Home of the Truth-O-Meter and independent fact-checking. Part of @Poynter. Sign up for our newsletter: politifact.com/signup
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For the first time since 2009, PolitiFact is recalibrating the Lie of the Year — our award for the most egregious falsehood we've seen in a year's worth of fact-checking.
This year, we want to focus less on the offenders who perpetuate the falsehoods, and more on those who are hurt by them.
So “congratulations” 2025. PolitiFact names you Year of the Lies. 🧵
buff.ly/0xMtlSp
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No, Trump did not "salvage" the Affordable Care Act. Vance's claim is False. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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NEW: Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during oral arguments today that “we have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators” due to the coronavirus. That's False. bit.ly/3f2EQye
959
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Joe Biden has said he came out quickly to oppose the Iraq War. That's not what the record shows.
politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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.@ewarren claimed that she warned about the financial crisis before it happened. We found that her 2003 book, 2004-2006 blog posts and media interviews back her claim. We rate it True. bit.ly/2vwII3E
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8,391
Pass.
WIll @PolitiFact give us a ruling on the WH Communications Director's statement about WH adviser Steve Bannon?
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Teachers union President Randi Weingarten advocated for reopening schools with pandemic safety measures. She criticized the Trump administration’s 2020 calls to reopen schools fully, but it’s misleading to claim that she opposed reopening at all. bit.ly/42l9tpm
Community note
Weingarten is misrepresenting her prior positions. She called attempts to reopen schools in the fall of 2020 "Reckless, callous, cruel"
theguardian.com/us-news/2020/j…
Her union pushed aggressively at the local level
edweek.org/teaching-learn…
Areas with high union influence remained closed much longer
returntolearntracker.net/instructional_…
They continued in 2022
nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/
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1,453
7,506
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Joe Biden just wrongly claimed Bernie Sanders voted against the auto bailout. Sanders voted in favor of providing auto companies with $14 billion, which was separate from the Wall Street bailout funds he opposed. #DemDebate politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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White House Press Sec. @seanspicer: "That was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period." politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
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This is False. Local officials in Virginia Beach said they have investigated the video and determined that the ballots shown were sample ballots, not official ballots. bit.ly/3jU8KEJ
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is mostly accurate:
Per capita, more Floridians have moved to California than the other way around, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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Don’t blame wind for the Texas power shortage. Gas, coal and nuclear accounted for more than 80% of the shortfall.
bit.ly/37o15Ls
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Walz said, “We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have.”
This is accurate.
U.S. Natural gas production has reached new highs during Joe Biden’s presidency, as has U.S. crude oil production, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. politifact.com/article/2024/…
24
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Joe Biden didn’t blackmail Ukraine. His demand that a prosecutor be fired was the will of the U.S. government and other Western leaders.
There’s no evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation at the time Biden made his request. politifact.com/factchecks/20… #RNC2020
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NEW: Medical experts and the CDC said it’s not biologically possible for the COVID-19 vaccines to “shed” or affect unvaccinated people, despite what anti-vaccine activists claim. bit.ly/3epWc8G
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U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga, said “if you didn't know the TV footage was from Jan. 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” Pants on Fire! More than 400 people have been charged in the criminal breach of the U.S. Capitol. bit.ly/2R8zMQH
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Trumps claims: "We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions." The president's claim misrepresents his efforts to repeal the health care law in court without offering a replacement that might maintain its protections.
politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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Trump just said he had the biggest electoral college win since Reagan. Forgets Bush 41, Clinton, Obama. politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
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.@BernieSanders was right about Cuba's literacy push in 1961. Over 700,000 people learned to read and write. They also got a hefty dose of ideology.
bit.ly/2VklBHH
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Donald Trump blames the forest fires on forest management. False. California’s stronger winds, higher temperatures and drier conditions driven by climate change are also making the fires worse. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
#Debates2020 #presidentialdebate2020
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Bernie Sanders passed more roll call amendments in a Republican Congress than any other member. True. politifact.com/factchecks/20… #DemDebate
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Vice President Kamala Harris recently said Project 2025 would “end Head Start,” the federally funded early childhood education program. She’s right: The conservative policy blueprint urges precisely that. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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The US is not the highest taxed nation in the world. politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
Will be going to North Dakota today to discuss tax reform and tax cuts. We are the highest taxed nation in the world - that will change.
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Welp ... our website just crashed.
Thanks for reading ?!!? We'll keep things up here on Twitter while we see what happened.
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At a CNN town hall Oct. 23 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris said, "As of today, we have cut the flow of immigration by over half.” Official federal data backs her up. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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There’s no proof that Trump requested 10,000 National Guard troops for Jan. 6, or that Pelosi denied it. bit.ly/32ObYY9
1,831
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Is violent crime “near a record 50-year low,” as President Joe Biden said? After peaking in the early 1990s, violent crime is now down to near-record lows. We rate his statement True. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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Vice President Kamala Harris recently said Project 2025 would “end Head Start,” the federally funded early childhood education program. She’s right: The conservative policy blueprint urges precisely that. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
57
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Clinton is right. Analysts say Trump’s plan would in disadvantage middle-class compared to wealthy. bit.ly/2dcdEOZ
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NEW: A video that falsely claims Joe Biden wore a wire during last night's debate has been shared thousands of times on Facebook.
The clip shows a shirt crease. bit.ly/33gevI3
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Donald Trump says "wrong" when Hillary Clinton says he supported the Iraq War. But he did so publicly, bit.ly/2c4FQj8
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NEW: Joe Biden did not hire a reputed Philadelphia mob boss named “Skinny Joey” Merlino to fabricate hundreds of thousands of ballots bit.ly/32UuF96
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Hillary Clinton has said Trump has been used as an ISIS recruiting tool. That's True. bit.ly/1XoNnfL
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Harris said that Trump “negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists … released.”
This is True. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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Biden said he would encourage governors and mayors to establish mask mandates. Health officials largely agree that wearing any kind of face mask, coupled with social distancing and frequent hand-washing, is more protective than going unmasked. bit.ly/31tnkh6
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Trump says the visa lottery "hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people."
But lottery entrants must meet educational and work experience requirements. #SOTU
politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
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Two autopsy reports said the manner of George Floyd’s death was a homicide. Neither said the cause of his death was a fentanyl overdose, as some on social media said. Our fact-check: bit.ly/3sD7s6r
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Hey @realDonaldTrump, if you need a refresher on the Maria death toll estimates in Puerto Rico, we have that for you. politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000...
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A site that rates "the core truth" and tracks "the credibility score over time" of comments by politicians and pundits? Hey @elonmusk, we sort of do that? Become a member at politifact.com/membership. Thanks for your interest!
Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda …
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.@realDonaldTrump has been fact-checked by PolitiFact 498 times. #SOTU
🧐 True → 4 percent
😛 Mostly True → 12 percent
🤔 Half True → 15 percent
😥 Mostly False → 21 percent
🤥 False → 33 percent
🤯 Pants on Fire → 15 percent
See the 📉 bit.ly/1qCLq2G
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Rick Perry, who blocked us on Twitter, was confirmed today as Energy secretary. @GovernorPerry
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The underlying cause of death in the vast majority of death certificates that mention COVID-19 is the coronavirus. bit.ly/3lzmGGd
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An image of the Highland Park shooting suspect shared by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is noticeably edited. There’s no evidence it actually shows him "in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center," as she claimed. bit.ly/3Ienqwp
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The Maricopa County Elections Department *does* accept Sharpie marks on ballots, that's why voters were given Sharpies. The Sharpie is actually the preferred pen for filling out ballots in Maricopa County, AZ. bit.ly/32bpTDU
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NEW: Nikki Haley said Biden and Harris "want massive tax hikes on working families." No direct taxes would be imposed on any household making less than $400,000 per year. False: bit.ly/3ldrMrD #RNC2020
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Trump falsely says FBI data is unreliable because it leaves out “worst cities.”
This is False: politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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Trump falsely said “Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID.’" This is a persistent theory that lacks any proof. Hospitals must prove that patients tested positive for the virus, and their doctors gain nothing from a COVID-19 diagnosis. bit.ly/3mMjQxl
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This is false. Nowhere near this much has been allocated to PR as of yet. Even if $91-92 billion is the ultimate cost down the road, the federal government already has estimated it spent $120 billion on Hurricane Katrina, so Hurricane Maria is not a record bit.ly/30Dvxvo
47
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Clinton is correct that Trump was charged with housing discrimination. bit.ly/2d1ZuCf
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There’s no proof that Trump requested 10,000 National Guard troops for Jan. 6, or that Pelosi denied it. bit.ly/3baex8f
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Joe Biden wrongly claimed Bernie Sanders voted against the auto bailout. bit.ly/3aSojJ0
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump's suggestion that Hillary Clinton and her campaign started the birther movement is False. bit.ly/2cUe35Y
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Joe Biden said there are "more small black businesses that have been started in any time." That’s True, Census Bureau and Federal Reserve data shows the prevalence of Black-owned small businesses has reached a record under Biden. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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No, DC Officer Michael Fanone isn’t the man who stormed the Capitol with a Confederate flag. Social media posts claiming that the two men are the same show photographs of two different people. bit.ly/2Vo818b
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2017 Lie of the Year: Russian election interference is a 'made-up story' politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
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.@BernieSanders claimed that millions of families pay 40 to 60% of their income on housing. There's data backing his claim. It's True. bit.ly/2GY79fA
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QAnon accounts falsely claim that today, March 4, Donald Trump will be re-inaugurated because an 1871 bill effectively dissolved the U.S. government, making all presidents after Ulysses S. Grant illegitimate. Pants on Fire! bit.ly/3kPRIKg
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Ted Cruz’s claim on Fox News that Philadelphia is counting votes in a “shroud of darkness” is False. Anyone can watch the count on the city’s livestream, and election observers from both parties have been allowed in the room all along. bit.ly/36bH4Xd
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.@AndrewYang claimed that "If you're a black woman, you're 320% more likely to die from complications in childbirth." The point tracks with non-partisan expert research. We rate it True. bit.ly/36OyvQK
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NEW: A post claims to show over 1,000 mail ballots in a California dumpster when it actually depicts empty envelopes from 2018. bit.ly/3i9mGd5
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Bernie Sanders said three people in America have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent. Those three people are Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. And his claim is True. politifact.com/wisconsin/sta…
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Bernie Sanders is correct. US spends 3 times what UK spends on health care ow.ly/W87ui
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The halt of the Keystone XL pipeline, which many Republicans have pointed to as a cause for rising prices, would've likely had a very miniscule impact on the global oil trade. The action also did not shut down any existing supply. bit.ly/3Ds9PPE
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This is True. Evidence shows most of the 47 men in famous "Declaration of Independence" painting were slaveholders: bit.ly/2k7HrxW
This is one of the most famous paintings in American history: Declaration of Independence.
I decided to put red dots on all the men who held slaves.
Next time someone puts them on a pedestal and says we can't question their judgement on guns or whatever, show them this image.
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That nice Lincoln quote Lara Trump just said? Lincoln didn't say it. politifact.com/factchecks/20… #RNC2020
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump again is wrong claiming the U.S. is one of the highest-taxes nations in the world. bit.ly/2cuc1b7
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Trump claims, "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history." That's False. #SOTU politifact.com/truth-o-meter…
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This tweet from Eric Trump is False. Those ballots for the primary were returned to Clark County because the voters didn’t live at the address. That’s the way the system is supposed to work, it's not fraud. bit.ly/32ekIDS
More than 223,000 mail-in ballots sent to wrong addresses - in Nevada lawenforcementtoday.com/more…
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NEW: A Michigan judge has not ordered a hand recount of the state's election results, despite what you may have seen on social media bit.ly/35mqu7W
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Joe Biden said that he was arrested in South Africa. Pants on Fire! He later changed his story. bit.ly/32R0w9v
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Clinton is right, Trump encouraged Japan to get a nuclear weapon. bit.ly/1OaIRA0
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Trump said “I said, I'd like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers. They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.”
We rated a similar statement False. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump is wrong about financial disclosures being better than tax returns.
bit.ly/2djLIGj
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We fact-checked Dana Loesch, now an NRA spokeswoman, when she falsely said Obama slashed funding for gun safety program bit.ly/2GyjIMW
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump again is wrong about financial disclosures being better than tax returns. bit.ly/2djLIGj
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Clinton is right, blacks more likely to be arrested, get longer sentences bit.ly/1M7Gibr
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Clinton says Trump’s tax plan overwhelmingly helps the wealthy. True, experts say. bit.ly/2diWgHT
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This tweet is False. Trump takes the mayor completely out of context. bit.ly/2sEqQk9
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NEW: In today's gun policy address, President Biden exaggerated about background checks at gun shows. Mostly False. bit.ly/2Qcp1eY
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump said Clinton would double taxes for Americans. False. bit.ly/2b79s2h
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Donald Trump, who joined the 2024 presidential race tonight, repeated many false or misleading claims that we’ve already fact-checked:
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No, Joe Biden did not receive a sudden influx of thousands of mysteriously surfaced votes in Michigan overnight. This Twitter rumor is False. bit.ly/363Aoue
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Trump and his administration have not protected patients with preexisting conditions. His policy trajectory does exactly the opposite. politifact.com/factchecks/20… #RNC2020
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With new indictments of 12 Russian military officers over 2016 election hacking and infiltration efforts, a flashback to our 2017 Lie of the Year: @realdonaldTrump saying Russian election interference is a "made-up story." bit.ly/2yi54EV
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A Georgia lawmaker compares Jan. 6 Capitol riot to a “normal tourist visit.” Pants on Fire! It was not normal and they were not tourists. bit.ly/2R8zMQH
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Donald Trump said his administration passed veteran's Choice after a 50-year wait. The policy dates to the Obama administration: politifact.com/factchecks/20… #TulsaTrumpRally
40
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The $1.9 trillion coronavirus pandemic relief package includes nontaxable stimulus checks of $1,400 for many Americans. It does NOT give a $25 million bonus to House members, as a post on social media said. Pants on Fire! bit.ly/3cgSvjq
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Janice Rogers Brown, a Black woman, was never nominated to the Supreme Court. She was considered a potential contender to replace the first woman on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, when O’Connor retired in 2006. bit.ly/3ui508F
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This is false. Nowhere near this much has been allocated to PR as of yet. Even if $91-92 billion is the ultimate cost down the road, the federal government already has estimated it spent $120 billion on Hurricane Katrina, so Hurricane Maria is not a record bit.ly/30Dvxvo
Wow! Yet another big storm heading to Puerto Rico. Will it ever end? Congress approved 92 Billion Dollars for Puerto Rico last year, an all time record of its kind for “anywhere.”
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Vance said Walz ended protections in Minnesota for babies born alive. False.
Infanticide, the crime of killing a child within a year of its birth, is illegal in all U.S. states.
In May 2023, Walz, as Minnesota governor, signed legislation updating a state law for “infants who are born alive.” This change did not alter the fact that under state law, these babies are protected. politifact.com/factchecks/20…
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No, @JoeBiden's tax plan would not increase the federal income tax rate from 12% to 25% for a family earning $75,000 per year. That claim is False. bit.ly/34jzVom
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Did Michigan mysteriously find thousands of ballots for Biden overnight? No. This social media rumor, picked up by President Donald Trump and his allies, is False. bit.ly/363Aoue
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Kevin McCarthy claimed that he didn’t know what QAnon was, referring to it as “Q-on." But he has spoken about the extremist ideology at least three times in the past. He's also pronounced the name correctly before.
bit.ly/2O7kObH
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump’s claim of a neighbor seeing something in San Bernardino, not reporting it is False.
bit.ly/2dMAxHf
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LIVE FACT-CHECK: Trump is wrong, he did mock a disabled reporter. bit.ly/1Ymubjv
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Republicans claim Joe Biden would defund the police if elected. Biden has repeatedly refuted that statement, saying that he wants to bring back community policing and help hire more officers. bit.ly/33tGpAx
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This video is altered. Joe Biden did not stand around looking confused at an event announcing members of his White House science team.
Pants on Fire! bit.ly/38RLwgm
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The Joe Biden-Bernie Sanders “unity document” does not say anything about abolishing police departments or getting rid of all prisons. Pants on Fire! bit.ly/3jlSMED
Fox's Chris Wallace fact checks Trump and tells Trump that he's wrong to claim that Biden wants to defund the police.
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NEW: Several Facebook posts claim this photo shows Trump supporters at the Million MAGA March in Washington. In fact, it shows a 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers parade. bit.ly/35EGsug
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