Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., offered a downbeat statistic on the state of the nation’s finances in his first address as the House of Representatives’ presiding officer.
He called the national debt “unsustainable” and “the greatest threat to our national security.”
“In the time it’s going to take me to deliver this speech,” Johnson said from the speaker’s chair Oct. 25, “we’ll go up another $20 million in debt.”
Johnson spoke for a little under 20 minutes.
There is no practical way to determine how much the debt rose during the literal 20-minute period when Johnson was speaking. And Johnson’s office noted that debt increases do not happen at a constant rate and are subject to the inflows and outflows of the federal treasury.
But we wondered how close Johnson might be, given what we do know, using the average rate of increase over the past year.
Calculated that way, the dollar amount is even bigger than what Johnson said.
The debt can be measured two ways: debt held by the public and gross federal debt, which includes public debt plus money that one part of the government owes another part of the government.
We calculated the annual increase of both kinds of debt broken up into 20-minute segments. Here’s how: There are three 20-minute segments in an hour, 72 20-minute segments in a day, and 26,280 20-minute segments in a 365-day year.
Over the past year, from Sept. 25, 2022, to Sept. 24, 2023, the public debt rose by $2.18 trillion. Over the same period, the gross federal debt rose by about $2.42 trillion.
If you divide those increases by the annual number of 20-minute increments, the public debt rose by about $83 million every 20 minutes while gross federal debt rose by almost $92 million over the same period.
Ultimately, Johnson is right that the debt goes up by a lot every 20 minutes, but, using averages, it appears he understated the amount by a factor of four.
Small amounts of DNA from the manufacturing process may remain in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Purification and quality control steps ensure any leftover DNA is present within regulatory limits. There isn’t reason to think that this residual DNA would alter a person’s DNA or cause cancer, contrary to claims made online.
How do we know vaccines are safe?
How do we know vaccines are safe?
No vaccine or medical product is 100% safe, but the safety of vaccines is ensured via rigorous testing in clinical trials prior to authorization or approval, followed by continued safety monitoring once the vaccine is rolled out to the public to detect potential rare side effects. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration inspects vaccine production facilities and reviews manufacturing protocols to make sure vaccine doses are of high-quality and free of contaminants.
One key vaccine safety surveillance program is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, which is an early warning system run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA. As its website explains, VAERS “is not designed to detect if a vaccine caused an adverse event, but it can identify unusual or unexpected patterns of reporting that might indicate possible safety problems requiring a closer look.”
Anyone can submit a report to VAERS for any health problem that occurs after an immunization. There is no screening or vetting of the report and no attempt to determine if the vaccine was responsible for the problem. The information is still valuable because it’s a way of being quickly alerted to a potential safety issue with a vaccine, which can then be followed-up by government scientists.
Another monitoring system is the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink, which uses electronic health data from nine health care organizations in the U.S. to identify adverse events related to vaccination in near real time.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, randomized controlled trials involving tens of thousands of people, which were reviewed by multiple groups of experts, revealed no serious safety issues and showed that the benefits outweigh the risks.
The CDC and FDA vaccine safety monitoring systems, which were expanded for the COVID-19 vaccines and also include a new smartphone-based reporting tool called v-safe, have subsequently identified only a few, very rare adverse events.
For more, see “How safe are the vaccines?”
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The COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are produced with help from DNA templates, which include instructions for making the mRNA that encodes the spike protein. Manufacturers take steps to purify the final vaccine components, cutting up and removing the DNA, although there could be a very small amount of DNA left.
Past research and mechanistic logic indicate that any DNA remaining after these purification and quality control steps is likely inconsequential. However, in recent months unsubstantiated theories have spread online that DNA remaining in mRNA vaccines could integrate into a person’s own DNA and cause cancer, or even that the vaccines are already causing cancer.
A spokesperson from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told us in an email that “no safety concerns related to residual DNA have been identified.” The spokesperson added that “with regard to the mRNA vaccines, while concerns have been raised previously as theoretical issues, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the minute amounts of residual DNA do not cause cancer or changes to a person’s genetic code.”
A spokesperson for the European Medicines Agency — which helps regulate medical products in the European Union— told us via email that the agency “can confirm that we have not seen any reliable evidence of residual DNA exceeding approved/safe levels” for the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Nor is the EMA “aware of scientific evidence showing that the very small amounts of residual DNA that may be present in vaccine batches could integrate into the DNA of vaccinated individuals,” the spokesperson continued.
Various experts also told us that it is unlikely that residual DNA in the vaccines could integrate into DNA or cause cancer, even in theory. And as we have previously written, there isn’t evidence to date that the vaccines cause cancer or have led to an increase in cancer.
Marc Veldhoen, an immunologist at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes in Portugal, told us via email that residual DNA would be expected, but he refuted the idea that it could cause cancer. “Yes, there would be some fragments, but within the limit this is allowed and without any clinical consequence,” he said.
This family of claims was originally inspired by a preprint posted in April, which said there was “DNA contamination that exceeds” the EMA and FDA regulatory limits in Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine vials sent anonymously to the authors in the mail without cold packs. This led to other reports of DNA in mRNA vaccine vials, including a second preprint that analyzed largely expired vaccine vials obtained at pharmacies in Canada. None of this work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and many elements of it have been criticized.
We reached out to Kevin McKernan, an author on both preprints, to better understand his views. Rather than replying to our email, he posted a screenshot of it on X, formerly known as Twitter, and included responses there. McKernan, who has an undergraduate degree in biology, is the founder of Medicinal Genomics, a company that markets test kits and genomics-related services to the cannabis, hemp and mushroom industries.
Some of the alleged concern has focused on the possibility, raised in the original preprint, that some of the residual DNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is from a monkey virus called SV40. The EMA confirmed to us that the plasmid, or DNA template, used to make the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine contains some short sections of DNA from this virus. A Pfizer spokesperson also told us via email that “specific, non-infectious parts of the SV40 sequence, which are commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry are present in starting material used by Pfizer and BioNTech.”
But none of the sequences identified in the preprint are known to cause cancer, contrary to recent social media posts that say “SV40, a cancer causing sequence” was “put in the Covid Vaccine.”
Experts say there isn’t reason to think that any small pieces of leftover DNA, including SV40 DNA, in the vaccines would be harmful.
“It is very unlikely that any residual DNA would integrate into a person’s genome and if it did it would be even much less likely to cause cancer,” Barry Milavetz, a molecular biologist who studies SV40 at the University of North Dakota, told us in an email.
South Carolina Senate Committee Meeting Amplifies DNA Claims
Reports of residual DNA in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and its purported dangers spread further after a Sept. 12 South Carolina Senate committee listening session. One speaker, molecular biologist and cancer geneticist Phillip Buckhaults from the University of South Carolina, shared his own findings that DNA pieces were present in leftover vaccine in the bottom of used Pfizer/BioNTech vials.
In his presentation, which was shared widely online, he said that DNA “can and likely will” integrate into the genomes of people’s cells, and he shared concerns about various potential health impacts, including cancer. As we’ve said, other experts and regulatory agencies disagree that residual DNA is likely to integrate into a person’s own DNA.
“It was surprising to me to see any DNA in this product, and I am a bit concerned about the theoretical possibility of genome modification,” Buckhaults told us in an email. “I want the scientific community to help find out if this is a real hazard or not a problem.”
He also said that he did not intend for his comments “to be widely circulated in the public and compromising people’s confidence in vaccines.”
Another widely posted clip from the listening session was of Janci Lindsay, who runs a toxicology consulting firm and has a history of sharing incorrect information about vaccines and COVID-19. She also spoke about unsubstantiated cancer risks and told the lawmakers that she believes the SV40 DNA sequences were included in the vaccines with “nefarious intent.” The idea that the presence of these sequences is nefarious is a conspiracy theory with no basis in reality.
Lindsay goes on to reference hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, falsely concluding, “We never needed these vaccines. We had treatments that worked.” This is incorrect. The COVID-19 vaccines saved many lives, and randomized controlled trials have shown that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin do not help people recover from COVID-19.
FactCheck.org obtained a copy of an Oct. 16 letter sent to the Senate committee by Pfizer. In the letter, Pfizer disagrees with comments made during the session, saying that statements are incorrect that “the vaccine contains plasmid DNA that could potentially impact a person’s DNA and be a theoretical cancer risk.” The letter continues, “There is no evidence to support these claims and they provide the risk of being misconstrued by either Committee members and/or the public at large.”
The letter also states that “no signs of DNA mutation or COVID-19 vaccine-induced cancer have been reported to date” related to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
DNA in Vaccines Is Not Inherently Dangerous
Research into residual DNA in vaccines dates back decades. Anti-vaccine fear-mongering about residual DNA or other substances in vaccines is also not a new phenomenon.
Many currently available vaccines are made using cells. Some vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, rely on weakened virus that is grown in cells. For other vaccines, such as for hepatitis A, viruses are grown in cell culture and then inactivated. Cells also can be used to produce protein-based vaccines. One example is the COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax, which is grown in moth cells.
In all of these cases, the active ingredients for the vaccines are purified, but the vaccines can still contain small amounts of residual DNA from the cells used to make them. The FDA and other regulatory agencies have offered guidance on limiting the quantity and size of residual DNA left over from cells used to make vaccines.
The limits are based on the theoretical concern that residual DNA — specifically from mammalian cell lines — could cause cancer or a viral infection, particularly if there were a cancer-causing gene or certain viral DNA present in the cell line. But Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told us that regulatory limits on residual DNA in vaccines are set conservatively.
Pfizer’s letter to the South Carolina Senate committee refers to a quality control process that ensures that residual DNA levels in its mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 are within regulatory limits.
“The validated method for assessment of residual DNA has shown that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine meets the requirements of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the FDA for biological products,” the letter states. “Vaccine batches are only certified and released if the criteria, during quality control testing, are met using the validated and approved method.”
Photo by Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images.
The EMA spokesperson added that in the European Union, these results must be checked by an independent laboratory. “As a result, we are confident that the DNA levels in the vaccine are consistently below the approved/safe level,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which regulates medical products in Australia, told us that the agency has been monitoring batches of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. “This includes independent testing performed by the TGA laboratories to confirm that residual DNA impurity levels are below the acceptable limit,” the spokesperson told us in an email. “To date all batches of COVID-19 vaccines supplied in Australia have met all quality specifications.”
Research on experimental DNA vaccines, which contain DNA as their active ingredient, also supports the idea that DNA in vaccines is unlikely to integrate into a person’s DNA. Stephen M. Kaminsky, a professor of research in genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, told us via email that “there is little concern of integration from DNA vaccines that are delivered in much greater quantities” than any residual DNA that might be found in one of the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
“Since amounts of DNA vaccines in the milligram range have been approved for clinical evaluation, it is difficult to imagine that the smaller quantities of residual cell-substrate DNA present in viral vaccines would pose a significant risk due to integration,” FDA scientists also concluded in one paper.
The FDA scientists went on to state that they consider the primary cancer-related concern with DNA in vaccines to be the introduction of an activated version of a cancer-causing gene to a cell — not just any DNA integrating into the genome at the wrong place.
Offit added that we are constantly exposed to DNA, including in the food we eat and from viruses that don’t cause cancer.
Cancer Theory Relies on Improbable Sequence of Events
Experts told us that theories for how residual DNA would cause cancer rely on an entire series of events, many of them unlikely.
As we’ve discussed above, changing a person’s DNA is not easy. The residual DNA would first need to get into a cell. This could happen if the DNA was inside one of the fatty bubbles called lipid nanoparticles used to package the mRNA in the vaccines, Veldhoen, the immunologist in Portugal, said. But even if this happened, the DNA would only end up in the cytoplasm, the region of a cell outside the nucleus.
Next, any residual DNA that made it into a cell would need to get access to a person’s DNA in the nucleus and insert itself. In general, a cell needs to be in the process of dividing for foreign DNA to integrate into the cell’s own DNA.
The mRNA vaccines are injected into the muscles, where the bulk of the vaccine remains. Muscle cells “do not divide rapidly and have lots of cytoplasm compared to the size of their nuclei,” Milavetz, the molecular biologist at the University of North Dakota, said. This means that it is “very unlikely” that any residual DNA from a vaccine introduced to the cytoplasm of a cell will make it into the nucleus and insert itself into the DNA there in the first place, he added.
“Even if it enters the nucleus, which it probably can’t, it would still have to be integrated into DNA, which requires an integrase, which it also doesn’t have,” Offit said. An integrase is an enzyme some viruses use to insert themselves into cellular DNA.
In the event that some residual DNA did manage to insert into a person’s DNA, it would need to be exactly the wrong kind of DNA, land in exactly the wrong place or a combination of the two.
And then, if this entire sequence of events occurred in one of a person’s trillions of cells, the cell would need to avoid destruction by the immune system, divide and give rise to other cells, which would need to continue along the path toward becoming cancerous.
In reality, the immune system can detect when cells take up foreign DNA or mRNA, Veldhoen said. In the end, cells that had taken up residual DNA would not survive, he said, and the DNA bits would be “broken down, its individual parts recycled.”
SV40 Sequence Unlikely to Cause Cancer
As we’ve said, social media posts misleadingly refer to the presence of “SV40, a cancer causing sequence.” This brings to mind past concerns, which were not borne out, that contamination of polio vaccines with the entire SV40 virus could cause cancer. Researchers discovered in 1960 that monkey kidney cells that had been used to produce some polio vaccines were contaminated with SV40, which was found to cause cancer in rodents. But the virus has not been shown to cause cancer in humans, and the contamination did not ultimately lead to more cancer in children who received the contaminated vaccines compared with those who didn’t.
The small amount of SV40 DNA in the DNA template for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine does not encode the entire virus. SV40 “is a naturally occurring virus and the virus itself is not included in either starting materials, plasmid DNA, or in the final product of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,” the Pfizer spokesperson said.
McKernan’s original preprint did not indicate the presence of the whole virus or any DNA encoding viral proteins, but rather highlighted regulatory DNA. Regulatory DNA, including a type of sequence called a promoter, helps control which genes in a cell are turned on.
Milavetz said that the portion of SV40 shown to have the potential for causing cancer in the lab — encoding a protein called T-antigen — is not among the sequences McKernan identified in the vaccine.
It is unclear why the Pfizer/BioNTech DNA template would include SV40 regulatory DNA. The EMA told us that “the sequence is not directly relevant” for producing copies of the DNA template or for producing mRNA for the vaccine, “so it is considered to be a non-functional part of the structure of the source plasmid.”
McKernan has suggested that a piece of SV40 regulatory DNA could cause cancer by integrating into a person’s DNA and turning on a cancer-causing gene. In response to criticisms that it’s difficult for DNA to get into the nucleus, McKernan points to research showing a role for part of that sequence in helping to bring DNA into the cell nucleus.
But it’s hardly clear that any nuclear entry mechanism would be at play in human cells exposed to residual DNA fragments. And as we have previously explained, there are multiple reasons why residual DNA is unlikely to integrate into a person’s DNA.
“Fragments of the SV40 sequence may only be present as residual impurities at very low levels that are routinely controlled,” the EMA spokesperson said. “There is no scientific evidence that any of these SV40 fragments can act as insertional mutagens,” the spokesperson said, meaning there is no evidence the fragments would integrate into a person’s DNA.
Buckhaults, who also found SV40 regulatory DNA in Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine vials, told us the bits of SV40 DNA aren’t “any more dangerous than all the other bits” of DNA he found in the vaccine vials.
Milavetz pointed out the improbability of the SV40 regulatory sequence causing cancer, even if it did somehow integrate into a person’s DNA.
He said that any residual DNA present would be unlikely to contain only the SV40 sequence needed to turn on a gene. There would likely be extra chunks of DNA that would prevent it from functioning.
“For this to be a viable problem only critical portions of the promoter would have to be introduced into the regulatory region of only a very small subset of genes in a human in a very specific way,” he said. “In my opinion there are too many things that would have to occur perfectly for the promoter to be integrated into one of these critical human genes.”
‘No Meaningful Difference’ from Manufacturing Process Change
Various posts also reference a change in the DNA template used to produce the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine between the clinical trials and the rollout of the vaccine to the general public. To make the vaccine supply that was primarily used in the clinical trials, manufacturers produced copies of the DNA template using a process called PCR, in which DNA is amplified in a lab without the help of biological organisms. To help scale up production, manufacturers enlisted bacteria to make many copies of a plasmid, a circular piece of DNA. The bacteria divide rapidly and can make large quantities of DNA.
Based on this process change, social media posts have said that the “Pfizer covid vaccine approved the for emergency use was not the same one used on the public!” or posted the “BREAKING” news that “Pfizer’s COVID vaccine that was approved for emergency use was not the same one they injected into billions of arms.”
To be clear, the fact there was a process change has long been publicly available information. It is mentioned in the Pfizer clinical trial protocol, the emergency use authorization from the FDA and an EMA public assessment report first published in December 2020. The EMA spokesperson confirmed that vaccine batches produced by both processes were tested in clinical studies, adding that the manufacturer provided test results and other information to show the comparability of the product resulting from both processes. “This assessment of comparability confirmed there was no meaningful difference in the quality of material from process 1 and process 2 that could impact the safety and/or efficacy of the vaccine,” the EMA spokesperson 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.
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The San Jose Sharks game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night provided a clear snapshot as to where each franchise is at right now in terms of their expectations for this season.
The Lightning have their sights set on advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for the fourth time in five years. The Sharks are in full rebuild mode, hoping they can be competitive again within the next two or three seasons.
That stark contrast was on full display at Amalie Arena, as the Sharks were completely outclassed in a 6-0 loss to the Lightning, extending San Jose’s record losing streak to start a season to seven games.
“Weren’t hard enough to play against, too much time and space for them,” said defenseman Mario Ferraro after the Sharks’ most lopsided loss of the season. “It wasn’t a good game for us. We’re not happy about that one. There’s nothing positive to take out of that.”
The Sharks allowed three goals in a turbulent first period and two more in the first 7:29 of the second before starting goalie Mackenzie Blackwood was mercifully pulled by coach David Quinn. Kaapo Kahkonen, who was slated to start Friday’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, came in relief and stopped nine of 10 shots.
Blackwood allowed five goals on 21 shots to five different Lightning players, including ex-Sharks winger Mikey Eyssimont, who scored at the 6:03 mark of the first period to give Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead. Eyssimont was traded by the Sharks to the Lightning on March 1 for Vladislav Namestnikov. Two days later, Namestnikov was dealt to the Winnipeg Jets for a 2025 fourth-round draft pick.
Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Nick Paul, Brandon Hagel and Luke Glendening also scored for Tampa Bay as the Sharks fell to 0-6-1, just four games shy of matching the franchise record for a winless start to a season. The Sharks team in 1998-99 had zero wins, seven losses, and four ties to begin the year.
The Sharks on Thursday, at least through the first two periods, were a step slow to pucks and just could not keep up with the Lightning, who not only play with pace but also can break out of their own zone with frightening quickness.
That was the case on Hagel’s goal, as Victor Hedman found Alex Barré-Boule with a 120-foot pass up the ice. Barré-Boule, who had just come on the ice, then found Hagel for a breakaway chance.
Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson made 23 saves, as the Sharks were shut out for the first time this season.
San Jose has now scored an NHL-low eight goals in seven games, as they became the 10th NHL team since the introduction of the center red line in 1943-44 to score eight goals or fewer in their first seven games.
Perhaps the most concerning part of Thursday’s game from the Sharks perspective was the Lightning, for at least the first 40 minutes, were the harder-working team. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Sharks created just five high-danger chances and allowed 17.
For the undermanned Sharks to have any chance of being competitive against playoff-caliber teams, they need to be detailed with a work ethic to match. Six of the seven teams the Sharks have faced so far made the playoffs last season.
“The effort and the dedication that you can put into our game, that’s just a choice,” Sharks defenseman Jan Rutta said. “I think we played some close games. Maybe we were not up there with the skill level, but we still played some tight games. So it’s a matter of choice. We can play a hard game.”
Now one wonders when the Sharks might earn their first victory. After Friday’s game with Carolina, the Sharks conclude their road trip on Sunday against the Washington Capitals.
If the Sharks can’t pick up a win in either of those two games, their next chances would come next week at home when they play the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday and the Pittsburgh Penguins next Saturday.
Before the game, the Sharks placed forward Alexander Barabanov on injured reserve and recalled center Ryan Carpenter from the Barracuda. Barabanov has a broken finger, suffered Tuesday against Florida, and is considered week-to-week. He returned to San Jose on Thursday and will have the finger examined by a specialist.
Barabanov was injured when he was hit in the left hand by a shot from winger Mike Hoffman in front of the Panthers’ net late in the third period. Barabanov was then knocked down by a Gustav Forsling cross-check to the back before Oliver Ekman-Larsson landed on him in Florida’s crease.
Barabanov didn’t have a point in six games so far this season but was playing in the Sharks’ top-six forward group, just like he had been for most of the past two-plus seasons in San Jose. His absence creates another hole for the reeling Sharks to try and fill.
Also playing without injured centers Logan Couture and Mikael Granlund, the Sharks have scored just eight goals in six games — the lowest per-game average in the NHL — as they’ve stumbled to a 0-5-1 start. It is unclear as to when both forwards, dealing with lower body ailments, will be able to return.
The Supreme Court’s recent judgment affirming Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president has raised important questions about the implications for future election litigations.
In a unanimous decision, the seven-man panel of the apex court chaired by Justice Inyang Okoro dismissed the appeals filed by Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, citing lack of merit, vexatiousness, and frivolity.
Specifically, the Supreme Court held that Atiku’s request to bring in fresh evidence (Chicago State University academic records of Tinubu) was time-barred.
It also held that the collation agents fielded by Atiku and Obi in respect of alleged suppression of votes across disputed polling units presented hearsay evidence.
Lawyers who spoke to THE WHISTLER have expressed mixed reactions to the judgment.
Some have argued that the Supreme Court’s decision on fresh evidence and hearsay evidence will make it more difficult for petitioners in future election litigations to succeed.
Others have defended the court’s decision, arguing that it is in line with the law and that it will help to ensure that election petitions are resolved expeditiously.
A former Chairman of the Section of Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL), Nigerian Bar Association, Monday O. Ubani, told THE WHISTLER that the appellants obviously failed to prove their cases as observed by the Supreme Court.
“That is the judgment of the Supreme Court, they have looked at the appeals and were convinced that, one, the issue of fresh evidence at this point may not be feasible because the 180 days that you have to file your petition has elapsed.
“And then the allegations of drug forfeiture as conviction traceable to Tinubu was not proved,” Ubani said.
Asked to comment on the Supreme Court’s position on the appellants’ witnesses presented hearsay evidence, Ubani said under the new Electrical Act 2022, there was an innovative provision of Section 137 that states if one presents either original or certified true copies of electoral documents and the allegation is on issue of non compliance with electoral laws, the court is bound to look at those documents so one does not need to produce eye witnesses anymore.
“Those documents should be able to be looked into and spoken to and so, a lot of lawyers were thinking that with these amendments in the Electoral Act, we are not going back again to the old practice of having to invite all the witnesses at the polling units to come and give evidence.
“That you can now give evidence through a collation agent who will now tender all the documents of the polling units results,” Ubani added.
But the public interest lawyer said with the judgment of the Supreme Court, a heavy burden is still on petitioners to produce polling unit agents to prove allegations of irregularities in polling units or elections.
“And you know how many polling units we have in this country. So how would you, if you are alleging irregularities in the various states, succeed based on the burden that is placed on the petitioner?” Ubani queried, adding that Atiku and Obi’s lawyers must have been aware of the relevant laws but felt that with the new Act, “we may have obliviated the need to bring witnesses in all the polling units.”
He added, “But with the judgment now, it then means that it is still important for you to bring all your witnesses from the various polling units, especially if you alleged irregularities and it’s a heavy burden.”
Tunde Falola, a lawyer, shared a similar view with the former NBA SPIDEL chairman, saying he was not in a position to condemn a counsel that participated in the case, however, the way cases appear to lawyers depend on their individual background.
“What I see in a case, another lawyer may not see it,” Falola told THE WHISTLER in an interview.
He said lawyers may not opt to use collation agents and documents to establish their case because the position of Section 137 of the Electoral Act states that if irregularities are so glaring on the face of a document like in polling unit results, it may not be necessary to call oral evidence.
However, Falola said that in a previous decision of the Supreme Court involving Oyetola and Adeleke, it held that the fact that Section 137 of the Electoral Act says one does not need to call oral evidence still does not mean that “you don’t need to lead credible evidence”.
He said, “What the Supreme Court has just said now is that they have resolved the issue that regardless of Section 137, a petitioner still needs to bring credible evidence.
“I’m not saying they (Atiku,Obi lawyers) don’t know what they are saying and I cannot even say that. It depends on how the case appeared to them when they were preparing for their matter,” Falola said.
Speaking further, Falola said the verdict of the apex court cannot be faulted especially when it held there was no mention of forgery by Atiku in his petition.
On the move by Atiku’s legal team to bring in fresh evidence at the Supreme Court, he said the court held that such foreign documents must have authentication of the issuing authority, which is not the case in Atiku’s move to bring in new evidence.
On his part, constitutional lawyer, Festus Ogwuche, held a divergent view on the matter.
Ogwuche said the issue of Tinubu’s academic records was allegedly a criminal and constitutional matter that was not time bound.
“Are we looking at the time or are we looking at the relevance of that document (from Chicago State University)? Does it touch on a constitutional matter? It’s even a criminal matter. Does time run a criminal proceedings?,” Ogwuche queried.
He said one does not have to mention forgery when filing certificates as evidence, adding that a document should speak for itself.
“If you are forging an international passport, are you going to write forgery in the passport? It is the facts on the documents that speaks for itself,” said Ogwuche.
In his acceptance speech after being elected speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., criticized President Joe Biden’s stewardship of the economy.
He offered a series of statistics to make his case in the Oct. 25 speech, touching on credit card debt, mortgage rates and inflation.
“Prices have increased over 17% in the last two years,” Johnson said.
Johnson has a point that prices have increased over two years, but not by 17%. He also ignored that wages have also increased, though not as much as prices.
For the two-year period between September 2021 and September 2023, the standard inflation metric, the consumer price index, rose by 12%.
That’s high by historical standards, which over a two-year period would be between 4% and 6%, but short of the 17% Johnson cited.
Meanwhile, the consumer price index on its own does not paint a complete picture of how prices affect American spending.
Average hourly earnings of all private employees, a standard metric of worker pay, rose by 9.4%.
The bad news is this means worker pay lost ground against inflation. The somewhat less bad news is that the average worker didn’t lose 12% in purchasing power, as a look at the inflation statistic by itself would indicate, but something more like 2.6%. And that’s over two years, meaning that over the course of a year, the average earner would be falling behind by about 1.3%.
Johnson’s office sent PolitiFact data showing that consumer prices have increased 17% since the beginning of Joe Biden’s term in January 2021. However, Johnson said “two years,” not two years and nine months.
All in all, not great news for the typical worker, but not quite as impactful as the 17% figure Johnson cited in his speech.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.
Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.
A subpoena of bank records of Biden family members has turned up a $200,000 payment in 2018 from James Biden to his brother Joe Biden, and Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, is citing it as proof “that Joe Biden benefited from his family’s influence peddling scheme.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a committee member, said it proved Joe Biden was guilty of “money laundering.” And Rep. Lauren Boebert, also a committee member, said it was “the textbook definition of corruption.”
But as has been the case so often in the House investigation of the finances of Joe Biden’s family members, the claims have outpaced the evidence so far.
The $200,000 payment from James Biden on March 1, 2018, was labeled “loan repayment” in the memo field on the check, and Democrats on the oversight committee say bank records also show a payment from Joe Biden to his brother six weeks prior, which they say is consistent with a no-interest, short-term loan to James Biden.
James Biden’s $200,000 “loan repayment” to his brother came on the same day he received a $200,000 check from Americore Health, a for-profit hospital chain. A publicly available bankruptcy court complaint filed in July 2022 shows that the financially struggling Americore alleges that it loaned James Biden a total of $600,000 “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
Comer argues that the $200,000 check from James Biden to Joe Biden shows Joe Biden was in on the “influence peddling scheme,” but that link hasn’t been established. An attorney for James Biden says Joe Biden was not involved in any of James Biden’s business ventures, and that Biden — who was not in office or running for office at the time — simply gave his brother a short-term loan that was paid back.
FactCheck.org has obtained some of the bank records in question, and we’ll sort through the available evidence to date.
On Sept. 28, Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, issued three subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records. On Oct. 20, Comer publicly released a copy of a $200,000 personal check from James Biden and his wife, Sara, to Joe Biden.
As we said, the check, dated March 1, 2018, and marked “loan repayment,” came on the same day that James Biden received a check for $200,000 from Americore.
The payment from Americore is not new information. The July 2022 complaint in bankruptcy court shows Americore wire transferred $400,000 to James Biden’s account on Jan. 12, 2018, and another $200,000 on March 1, 2018. The documentation prepared by Americore references the sums as a “loan.”
James Biden secured the loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections,” the document states.
That investment never materialized, though the complaint said James Biden did help Americore “procure an ill-advised bridge loan from a hedge fund that had a deleterious impact on the financial affairs” of the company and “ultimately forced [it] into bankruptcy.” According to the complaint, James Biden “never repaid the Loans to Americore Health, including during the time that Debtors were strapped for cash.”
In a settlement reached on Sept. 23, 2022, James Biden agreed to return $350,000.
That had all been publicly reported at the time. What was new was the revelation by the oversight committee that Joe Biden got a $200,000 check from James Biden on the same day James got $200,000 from Americore.
“It’s a loan repayment from when President Biden loaned his brother money,” White House spokesman Ian Sams posted on X. “When he was out of office in 2018, no less. It’s right there on the check!”
Democrats on the committee said Republicans ignored that bank records also showed a payment in the same amount from Joe Biden to James Biden six weeks prior to that, consistent with the White House’s claim of a short-term loan.
Then Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, left, and his brother James Biden during the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008. Photo by Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images.
“These records actually show that President Biden was the one who stepped in to help family members when they needed support, including by providing short term loans to his brother,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the oversight committee.
“These bank records show that in 2017 and 2018, while President Biden was not in office, he provided two short-term loans to his brother, James, who repaid each loan within two months,” Raskin said in a press release on Oct. 20.
FactCheck.org obtained an Excel spreadsheet of wire transfer records and check images that are consistent with Raskin’s account.
Those records show two wire transfers from Joe Biden to a joint account for James and Sara Biden, one for $40,000 on July 28, 2017, and one for $200,000 on Jan. 12, 2018. The wires came from an “Attorney Trust Account” maintained by Joe Biden’s attorneys at the firm “MONZACK MERSKY MCLAUGHLIN BROWDER.”
A check image from Sept. 3, 2017, shows a $40,000 payment from a joint account for James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden (the check is signed by Sara Biden and is labeled “loan repayment” on the memo line). The payment was deposited into the same account from which the $40,000 wire payment was made 38 days prior.
An image of another check — the one highlighted by Comer — shows a $200,000 payment from a joint account for James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden on March 1, 2018. That’s 48 days after Joe Biden wired James Biden a similar amount. It, too, is noted as “loan repayment” in the memo line.
In an emailed statement to the Wall Street Journal, James Biden’s attorney, Paul Fishman, wrote, “The Committee has the bank documents that show both the loan Jim received from his brother in January 2018 and the repayment by check six weeks later. At no time did Jim involve his brother in any of his business relationships.”
Comer made several appearances on conservative media touting the check as a breakthrough in the investigation into Joe Biden.
Comer, Fox Business News, Oct. 23: We just proved that Joe Biden benefited from his family’s influence peddling scheme. Look, this check that Jim Biden wrote to Joe Biden came on the same day he received a $200,000 loan from a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy, and today is bankrupt.
On the check to Joe Biden, his brother put “loan repayment.” Now, the White House is saying that Joe Biden loaned his brother money. I don’t believe he did. But whatever, let’s just say they pull something out of their rear end that says Joe Biden loaned Jim Biden money. Either way, Jim Biden – and we have his personal bank records, I can say with confidence – had no money to pay Joe Biden back, other than that $200,000 wire that came from Americore Health Co.
So either Joe Biden got paid directly $200,000 from his brother as part of a kickback of a cut from the influence peddling scheme or Joe Biden did loan his brother money but his brother couldn’t have paid it back without the influence peddling scheme. And there are bankruptcy court documents that spell meticulously exactly what Jim Biden did to receive that money. He went to Americore Health knowing they were in bad financial shape and said, “If you pay me money, I can use my brother’s contacts in the Middle East to get you all the capital you need to make you solvent again.” That’s called influence peddling. And that’s what we’ve proven: that Joe Biden benefited. He either made $200,000 or he didn’t lose $200,000. Either way, he’s $200,000 ahead because of his influence peddling scheme.
Comer is ignoring another option, the one claimed by the White House: that Joe Biden provided a short-term, no interest loan to his brother, and that six weeks later James Biden paid that money back with money obtained in a business deal that did not involve Joe Biden. Raskin said the bank records show that Joe Biden “was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures.”
The records don’t prove one way or another if Joe Biden was involved in the Americore Health enterprise. But the burden remains with Republicans on the oversight committee to prove their case.
Comer has also insisted that “there’s no document that shows there was a loan.” In an interview on Fox Business News on Oct. 25, host Maria Bartiromo asked Comer if he had “seen anything to indicate that there was an actual loan for some reason?”
“No, and they’re lying,” Comer said.
“At the end of the day, there’s no document that shows there was a loan,” Comer said. “The Democrats on the oversight committee, they get the same stuff that I subpoena. When I subpoena something, Maria, they make two copies, one for me, the Republicans, and one for the Democrats, Jamie Raskin. So if they had the darn document, they would have showed it. This is another example of their lies and the media takes it.”
But in a press release issued on Oct. 26 that echoed points made in a letter from Raskin to Comer the same day, Democrats on the oversight committee accused Comer of a “willingness to cherry-pick and misrepresent the content of these bank records.”
“Despite the Oversight Committee receiving the exact bank record showing that President Biden made a $200,000 interest-free loan to his brother James Biden, Chairman Comer has repeatedly omitted that fact, falsely suggesting President Biden is ‘$200,000 better off today because of his family’s influence peddling scheme,’” the release states. “For example, on Friday, October 20, Chairman Comer released a check dated March 1, 2018, in the amount of $200,000 from James Biden to his brother marked ‘loan repayment.’ The bank records provided to the Committee clearly showed that President Biden had wired $200,000 to his brother on January 12, 2018—less than two months earlier. Despite clear evidence that this transaction was a short-term, interest-free loan between brothers, which occurred while President Biden was also a private citizen, Chairman Comer misleadingly told Fox News, ‘I don’t believe’ that ‘Joe Biden did give his brother a loan,’ and falsely asserted to Fox Business, ‘there is no document that shows there was a loan,’ among other misrepresentations.”
Again, our review of bank records did not show any documentation that wire transfers of $40,000 and $200,000 from Joe Biden to James Biden were loans. Perhaps there is no official documentation indicating that they were loans. However, images show James or Sara Biden writing checks to Joe Biden several weeks after those wire transfers in those exact same amounts, and with “loan repayment” listed in the memo lines. That’s consistent with the White House’s claim that these were short-term, no-interest loans.
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SANTA CLARA — Brock Purdy went through his normal routine as Thursday’s practice began, signaling that the 49ers’ quarterback is back on track to start Sunday against the Bengals, unless post-concussion symptoms resurface.
Purdy still must get cleared from the NFL concussion protocol by an independent neurologist, otherwise, Sam Darnold would start in his place.
“You just wait see, and always have plans for both (quarterbacks),” coach Kyle Shanahan on KNBR 680-AM. “We’ll find out sooner than later.”
The 49ers, who’ve lost two in a row after a 5-0 start, kept Purdy out of Wednesday’s official practice, but he was healthy enough to partake in an earlier walk-through session. Purdy reported effects from a potential concussion while on the flight home from Monday night’s 22-17 loss at Minnesota.
Purdy, because he remains in the concussion protocol, was prevented from holding his weekly press conference, though he did informally talk to reporters in the locker room after practice and seemed in good spirits.
NFL leading rusher Christian McCaffrey is unfazed by the 49ers’ quarterback questions, saying: “Obviously, for me, it’s about getting to the right spot, and, getting open for, you know, the quarterback, and hitting the holes when I get the handoffs.”
Thursday’s practice opened with Purdy still taking the first snaps and doing so without any tinted visor on his helmet, in case he had any sensitivity to light. Darnold and No. 3 quarterback Brandon Allen followed in their usual spots with the regular reps, although media access ended before full-team drills commenced.
Purdy is officially 10-2 all-time in regular-season starts, having lost the past two at Cleveland (19-17) and at Minnesota (22-17) while throwing his first three interceptions of the season. He’s taken every meaningful snap as the 49ers’ quarterback since Jimmy Garoppolo got hurt in the first quarter of a Dec. 4 home win against the Miami Dolphins.
Although Purdy has started 15 consecutive games — playoffs included — his status wasn’t in this much doubt until his No. 2 start, which he made Dec. 15 at Seattle despite a broken rib he sustained in his victorious starting debut four days earlier against Tampa Bay.
Purdy’s apparent concussion Monday night was the result of a helmet-to-helmet hit by Vikings’ linebacker Jordan Hicks that stopped Purdy for no gain on a third-and-1 sneak. Purdy converted on a fourth-down dive the next snap, then promptly threw an interception with 5 1/2 minutes to go; another interception followed on the 49ers’ next and final possession, with 25 seconds remaining to seal the 49ers’ seventh losing visit to Minnesota.
The 49ers have had only one player go through the NFL concussion protocol this season: Jon Feliciano, a backup offensive lineman who left their Week 4 game against Arizona but was cleared to participate in the next game against Dallas. Two seasons ago, defensive end Nick Bosa left a wild-card win at Dallas with a concussion but played six days later in their divisional win at Green Bay.
If Purdy does yield to Darnold either this week or down the road, it is a move the 49ers banked on when they signed the sixth-year veteran in free agency. Darnold beat out Trey Lance for the No. 2 role as the preseason came to a close, resulting in Lance getting traded to Dallas for a fourth-round draft pick.
Darnold is 21-34 all-time as a starter in his time with the New York Jets (2018-20) and the Carolina Panthers (’21-22); Darnold won 4-of-6 to close the Panthers’ 2022 season, though he completed just 5-of-15 passes for 43 yards with two interceptions and a 2.8 passer rating in a 10-7 win at New Orleans.
Steve Wilks, the 49ers’ defensive coordinator, finished last season as the Panthers’ interim coach, and he said of Darnold: “Lot of poise. He’s going to lead the offense the right way. He showed that last year coming in, under the circumstances. … Hopefully Brock’s ready.”
Allen previously played with the Bengals and has worked at least some scout-team reps this week.
WILKS’ MEA CULPA
Wilks, in opening his weekly press conference, accepted blame for a blitz call that backfired on a 60-yard touchdown reception just before halftime Monday. “I take full responsibility for that call. I have to do better job putting guys in better position,” Wilks said. “We have really good players. I know that. Can’t press the issue. … I wish I could take it back, but again, I’ve got to do better.”
HEALTH UPDATES
Left tackle Trent Williams (ankle) remained out, other than to do individual conditioning with a trainer, as was the case with wide receiver Deebo Samuel, who ran on the side and will miss his second straight game with a hairline fracture to his left shoulder. Linebacker Dre Greenlaw returned after getting Wednesday off to rest.
ALUMNI WEEKEND
Some 125 former players are expected to attend this weekend’s alumni festivities, which will pay special homage to their 1981 and ’88 teams that won the franchise’s first two Super Bowls, both against the Bengals, this Sunday’s opponent.
The Ebonyi State Governor on Thursday disbursed N10m each to 31 communities in the state to help them embark on projects of their choice under the Ebonyi State Community and Social Development Agency, a World Bank assisted intervention.
Governor Nwifuru while disbursing the cheques to the communities, implored them to make judicious use of the funds for the development of their communities and the good of Ebonyi State.
The Special Assistant to the governor on New Media, Leo Ekene Oketa, said that the community development is a popular World Bank Assisted project.
He explained that the communities that benefited from the projects are those who show readiness for the growth and development of their people.
Recall that the Governor last week also empowered 500 Ebonyi people with N2m each for them to convert their skills and talents into profitability through viable businesses.
After House Republicans unanimously voted for Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., as the new speaker, Democratic politicians pounced on them for choosing someone who defied democratic norms after the 2020 presidential election.
Johnson aligned himself with Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who sought to overturn legitimate results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Johnson’s efforts went beyond tweets and votes, the Democrats said after the Oct. 25 speaker vote.
The Biden-Harris campaign called Johnson “a leading 2020 election denier.” U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., called Johnson “the chief architect” of the effort to overturn election results.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said on the House floor, “Republicans have put their names behind someone who has been called the most important architect of the Electoral College objections,” borrowing a phrase from a New York Times analysis of Johnson’s role.
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., responded with defiance, hollering, “Damn right!”
Republicans booed ABC News reporter Rachel Scott for asking Johnson about his efforts to overturn the election. One lawmaker told Scott to “shut up.” Johnson grinned, shook his head and said, “Next question.”
Calling Johnson the “chief architect” may be a stretch. Johnson was not among those charged in the federal or Fulton County, Georgia, election subversion cases, and he barely got a mention in the final Jan. 6 committee report. Johnson, a lawyer for decades, was not the public face of Trump’s battle in the courts and in public, unlike lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
However, Johnson played a key role in the effort to get lawmakers to sign onto trying to overturn the election in the courts and to vote against congressional certification.
Johnson’s term as speaker runs through at least early January 2025 — meaning he will preside over the House as it votes to formally accept the results of the 2024 election.
Johnson urged House Republicans to join Texas lawsuit
Johnson aligned himself with Trump’s response to the election results early on.
On Nov. 7, the day that media outlets projected Biden’s win, Johnson tweeted, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”
Two days later, he posted another message of support, tweeting, “President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted. Fair elections are worth fighting for!”
From there his efforts took a legal turn.
In December 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block four battleground states from voting in the Electoral College. Those four states voted for Biden.
Johnson also sent an email to Republican colleagues asking them to join an amicus — or “friend of the court” — brief in support of Paxton’s lawsuit, CNN reported. The email said Trump was “anxiously awaiting the final list” to see who would sign the brief.
His recruitment was successful. The majority of the conference, 126 Republicans, signed the brief. Johnson tweeted Dec. 10, 2020, that he was “proud to lead” the effort.
Days later, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Paxton’s lawsuit, concluding Texas should have no say in other states’ elections.
Johnson fueled falsehoods about voting machines, Georgia ballots
As Johnson fought to continue the legal battles over the election, he spread voting machine conspiracies.
In a radio show interview Nov. 17, 2020, Johnson said he was not going to concede that Biden won because Trump and others “know intuitively that there was a lot amiss about this Election Day.”
Johnson brought up “allegations about the voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software” by Dominion Voting Systems.
In the same radio show interview, Johnson said an election software system “came from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.” We debunked similar conspiracy theories that Chavez’s family owned Dominion Voting Systems.
Dominion was founded in 2003 in Toronto, Canada. In 2018, the company was acquired by Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm based in New York. Dominion sued Fox News for defamation after airing falsehoods about their equipment, leading to an $787.5 million settlement.
Johnson said there was “a lot of merit” to voting machine conspiracy theories, “and when the president says the election was ‘rigged’ that is what he was talking about; the fix was in.”
Johnson called for exhausting “all the legal remedies.” The Trump side went on to lose about 60 lawsuits.
Johnson supported Trump’s complaints about Georgia. State Attorney Fani Willis indicted Trump and 18 defendants for their efforts to overturn the state’s result for Biden.
“In Georgia, it really was rigged, it was set up for the Biden team to win,” he said in the same radio show interview, in part citing the increase of absentee ballots cast by Democrats compared with 2016.
Statements that the 2020 election was rigged or stolen or illegitimate are ridiculous, earning PolitiFact’s Pants on Fire rating. A conspiracy to rig an election would require thousands of people conspiring across multiple jurisdictions in many states to commit felonies. There’s no evidence it happened.
State officials in other battlegrounds including Georgia, Nevada and Arizona have said the election was secure.
Johnson objected to certifying the vote
The Electoral College made Biden’s victory official on Dec. 14, 2020. Johnson wasn’t deterred.
He was one of 37 Republicans who announced Jan. 6, before Congress convened, that “we will vote to sustain objections to slates of electors submitted by states we believe clearly violated the Constitution in the presidential election of 2020.”
The New York Times found that Johnson gave his Republican colleagues a path to objecting to certification based on how some state officials loosened restrictions on voting due to the pandemic. It was a more lawyerly argument that separated their objections from the boisterous “stop the steal” rallies.
The lawmakers wrote that they shared concerns by voters that “the election of 2020 became riddled with an unprecedented number of serious allegations of fraud and irregularities.” That was the opposite of public statements by federal and state officials, who said the election was secure.
As the process of accepting the votes was under way on Jan. 6, rioters brought the congressional session to a halt. When lawmakers returned after the Capitol was cleared, Johnson stuck to his promise and voted along with the majority of his Republican House colleagues to object to Biden’s wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Johnson also condemned the Capitol attack, calling it “heinous violence”. Even though he opposed the subsequent effort to impeach Trump, Johnson acknowledged in a Jan. 13, 2021, statement that Biden was the president-elect.
PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird and staff writer Samantha Putterman contributed to this article.
RELATED: All of our fact-checks about elections
RELATED: Our fact-checks of House Speaker Mike Johnson
Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.
While touting investments in semiconductor factories in the U.S., President Joe Biden has repeatedly left the misleading impression that new jobs at the facilities would pay well more than $100,000 a year for those without a college degree. But Intel has said $135,000 is the average salary for thousands of jobs, including those requiring advanced degrees.
Biden most recently made this claim on Oct. 14 when talking about union jobs in a speech at a cargo port facility in Philadelphia. As a result of a law he signed, Biden said, “semiconductor companies all over the world are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to bring chip production back home.”
“For example, you know, just outside of Ohio — outside of Columbus, Ohio, there was a thousand acres,” Biden said. “We had Intel come along and say, ‘Look, we’re going to invest there. We’re going to invest over $20 billion. We’re going to build these new fabs’ — these factories, they call them. They’re, like, twice the size of football fields. And guess what the average pay is? About 100- to 110,000 bucks a year. And you don’t need a college degree to have the job.”
You probably do need a college degree to have “the job” that pays that much.
The president was referring to Intel building two new semiconductor factories in New Albany, Ohio, near Columbus. The company announced the $20 billion investment in January 2022, saying the project would create 3,000 jobs at Intel and 7,000 construction jobs. Intel also said it would spend $100 million over 10 years to partner with universities and community colleges in Ohio, as well as the National Science Foundation, to help develop the skilled workforce needed for the semiconductor industry.
Several times since that announcement, Biden has lauded the project and referred to the amount of money people can make at the factories, even without a college degree. Sometimes the president has indicated those without a college education can’t necessarily expect to earn the average salary. For instance, at the groundbreaking for the project in September 2022, Biden mentioned “3,000 full-time jobs that will pay an average of $135,000 a year, and not all of them require college degrees once these facilities are built.”
President Biden at the groundbreaking site of the Intel facility in New Albany, Ohio, on Sept. 9, 2022. Official White House photo by Adam Schultz.
But other times, as he did in October, Biden linked the average salary to no-degree jobs. In November 2022, he said that Intel employs “thousands of people” and “the average salary where you don’t need a college degree for is $124,000.” In January, he said of the Ohio factories: “3,000 full-time jobs, paying an average of $135,000 a year — those full-time jobs — and you do not need a college degree.”
Intel has said the 3,000 new jobs would pay an average of $135,000, according to several news organizations and the Ohio governor’s office. The company didn’t respond to our inquiries about that figure. However, Time reported in June that Intel representatives said a figure of $130,000 (which Biden used in his State of the Union address this year) was an average that is affected by salaries for workers with advanced degrees.
A Biden administration official also told Time, “It doesn’t mean that every job is going to pay six figures.” Instead, the $135,000 average is for “a mix of jobs” requiring different levels of education or training.
We asked the White House about Biden’s claims, but we didn’t get a response.
Promoting growth in the semiconductor industry in the United States has been a priority for the Biden administration. In August 2022, Biden signed the CHIPS Act, which includes $39 billion to fund manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and $11 billion for semiconductor research and development.
Semiconductors — or chips — are used in electronic devices. “They are fundamental to nearly all modern industrial and national security activities, and they are essential building blocks of other emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, 5G communications, and quantum computing,” the Congressional Research Service explains in a 2020 report.
There is political concern that the U.S. needs to increase its share of global production, particularly as China also aims to do so and in the wake of semiconductor supply shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Salaries in the Semiconductor Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, and Oxford Economics published a report on the U.S. industry in 2021, finding that 277,000 people worked in the industry with an average salary of $170,000 in 2020.
CRS put the U.S. semiconductor workforce at nearly 185,000 people in 2019, earning an average of $166,400, “more than twice the average for all U.S. manufacturing workers,” based on an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The SIA report, which also used BLS as a source, noted that the industry “employs a higher share of workers with college degrees compared to manufacturing and all other industries,” but 20% of workers haven’t attended college. Another 15% have some college experience, and 9% have an associate’s degree.
The report said that “workers consistently earn more than the U.S. average at all education attainment levels” and included a chart showing the “wage premium” workers could expect based on their level of education. Those with a high school education or less could expect to earn a little more than $40,000. Those with some college attendance could earn $60,000, while an associate’s degree could increase that to $70,000.
The wages only topped six figures for those with a bachelor’s degree ($120,000) or a graduate degree (a little more than $160,000).
The semiconductor jobs Biden has touted may pay well, but those without a college degree can’t expect to make the $100,000-plus average, as the president has sometimes indicated.
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