Facts Check

Quick Take A viral meme uses erroneous claims about Sen. Kamala Harris’ schooling and race to accuse the Democratic presidential candidate of “lies.” Full Story  A popular Facebook meme takes aim at Sen. Kamala Harris by distorting the facts in order to accuse the California Democrat of “lies.” In a numbered list, the meme wrongly asserts the 2020 presidential candidate has been untruthful about her race and about her schooling in Berkeley, California. It also…

In recent days, contradictory claims have been made about border issues, including the living conditions for migrants being housed at U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention facilities: Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan claimed that children in CBP custody are receiving “appropriate meals” and showers. But the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office said it visited five facilities and found children at three of them “had no access to showers” and “two facilities had not…

President Donald Trump described a security treaty with Japan as an “unfair agreement” negotiated by “stupid” American officials in which “Japan doesn’t have to help us at all” if the U.S. is attacked. But that ignores the benefits in the treaty for the U.S. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which dates to 1951, gives the U.S. a strategic military presence in Japan to protect a “range of U.S. security interests in East Asia,” as explained by…

Prior to his historic meeting with Kim Jong Un in North Korea, President Donald Trump made the unfounded claim that Barack Obama tried many times to meet with Kim, but was rebuffed. Obama administration officials and experts on U.S.-North Korea relations say that’s not true, and Trump offered no evidence to back up his claim. Trump’s comments were made in Seoul, South Korea, on June 30 just prior to what Trump described as a last-minute…

Quick Take Posts on social media wildly exaggerate the number of times President Donald Trump’s name and the word “free” were used during the first 2020 Democratic presidential debates. Full Story  The first Democratic debates in the 2020 presidential election were held last week, and 20 candidates sparred on a variety of issues. (In case you missed it, we fact-checked a number of false and misleading claims made by the candidates on both the first…

To hear politicians tell it, wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade, are the same as they were 45 years ago and are at a 60-year low. And all three claims could be correct, depending on what measure is used to justify it. Parsing the political claims on wages is an exercise in fun with statistics. There are several different ways to measure what’s happened to workers’ paychecks, leading to disparate and…

Quick Take A false story spread across social media wrongly claims that NBC News reported that Hillary Clinton “covered up” a “pedophile ring” at the Department of State. The report is from 2013 and did not say that. Full Story  It’s been more than two years since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, and more than six since she exited her post as U.S. secretary of state. But viral falsehoods about the prominent Democrat…

In this video, we review some of claims made on June 27 during round two of the first Democratic debate. Former Vice President Joe Biden falsely claimed that President Donald Trump “immediately discontinued” an aid program to Central America, and implied that has caused a surge of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The aid was reduced about 23% during Trump’s first two years, not discontinued. Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that Trump tried to “throw 32…

In this week’s video, CNN’s Jake Tapper breaks down three false claims in the first of two Democratic debates on June 26: Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Purdue Pharma had paid “no consequences” for its connection to the opioid crisis. In fact, the company and its executives have agreed to pay hundreds of millions in fines and settlements. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio said the bottom 60 percent of workers “haven’t seen a raise…

Summary The second group of 10 Democratic presidential candidates made false and misleading claims about immigration, gun control legislation and the environment, and repeated familiar talking points on taxes, health care and poverty. Former Vice President Joe Biden falsely claimed President Trump “immediately discontinued” an aid program to Central America, and implied that’s the cause of surging immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. The aid was reduced about 23 percent during Trump’s first two years. Former…