Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, experienced record-breaking rainfall and flooding last week. But some videos online falsely claimed to show the deluge.
Text on an Instagram video shared April 17 read, “Dubai city today, tornado storm everywhere.” The video included four different clips showing extreme weather events.
The 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 first clip showed a large tornado near a beach. We found the same video posted on TikTok in January, with claims the footage was from Florida. The TikTok footage looks as if it could be generated by artificial intelligence, and it differs from footage of the tornado from a local news outlet. More importantly, the TikTok footage was posted online Jan. 5, and the Florida tornadoes occurred Jan. 8 and 9.
The next clip shows heavy clouds covering tall buildings. The same clip was also posted on YouTube on Nov. 3, 2023, saying it showed weather in Bahrain. Other TikTok and YouTube posts claim the footage came from Dubai in November. The United Arab Emirates did have heavy rain that led to flights being canceled in November 2023, but we could not confirm whether this footage shows that.
(Screenshot from Instagram)
The third clip shows a group of people taking cover from wind and rain. That video was first posted July 25, 2023, by China Central Television, China’s national television broadcaster. Its caption says it shows a storm hitting the Taihang Mountain Grand Canyon in Changzhi, Shanxi, on July 24, 2023.
(Screenshot from Instagram)
The final clip, showing heavy rains over a busy road with large buildings, first appeared in a TikTok from Nov. 21, 2023.
We rate the claim that a video compilation shows a tornado and storms in Dubai on April 17 False.
Eight days before a six-week abortion ban takes effect in Florida, President Joe Biden spoke in Tampa to lay blame for restrictive measures nationwide on one person: former President Donald Trump.
In a 12-minute address April 23 at Hillsborough Community College, Biden warned of “extreme” laws that restrict abortion access, and he blamed Trump, his predecessor and presumptive 2024 rival, for making those policies possible.
Biden criticized Trump for bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade and paving the way for states to enact strict limits on abortion. Using that new power, Biden said, Arizona reinstated an 1864 total abortion ban and Florida instituted its six-week ban.
Biden and his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, in recent days have made abortion key to their campaign message. Biden shouted his remarks at times, but some of his statements left out context.
Biden’s address comes as Florida voters are set to decide whether to expand abortion rights in a high-stakes abortion measure on the November ballot.
Polls show that six-week abortion bans are unpopular both nationally and in Florida. For bans later in pregnancy, around 16 weeks, polling results are inconsistent. A national KFF poll from February 2024 found that 58% opposed federal ban on abortion at 16 weeks while 42% said they would support one. But an Economist/YouGov poll the same month found the opposite: 48% favoring a 16-week ban, 36% opposed and 16% not sure. Polling also shows wide support for first-trimester abortions, but far less for second-trimester abortions.
Here are fact-checks of four things Biden said.
“Don’t think (Trump) is not making a deal right now with MAGA extremists to ban abortion nationwide in every state, because he’s making it.”
Although we can’t know what goes on in private, Biden’s claim conflicts with Trump’s most recent public comments on abortion.
On April 8, Trump released a video on his abortion position and later told reporters that he wouldn’t sign a nationwide ban if it came to his desk.
In his video, Trump boasted about appointing three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that federally protected abortion access. Trump also said he thought that abortion regulation should be left to the states, and that he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the pregnant woman’s life.
On the campaign trail, Trump has criticized some of the stricter abortion bans. He called Florida’s six-week law poised to take effect May 1 “a terrible mistake.” And he agreed that Arizona’s newly resurrected 1864 total abortion ban went too far.
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Trump expressed more support for a federal abortion ban.
In 1999, Trump described himself as “pro-choice.” He adopted an antiabortion stance around 2011, when he told a conservative committee that he was “pro-life.”
When Trump was president in 2017, he endorsed a 20-week national abortion ban that failed to pass.
In February, The New York Times reported that Trump floated a 16-week nationwide abortion ban in private discussions. In March, Trump indicated in a radio interview that he would back a 15-week ban.
Trump surrogates have discussed other executive actions Trump could use once in office, such as enforcing the Comstock Act — a 19th century law that bans the mailing of “obscene” material — that could outlaw abortion across the country by prohibiting sending materials such as medication and surgical equipment that could be used in abortions. Project 2025, a policy platform by a coalition of Trump-aligned groups for a second potential Trump presidency, also referred to the law in its online agenda.
Trump hasn’t said he would enforce the law this way, but he hasn’t disavowed it either.
Trump “said, ‘There has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom.’”
This is misleading. In 2023, we rated a similar statement by Biden Mostly False.
Trump made a comment about punishing women in 2016 but quickly walked it back.
During a March 2016 MSNBC town hall, an audience member asked Trump about his stance on women’s rights in reproductive health decisions. Trump said he was “pro-life,” with exceptions, but gave no further details. In a back-and-forth, host Chris Matthews asked Trump about legal penalties:
Matthews: “Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?”
Trump: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”
Matthews: “For the woman?”
Trump: “Yeah, there has to be some form.”
But Trump retracted the comment that same day after pro- and anti-abortion activists roundly criticized him. He issued a statement that said he meant that physicians should be held legally responsible, not women. It said:
“If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”
The next day, Trump told “Fox & Friends” hosts, “If, in fact, abortion was outlawed, the person performing the abortion, the doctor or whoever it may be that is really doing the act is responsible for the act, not the woman, is responsible.”
“And today, MAGA Republicans refused to repeal that (1864) ban in Arizona. Trump has literally taken us back 160 years.”
This leaves out that Trump has criticized Arizona’s recent legal action affecting abortion access.
On April 9, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of bringing back a Civil War-era law that would ban all abortions except when a pregnant woman’s life is endangered. Under the law, abortion providers could face two to five years in prison. Barring other legal or legislative action, the abortion measure could take effect as early as June.
The law is part of Arizona’s Howell Code, nearly 500 pages of laws that governed the Arizona territory before the state’s official 1912 establishment.
Following the court’s ruling, the Republican-led Arizona House blocked efforts to move forward on a repeal of the 1864 law. The state Senate launched a similar repeal effort.
The Arizona court concluded that “absent the federal constitutional abortion right” the 1864 law is enforceable. Trump took credit for overturning that federal right.
Following the ruling, Trump said April 10, “It’s all about state’s rights, and that’ll be straightened out. I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason and that’ll be taken care of, I think, very quickly.”
Trump was more specific on Truth Social two days later, stating that the Arizona court “went too far on their Abortion Ruling, enacting and approving an inappropriate Law from 1864.” He called on Arizona lawmakers to “remedy what has happened” and called for exceptions for rape, incest and the pregnant woman’s life.
“One in three women throughout the United States of America” live in a state with an abortion ban at six weeks or sooner.
This is accurate. At six weeks, most women don’t yet know they are pregnant and haven’t had a chance to see a doctor. And the number of women in that statistic is poised to grow when Florida’s six-week abortion ban takes effect May 1.
If the 1864 Arizona law takes effect, it would ban all abortions except when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger. Barring other legal or legislative action, the abortion measure could be instated as early as June, Axios reported.
Excluding Florida and Arizona, about 21.5 million women and girls of reproductive age currently live in states that ban abortions completely, or after six weeks of pregnancy, U.S. Census data shows. That’s about 29% of women ages 15 to 49.
When adding in states that ban abortion after 12 or 15 weeks of pregnancy, the number of affected women grows to about 25 million, or about 40%.
RELATED: All of our fact-checks on abortion, including statements by former President Donald Trump.
While the risks associated with COVID-19 generally have decreased over time due to prior exposure to the vaccines and the virus, some people remain at elevated risk, such as the elderly and immunocompromised. The updated COVID-19 vaccines and, in some cases, a new monoclonal antibody can provide increased protection for this group.
“At this point, many people have had multiple vaccines and we are seeing a lot less severe and life-threatening illness, especially in people who have had recent vaccination,”Dr. Camille Kotton, clinical director of Transplant and Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, told us.“Nonetheless, we are still seeing significant severe disease, hospitalization, even life-threatening disease, especially in people over the age of 65 or who are immunocompromised.”
We spoke with Kotton, who is also a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, about the current state of affairs for people at elevated risk of severe disease from COVID-19 and the tools they can use to protect themselves.
For some people who are immunocompromised, a newly authorized monoclonal antibody, Pemgarda, or pemivibart, may provide an additional layer of protection, Kotton said. These antibodies may substitute for a person’s own antibodies and help block the coronavirus from entering a person’s cells.
Even so, Kotton emphasized the importance of getting this year’s updated COVID-19 vaccines. “The majority of immunocompromised patients have not had a first dose of the 2023/2024 vaccine,” she said. They, along with people age 65 and up, are eligible for multiple doses of the updated vaccines this year.
Who Remains at Increased Risk from COVID-19?
Last month, the CDC updated guidelines for people with COVID-19, removing the previous standard five days of isolation and replacing it with symptoms-based guidance. The move was part of a transition away from the emergency response phase of the pandemic to recovery and maintenance phases, the agency explained.
Rates of COVID-19-associated hospitalization have declined across adult age groups since early pandemic waves. There is also evidence that outcomes have improved for those who are immunocompromised. However, these groups remain at elevated risk from COVID-19, Kotton said.
As of the latest census, just around 17% of the U.S. population was age 65 or over. But between October 2023 and January 2024, around two-thirds of COVID-19 hospitalizations were among those 65 and older, according to data from the CDC. Older Americans make up an increasing proportion of those hospitalized for COVID-19, as outcomes have improved more markedly for younger people.
People who are immunocompromised also are hospitalized for COVID-19 and die from the disease at a relatively high rate. Between October 2022 and November 2023, 16% of all adult COVID-19 hospitalizations were among people with immunocompromising conditions, and 28% of in-hospital deaths occurred in this group.
People can be immunocompromised for a variety of reasons, and to varying degrees. Sometimes, a health condition itself alters a person’s immune system’s ability to respond to infection. These conditions can include certain blood cancers, advanced or untreated HIV, or primary immunodeficiency, a group of rare genetic diseases in which some portion of a person’s immune system is altered and doesn’t work properly.
At other times, the treatment for a disease weakens someone’s immune system. For instance, people are considered immunocompromised if they are receiving immunosuppressive treatments associated with transplant or various treatments for conditions such as autoimmune disease or cancer.
Recent estimates indicate around 7% of U.S. adults report having immunosuppression, up from around 3% in 2013.
The growing availability of advanced therapies for various diseases has likely contributed to the increasing percentage of immunocompromised Americans, Kotton said. Previously, for “many of those people, we did not have such successful treatments,” she said. “Unfortunately, now one of the side effects of all of those treatments can be a higher risk of infection.”
How Can People Protect Themselves from COVID-19?
The Food and Drug Administration approved, and the CDC recommended, updated COVID-19 vaccines in September. (For more information, see “Q&A on the Updated COVID-19 Vaccines.”) Since then, the updated vaccines have been shown in multiple studies to reduce the risks of hospitalization and other negative outcomes — including among the elderly and immunocompromised.
As is recommended for everyone 6 months and up, people who are elderly or immunocompromised should get an updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine if they haven’t yet, Kotton said. People who are immunocompromised or elderly are also eligible for additional vaccine doses. Protection from the vaccines wanes as time passes, particularly among these groups, she said.
People age 65 and up should get a second dose of the updated vaccines at least four months after their previous dose, according to the CDC. People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised “may get additional updated COVID-19 vaccine doses” if it has been at least two months since their last COVID-19 vaccine, the agency says.
Percentage of American adults by age group who received updated COVID-19 vaccines between September 2023 and early February 2024. Source: National Immunization Survey-Adult COVID Module, Feb. 28 ACIP meeting slides.
Despite these recommendations, just over 20% of American adults had gotten the updated vaccines as of February. Uptake was a bit better among adults 65 and older, with more than 40% having gotten the shots.
In a recent study of electronic health records through February, just 18% of immunocompromised people had gotten an updated shot. The same study showed that the vaccines reduced the risk of hospitalization in this group by 38% between seven and 59 days after getting the shot and 34% in the 60 days following that, compared with immunocompromised people who hadn’t received an updated vaccine.
“I actually believe that we should focus many of our efforts on really encouraging uptake of the 2023/2024 COVID-19 vaccine, and that everybody has a first dose and at least two or more months later get a second dose so that they remain well vaccinated,” Kotton said, referring to the population of people who are immunocompromised.
What Is Pemgarda and Who Might Benefit?
On March 22, a new potential tool for mitigating COVID-19 risk was authorized by the FDA. Pemgarda, the monoclonal antibody, received an emergency use authorization for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised and who are unlikely to have a sufficient immune response to COVID-19 vaccination. It became available for purchase by wholesalers on April 4.
It is the first preventive antibody treatment to be authorized since a prior monoclonal antibody combination, called Evusheld, was taken off the market in January 2023, based on data indicating that it was unlikely to help protect against the latest viral variants that were circulating.
Pemgarda is given to people who do not have COVID-19 or a known exposure. It consists of an antibody shown to recognize a section of the spike protein, which is part of the virus that causes COVID-19. The product was authorized based on calculations indicating that receiving it should lead to sufficient antibodies in a person’s blood to protect against JN.1, the current dominant variant in the U.S.
Pemgarda may benefit a subset of immunocompromised people, Kotton said, but it is not a substitute for vaccination. People who are vaccinated “tend to develop multiple forms of immunity that seem more protective than just administration of a monoclonal antibody alone,” she said.
Seventyfour / stock.adobe.com
Vaccination should lead to both the production of antibodies and a cellular immune response, she explained. A drug like Pemgarda may help people who are not producing sufficient antibodies on their own in response to vaccination.
It is not cut and dried how well someone who is immunocompromised will respond to vaccination, however. “When we give immunocompromised people vaccines, some respond by developing an antibody, others develop a cellular immune response, and it’s not always predictable that if they develop one that they will develop the other,” Kotton said. “And so it’s been challenging to know who is actually well protected.”
It is clear that the people who are at risk of severe COVID-19 include those with recent bone marrow transplant, people with certain cancers such as multiple myeloma, or those taking certain drugs given for various cancers and autoimmune diseases. “We do think that those populations could potentially benefit” from Pemgarda, Kotton said.
These patients are not only at risk of severe disease, Kotton said, but of chronic infections. Distinct from long COVID, these long-term infections occur when a person is unable to clear an active infection.
“Otherwise, it seems that it’s not clear that there will be widespread benefit to all immunocompromised populations, in the era of widespread, numerous vaccination doses,” Kotton said.
What Are the Obstacles to Getting Pemgarda?
Kotton emphasized the importance of practical considerations, such as cost and logistics, when considering COVID-19 prevention measures.
Evusheld, the previously available preventive treatment, was provided for free by the U.S. government, she said. The same is not true for Pemgarda. Its maker, Invivyd, announced a wholesale acquisition cost of nearly $6,000 per dose. This is the list price a manufacturer charges wholesalers, although it may not represent the price they actually pay after discounts. Costs to patients will vary depending on insurance coverage.
Preventive monoclonal antibodies are available without cost-sharing for people covered by Medicare, who make up a portion of those eligible for Pemgarda, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. However, the amount individuals with private insurance pay will depend on their insurance plans and whether the monoclonal antibody is covered.
While Evusheld was given as two injections, Pemgarda is an infused drug, Kotton added, increasing the logistical challenges for both patients and health care providers. Patients must sit for an hour-long infusion, followed by a two-hour observation period, for a drug that may be given every three months. “Already Evusheld was a very challenging rollout,” Kotton said. “We did not have staff or capacity.”
In contrast, the private sector cost of the COVID-19 vaccines for those 12 and older is between $115 and $130 per dose. And people in the U.S., including those without insurance, should be able to get COVID-19 vaccines for free.
As Pemgarda is rolled out, Kotton said, it will be important to push for equity in who receives it. “I think it’s important to think hard about how we would make the monoclonal antibody available to all severely immunocompromised people who would really benefit and not just people that might be able to pay for it,” she said.
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.
Was John Mellencamp forced to leave the stage at his own concert for praising President Joe Biden? A viral Facebook post said this happened at a Toledo, Ohio, show.
The April 16 post said, “Famous rock star BOOED off stage for praising Joe Biden,” and linked to a story that identified the “Pink Houses” singer as the star in question. The story also included a video of a March 17 incident.
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.)
Similar claims have been shared on Instagram and X.
But Mellencamp, 72, was not booed off the stage for praising the president. Some audience members heckled him as he talked between songs, according to The Blade, a local newspaper. None of the news reviews of the concert mentioned praise for the president; neither did a viral video posted on TikTok.
While talking about his late grandmother, Mellencamp was interrupted by an audience member who shouted, “Play some music!” which appeared to upset Mellencamp. His expletive-laden response to the interruption received cheers and applause from the rest of the audience. When Mellencamp resumed talking, another person shouted “Authority Song!” urging him to play the 1980s hit song by that name.
Mellencamp, now visibly upset, as the viral TikTok shows, threatened to end the show, and the audience can be heard urging him not to. Shortly after, he began performing his 1982 hit “Jack & Diane.”
But then he stopped abruptly and said, “You know what? Show is over,” and left the stage.
Reviewers of the concert said Mellencamp later returned to complete the show.
“I do expect etiquette inside of the theater, the same way you would at a Broadway show,” he told The Washington Post in an April 10 story. “And if you want to come and scream and yell and get drunk, don’t come to my show.”
There was booing and jeering during the exchange between Mellencamp and the hecklers, but they were directed at the hecklers, according to video of the incident and news reports.
Mellencamp has had links to Democrats. He campaigned with Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and performed at Obama’s 2009 inauguration and at the White House in 2010. He previously asked 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain to stop playing his song at campaign events. But we found no evidence that he mentioned politics or the president at his Toledo show.
We rate the claim that Mellencamp was booed off stage for praising Biden False.
Former President Donald Trump said he wants young voters to know that “Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok.” But a TikTok ban enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress. Trump himself tried to ban TikTok as president through an executive order, but it was blocked by the courts.
A House bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest or face a U.S. ban overwhelmingly passed the House 360-58 on April 20, with the support of 186 Republicans and 174 Democrats.
The bill was introduced by Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who said in an April 20 speech on the House floor that the bill “protects Americans, especially our children, from the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party-controlled TikTok.”
“This app is a spy balloon in Americans’ phones,” McCaul said. “It is a modern-day Trojan horse of the CCP used to surveil and exploit Americans’ personal information.”
TikTok is a popular video-sharing mobile app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd. Many legislators fear the Chinese government could access TikTok users’ data via Chinese national security laws that state, “All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.”
The logo of TikTok is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 20. Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images.
The bill, which was paired with new sanctions on Iran, China and Russia, prohibits “foreign adversary controlled applications” and would give ByteDance a year to divest or else TikTok would be banned in the U.S.
Biden vowed on March 8 if Congress passed the TikTok bill, “I’ll sign it.”
In December 2022, Biden signed a spending bill that included a provision prohibiting the use of TikTok by most federal government employees on devices owned by the government.
But much of the momentum behind the recent TikTok legislation has come from Republicans. On March 13, the House passed a Republican-introduced TikTok bill that was similar to the one passed on April 20. It received even greater Republican support, 197-15, than the recent bill. Democrats also supported that bill 155-50. But the bill stalled in the Senate commerce committee after its chair, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, expressed some concerns about it. The latest version of the legislation would extend the deadline for TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest from six months to a year, and Cantwell said she supports that iteration.
While both TikTok bills received overwhelming Democratic support in the House, neither could have advanced without Republican support, as the GOP narrowly controls the House. And Biden could not sign any bill that does not reach his desk, a point Trump omits in his post on Truth Social.
“Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” Trump wrote on April 22. “He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party. It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote!”
A recent poll from the CNBC All-America Economic Survey found that a plurality of Americans supported a ban or sale of TikTok, including 60% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats. But nearly half of people age 18 to 34 opposed a ban.
Trump himself once supported a ban of TikTok. As we have written, when Trump was president he tried to ban the popular app, but he was blocked by the courts.
Trump’s Order Banning TikTok
In May 2019, Trump issued an executive order that declared a national emergency “to protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services in the United States,” as described in a White House statement.
No company was named in Trump’s order, but that order was referenced in another executive order issued by Trump in August 2020 that specifically targeted TikTok. “Under authority delegated by the 2020 Order, the Secretary of Commerce issued a list of prohibited transactions, which included maintaining TikTok on a mobile app store or providing internet hosting services to it,” the Congressional Research Service said in a Sept. 28 report.
According to the August 2020 order, “TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
“TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities,” Trump’s order stated. “This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. These risks are real.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said on Sept. 10, 2020. “It’ll either be closed up or they’ll sell it. So we’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it’ll be sold.”
In separate lawsuits, TikTok and TikTok users challenged the Trump administration’s restrictions on TikTok’s U.S. operations. “The courts ultimately sided with the plaintiffs and issued preliminary injunctions temporarily barring the United States from enforcing the restrictions,” the CRS report said. “Both courts described the government actions as effectively banning TikTok from operating in the United States.”
On June 9, 2021, Biden rescinded Trump’s executive order and replaced it with one that the New York Times said “calls for a broader review of a number of foreign-controlled applications that could pose a security risk to Americans and their data.”
Trump has since reversed his position on the app. According to ABC News, the conversion came shortly after Trump met in early March with hedge fund manager Jeff Yass, “a GOP megadonor who reportedly has a major financial stake in the popular social media platform.”
In a Truth Social post on March 14, Trump argued that “TIKTOK IS LESS OF A DANGER TO THE USA THAN META (FACEBOOK!), WHICH IS A TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”
Trump railed against what he said was Facebook’s interference in the 2020 election. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $350 million in nonpartisan grants to help election officials meet the challenges of administering the 2020 election during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some Republicans criticized it as an effort to boost Democratic voting. In his March 14 post, Trump claimed, “FACEBOOK IS A GREAT THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, AND IT WILL ONLY GET BIGGER AND STRONGER IF TIKTOK IS TAKEN OUT.”
In an interview with CNBC on March 11, Trump expressed ambivalence on the topic of banning TikTok.
“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Trump said. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users. There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media.”
Trump said he did view TikTok as a security threat, “and we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights. … But you know, we also have that problem with other, you have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies too. … But when I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size. And if you, if you ban TikTok, Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook, will be a big beneficiary. And I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”
Trump also said he never discussed TikTok when he met with Yass and that the meeting had no impact on him changing his position on TikTok.
The Senate is expected to pass on the TikTok bill this week.
TikTok released a statement saying it was “unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24bn to the US economy, annually.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.
A recent Facebook post shows two scenes: a deep sand-colored pit dotted with vehicles and structures, and a bucolic pasture with cattle grazing around an oil rig.
“Lithium for electric cars,” reads text on the first image. On the second: “Oil for cars.”
But this comparison that looks askance at electric vehicles misses the mark. The first image doesn’t show the site of “lithium for electric cars.”
An April 14 Facebook post sharing the images 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 us to a 2022 YouTube video posted by Montesinos Drone World, the account of aerial videographer Francisco Montesinos. Montesinos didn’t immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the post.
The Facebook post’s image appears about a minute into the video, titled “Bingham (Kennecott) Copper Mine — World’s largest open pit excavation).”
Kennecott Utah Copper, a subsidiary of mine owner Rio Tinto Group, has been mining copper from the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah since 1903. Kennecott Utah Copper also extracts gold, silver, molybdenum and tellurium. The Salt Lake Tribune reported in 2019 that production of copper and other metals would continue there through at least 2032.
Lithium typically is mined in South America and Australia.
Rio Tinto didn’t respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the Facebook post, but other company and news photos of the mine resemble the image in the post.
We’ve previously fact-checked posts that purport to show lithium mines that are actually copper mines.
We rate claims the image in this Facebook post shows a lithium mine False.
At an event touting the Biden administration’s efforts to curb gun violence, Vice President Kamala Harris said the vast majority of guns used in school shootings come from unsecured locations in homes.
On April 15 in Las Vegas, Harris said gun owners have a responsibility to secure firearms so children and young people can’t access them.
“Put it in a lockbox, because especially if a young person is just curious, or, you know, wants to play with a gun … let’s not make it too easy to get,” Harris said. “And that’s what secure storage is about. You know, the numbers that I have seen suggest that as many as 75% of school shootings resulted from a gun that was not secured.”
Harris’ comments come after parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to 10 years in prison for a deadly mass shooting their son committed in 2021 at his Michigan high school.
We took a closer look at the statistic and found the study Harris cites concluded that some school shooters acquired firearms that were considered unsecured or easily accessible in family homes — but not 75%.
Although this is not the first time this figure has been cited.
The White House pointed PolitiFact to a 2019 U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center report on targeted school violence — planned incidents perpetrated by current or former students using weapons obtained for the specific purpose of causing others harm at school.
The study evaluated 41 incidents, 25 involving firearms. Nineteen of the shooters, or 76%, got their guns from homes. Twelve, or 48%, of the shooters obtained their weapons from what researchers considered to be “accessible” or “not secured in a meaningful way.”
“You get to the 75% or 76% number by adding the firearms from homes where the guns had been locked up,” said Daniel Webster, a distinguished research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Criminologists and youth gun violence experts told PolitiFact data on gun storage and its relationship to U.S. school shootings is scant. The best available figures show that many school shootings by younger perpetrators are carried out with firearms that were considered unsecured or accessible in the home.
“It makes sense that most of the guns used in school shootings come from the shooter’s home. It’s the easiest place for a juvenile to find a gun,” said Jay Corzine, an emeritus sociology professor and a gun policy specialist at the University of Central Florida. “But, is it 75%? Is it 68%? I don’t know.”
The Secret Service study and its limitations
The U.S. Secret Service report studied 41 incidents of “targeted school violence” that occurred at K-12 schools from 2008 to 2017.
Of the 25 shootings studied, perpetrators acquired firearms from the home of a parent or close relative in 19 cases. Some perpetrators removed the guns from locked wooden or glass cabinets, or found them locked in vehicles or hidden in closets.
Besides the 12 cases in which the shooters obtained the guns from spaces deemed unsecure, perpetrators in four incidents accessed firearms from more secured locations. Although the guns were in a locked gun safe or case, the shooters knew the combination, or where the keys were kept, or could guess the password. If those four cases are included in Harris’ “not secured” count, the percentage is closer to 64%.
In the three remaining cases, researchers could not determine whether the firearm had been secured.
The study didn’t examine school attacks involving perpetrators who researchers said couldn’t be identified, or incidents related to “gang violence, drug violence, or other incidents with a strong suggestion of a separate criminal nexus.” It also didn’t include in its analysis “spontaneous acts,” such as after “an unplanned fight or other sudden confrontation.”
When is a gun considered unsecured?
A “unsecured” or “accessible” firearm is typically defined as one that is not safely stored in a gun safe, unloaded and separated from ammunition.
“The standard for safe and secure storage is that unauthorized or at-risk people cannot access them,” said Dr. Katherine Hoops, an assistant professor of pediatric critical care who researches public health approaches to prevent firearm injury and violence.
Under that standard, Hoops said, unauthorized people “don’t have a key or the combination to the safe.”
Garen Wintemute, director of the University of California, Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, said “secured” means that firearms are locked up and unloaded. “‘Locked up’ doesn’t have to mean locked inside something; there can be a lock placed on the firearm,” he said, with the ammunition stored in a separate location.
What other research shows about gun storage, school shootings
There is little data showing how often unsecured guns obtained from homes are being used in school shootings.
In 2019, the Wall Street Journal published an analysis of nearly three dozen mass shootings that have taken place at U.S. schools since 1990. The Journal found that 26 of 39 shooters, or about 66%, “had easy access to guns.” The newspaper said “easy access” indicated that “the shooter knew where unsecured guns were in the house, had access to home gun safes or purchased the guns themselves.”
One 2021 study compared shootings that occur at K-12 schools and colleges with mass shootings more broadly.
The report defined a K-12 school shooting as one that occurs at school during the school day, involves one or more perpetrators who are current or former students, and injures or kills at least one person. Using this definition, researchers identified 57 K-12 school shootings from 2001 to 2018.
Our ruling
Harris said that 75% of school shootings “resulted from a gun that was not secured.”
Harris based her statement on one 2019 study that examined 25 school shootings. It did not find that three-quarters of guns used in those shootings came from unsecured locations.
The study found that 19 shootings were carried out with firearms taken from family homes. Of those, 12 came from unsecured or readily accessible locations, the authors said — about 48% of the shootings studied. Another four came from spaces that researchers considered “more secure” but that perpetrators were able to access because they had keys, combinations or passwords. If those are tallied in, the percentage is closer to 64%.
Experts say more robust data is needed to better understand the link between gun storage and school shootings. However, a few studies have shown that around half of these incidents are carried out with firearms obtained from unsecured or otherwise accessible locations in family homes.
Harris’ statement contains an element of truth — the best available data suggests a relationship between unsecured guns at home and school shootings — but her statistic is off and ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
RELATED: Ask PolitiFact: What does the data show on deadly shootings by 18-to-20-year-olds?
Aaron Rodgers, already famous after nearly two decades as an NFL quarterback, is drawing a new kind of notoriety for peddling conspiracy theories.
Recently, a video clip went viral of Rodgers, known for his anti-vaccine views, criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic during his decadeslong tenure as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In the 1980s, it was “the game plan” to “create an environment where only one thing works,” Rodgers said in the video, adding that Fauci pushed certain infectious disease treatments for personal gain.
The video clip is from a Feb. 23 episode of the “Look Into It” podcast hosted by martial arts instructor and self-described conspiracy theorist Eddie Bravo. The interview resurfaced April 16 when a clip from it was shared on X and viewed more than 13 million times.
In the three-hour-long podcast interview, which requires paid access, Rodgers compared the AIDS epidemic with the COVID-19 pandemic, centering Fauci as the mastermind orchestrating the U.S. government’s response to both public health crises.
Rodgers said Fauci promoted an antiretroviral drug in the 1980s called zidovudine, also known as azidothymidine or AZT, to treat HIV. Rodgers falsely claimed that taking AZT was “killing people” at that time.
Rodgers, who was once considered a potential running mate for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited Kennedy’s 2021 book “The Real Anthony Fauci” as the source for this statement. (Kennedy selected Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer and tech entrepreneur, as his running mate in March.)
Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist whose presidential campaign of conspiracy theories was PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year. He repeats false talking points from other people who say that HIV does not cause AIDS, and this AIDS denialism was apparent in his Fauci book.
We contacted Rodgers and Kennedy for comment and received no response.
Here’s how Kennedy’s anti-Fauci narrative about the AIDS crisis misinformed Rodgers, who then reshared those falsehoods with millions of people who might never read Kennedy’s book.
Some of thousands who came to view the AIDS quilt on the National Mall look over the panels Oct. 12, 1992 in Washington D.C. At the time, the quilt, which is a tribute to people who died of AIDS, consisted of over 20,000 individual panels. (AP)
Debunking the decades-old claim that AZT is deadly
Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is an infection that attacks the body’s immune system. Left untreated, HIV can progress to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. HIV currently has no cure; once people get HIV, they have it for life, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The false claim that AZT, rather than AIDS, killed hundreds of thousands of people emerged during the 1980s AIDS crisis, an expert told PolitiFact. We fact-checked in 2023 a similar claim that “hundreds of thousands” of people died from taking AZT and rated it False.
After AZT proved ineffective against cancer, it was tested in the 1980s as an HIV/AIDS treatment. In lab tests, AZT slowed HIV replication without harming normal cells, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In subsequent clinical trials, AZT “decreased deaths and opportunistic infections, albeit with serious adverse effects,” NIAID said.
AZT was the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medication to treat HIV. At the time, in 1987, drug approvals typically took eight to 10 years, so AZT’s approval was fast-tracked.
Both the drug and its clinical trials were imperfect. Some trial patients shared the medication with other people, several AZT recipients received blood transfusions that could have helped them fight HIV and others had to stop taking the drug, according to documents published later.
But experts told PolitiFact the claim that AZT killed hundreds of thousands of people was baseless.
Jonathan Appelbaum, a clinical sciences professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine, told PolitiFact in June that the clinical trials of AZT “clearly showed a survival benefit” and that it prolonged lives even when it was used alone.
The medication has side effects, but “there has never been any case reported in the literature, that I know about, of an HIV patient whose death has been linked to AZT use or abuse,” said Marco Salemi, an experimental pathology professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
During the full podcast interview, Rodgers attributed his ideas about the alleged AIDS crisis-inspired “game plan” and the falsehood about AZT to Kennedy’s 2021 book.
“Anybody who hasn’t read RFK Jr.’s ‘The Real Anthony Fauci,’ you’re really doing yourself a disservice,” Rodgers said.
We borrowed “The Real Anthony Fauci” from the library. In a chapter titled, “The Pandemic Template: AIDS and AZT,” Kennedy created a narrative of government corruption and ineptitude with the book’s namesake — Fauci, who directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 and became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic — as ringleader.
By Kennedy’s account, Fauci exaggerated HIV’s transmissibility, partnered with pharmaceutical companies, “ran AZT around regulatory traps” and refused to research alternative AIDS therapies.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to supporters during a campaign event April 21, 2024, in Royal Oak, Mich. (AP)
Rodgers repeated, sometimes clumsily, Kennedy’s argument that Fauci used tactics he developed during the AIDS crisis to get rapid FDA approval for the COVID-19 treatment remdesivir, which Kennedy described as Fauci’s “pet drug” and a “lethal remedy.” (We’ve rated the claim that remdesivir killed COVID-19 patients False.)
Kennedy employed a familiar pattern to construct his anti-Fauci narrative:
He named alleged AIDS treatments that Fauci supposedly ignored, regardless of whether the scientific evidence supported their effectiveness against HIV. (Antiretroviral therapy, usually a combination of two or more drugs, is the recommended treatment for HIV.) This is similar to arguments during the COVID-19 pandemic about the use of ivermectin and other unproven treatments.
He focused on the flawed AZT clinical trial and the drug’s adverse effects, failing to acknowledge that after the issues became public and the drug’s recommended dose was reduced, research continued to support AZT’s effectiveness as an HIV treatment.
He cherry-picked details and anecdotes from other sources — sometimes known HIV denialists — and listed dozens of citations to lend himself authority, even when the sources didn’t back his conclusions.
In Kennedy’s assessment, Fauci pulled government strings and worked with pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s to get an unsafe, ineffective drug approved as the only HIV treatment. Then, Kennedy alleged Fauci used the same tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dan Wilson, senior associate scientist at Janssen and host of the YouTube show “Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson,” said Kennedy’s retelling of the AZT history was “dead wrong.”
Kennedy and Rodgers were “repeating a form of HIV/AIDS denialism, where antiretroviral drugs are said to be ineffective against progression of the virus,” Wilson said. In reality, he said, AZT “was the first time that doctors could do something to help people who (were) wasting away and dying painful deaths.”
Rodgers focused on the idea of “one approved treatment” for HIV. But Dr. Jonathan Laxton, a University of Manitoba general internal medicine professor, said other drug approvals followed while Fauci was leading the institute, and there are now more than 25 antiretroviral drugs available to treat HIV.
Wilson and Laxton said this type of misinformation about antiretroviral therapy and HIV causes lasting harm.
“Anyone who treats patients infected with HIV has had patients who have declined effective therapy because they think it is toxic or that they don’t have a viral infection,” Laxton said, adding that false claims also increase stigma around HIV.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
A day after Iran sent 300 missiles and drones toward Israel, social media users shared a video of a drone that appeared to be tangled in wires and claimed it was among those launched by Iran.
An April 14 Facebook reel shared a video of the drone, with sticker text that read, “One of the Iranian drones got stuck in electric pole wires in Iraq.”
The post didn’t mention Israel, but it was posted a day after Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, 99% of which were intercepted, the Israeli military said.
We also found social media posts on Instagram, X, TikTok and YouTube sharing the same video and claiming it was a drone sent by Iran to Israel that didn’t hit its target.
But a reverse-image search on key frames from the video shows a different story. The drone was not tangled in wires in Iraq and had no connection to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel.
(Facebook screenshot)
We found an X account called Vlogging NW Syria that posted images Feb. 20 showing the same drone tangled in wires with the same background seen in the video. The post caption contained a typo and read, “An unidentified drone crashes into electroc cables in the town of Qamar al-Din in the Hasakah countryside.”
An April 14 X post shared the video and said it was old, attaching a screenshot of a Feb. 20 post that showed a vertical photo of the drone with the words, “Syria: photo of the day. An unidentified drone stuck in electric wires in Hasakah province.”
Al-Hasakah is in northeastern Syria. A Syrian news site also posted the video on X in February and described it as “an unidentified drone crashed in the village of Qamar Al-Din of the town Abu Khashab northwest of Deir Ezzor.” Abu Khashab is about 65 miles southwest of Al-Hasakah, according to Google maps.
We also found a video posted Feb. 20 on YouTube and Instagram by Syria TV, a Turkish station that focuses on Syria news. The station’s YouTube page, translated using Google, described it as “an unidentified military drone gets stuck on telephone lines in eastern Syria.” The Instagram post said, “In an unfamiliar scene Unidentified military aircraft stuck in eastern telephone lines.”
A Syria TV article, also translated by Google, described an armed drone that got stuck on telephone lines in Qamar al-Din, a village in the Hasakah countryside. It added that local sources said the drone belonged to Iranian militias.
The video of the drone tangled in wires is not related to Iran’s attack on Israel. The claim is False.
The House Majority PAC was founded in April 2011 by Alixandria Lapp, a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official. In 2023, Lapp stepped down as the political action committee’s president and was succeeded by political strategist Mike Smith, who was most recently a senior adviser to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Abby Curran Horrell, a former chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Ann McLean Kuster, is the PAC’s executive director.
The House Majority PAC was one of several PACs formed by Democrats in response to the heavy spending by conservative organizations in the 2010 midterm elections, when Republicans gained control of the House. As a Carey committee, or hybrid PAC, the House Majority PAC can act as both a traditional PAC, giving money directly to candidates’ committees, and a super PAC, making independent expenditures not coordinated with candidates. It can also accept donations of any size for its independent expenditures from individuals, labor unions and corporations, but must disclose those dona and expenditures tions in reports to the Federal Election Commission.
On April 7, the House Majority PAC announced that it was reserving an initial round of $186 million in television and digital placements in 58 markets across the country. In a press release, the group said over $146 million has been reserved for TV ads and about $40 million for digital ones.
“Through these historic television and digital reservations, House Majority PAC has made it clear that we are ready to do whatever it takes to flip the House and elect Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House,” Smith said in a statement.
As of Feb. 29, the group had raised about $61.1 million for the 2024 cycle, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign spending. Of that amount, $8 million was donated by House Majority Forward, an affiliated nonprofit organization. Other large donors include hedge fund manager James Simons, businessman and philanthropist Fred Eychaner, Netflix Executive Chairman Reed Hastings, and Suffolk Construction Company Chairman and CEO John Fish.
This cycle, House Majority PAC already spent about $7 million on a variety of independent expenditures to help Democrat Tom Suozzi win the special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District seat against Republican Mazi Pilip.
During the 2022 midterms, the PAC spent over $181.6 million, including about $145 million on independent expenditures supporting Democratic candidates and opposing Republicans. In 2020, about $139 million of its more than $160 million in spending was on pro-Democrat or anti-Republican ads and other communications.
Staff Writer D’Angelo Gore contributed to this article.
