story posted on a satire site. The headline said: “US Women’s team says they’ll quit if Lia Thomas gets a tryout: ‘We don’t need a ringer.’”

Thomas is challenging transgender restrictions imposed by World Aquatics, swimming’s global governing body.

With the exception of two athletes — Katie Grimes and Mariah Denigan, who qualified for the Olympics with their performances at past World Aquatics Championships — it’s still unknown which swimmers will represent the United States at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The 2024 U.S. Olympic Swimming trials will take place June 15-23 in Indianapolis.

These trials are affiliated with USA Swimming, the national governing body for the sport of swimming in the United States, not the “Olympic Committee,” as the post suggests.

In September 2023, Todd DeSorbo, University of Virginia’s head swimming coach, was named head coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic team.

We rate this post False.

RELATED: Tuberville’s claim that Olympics decided ‘men can box women’ misses the mark

 

Photos of Katy Perry’s large, showstopping floral frock created a social media buzz as people shared their favorite fashion from the Met Gala. 

The problem? The Perry images aren’t real. 

One May 6 Facebook post included two photos that claimed to show Perry in her Met Gala attire. The first showed an expansive, intricate gown embellished with flowers and butterflies. The second showed a corset top reminiscent of a vintage metal key attached to a green skirt that appeared to be made of vines and flowers. 

“Katy Perry ATE and left NO crumbs,” the post’s caption read, followed by a heart-eye emoji. The Facebook user also added the two photos to a Facebook photo album titled, “2024 MET GALA.” 

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.)

The Met Gala benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year’s theme was “The Garden of Time.” But Perry wasn’t there.

The images that purport to show her at the gala are generated by artificial intelligence.

“Couldn’t make it to the MET, had to work,” Perry wrote in a May 6 Instagram post in which she shared both AI-generated photos. 

Social media users weren’t the only ones fooled by the AI photos — even Perry’s mother fell for the hoax. Perry also shared a screenshot of a text conversation with her mom. 

“Didn’t know you went to the Met,” Perry’s mom wrote in the text exchange. “What a gorgeous gown, you look like the Rose Parade, you are your own float lol.”

Perry replied: “lol mom the AI got you too, BEWARE!” 

Katy Perry has attended the Met Gala before, most recently in 2022.

Katy Perry attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibition May 2, 2022, in New York. (AP)

Other details might also tip off eagle-eyed viewers to the fact that the gown image is AI-generated. 

(Image from Facebook.)

The carpet doesn’t match the 2024 Met Gala carpet, which was cream colored and had moss green accents along the edges.

The carpet for the 2024 Met Gala. pic.twitter.com/gmjsFr4Uvd

— Pop Base (@PopBase) May 6, 2024

It’s much closer to the 2018 Met Gala carpet with a red pattern on the edges and leaf-covered walls, but still not an identical match.

Actor Blake Lively attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition on May 7, 2018, in New York. (AP)

Looking closely at the photographers in the background of the Perry gown image also showed some inconsistencies common among AI-generated images, including bizarre looking hands and distorted faces. 

We rate the claim that these images show Perry at the 2024 Met Gala Pants on Fire!