Facts Check

Quick Take A conservative rant circulating on Facebook has been falsely credited to the actor Tim Allen. Full Story A post shared by thousands of Facebook users begins, “Tim Allen is credited with writing this,” and includes a photograph of the actor and comedian. The post includes several conservative viewpoints, such […]

Making a point about Defense Department waste, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang related a secondhand story about a Navy fighter pilot who said that airmen routinely dumped fuel into the Pacific Ocean at the end of the fiscal year as a way to preserve the following year’s fuel budget. But […]

Quick Take A meme circulating on Facebook wrongly attributes a statement about guns to former President Ronald Reagan. The quotation is actually from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, co-authors of The Communist Manifesto. Full Story In recent weeks, some social media users have posted a meme with a quotation that […]

Summary The false and exaggerated claims in the third Democratic debate included: Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro accused former Vice President Joe Biden of “forgetting what you said two minutes ago” on Biden’s health care plan. But the two candidates were talking past each another; Biden accurately described […]

Quick Take A social media meme inaccurately claims that Walmart will no longer sell rifles. Walmart stopped selling “military-style rifles such as the AR-15,” in 2015, and has announced it will no longer sell ammunition for “military-style weapons.” It still sells “long guns for hunting and sport shooting.” Full Story […]

Twice in the last five weeks, Joe Biden has claimed that despite voting to authorize military force against Iraq in 2002, he opposed the Iraq war from “the moment” it began. That’s not accurate, and Biden now says he misspoke. The public position taken in the lead-up to and early […]

In making his case for taking swift action on climate change, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg inaccurately said that “we could lose half the world’s oxygen because of what’s going on in the oceans.” Scientists say that’s a misreading of the evidence. Climate change does pose a threat to oceans, […]

Quick Take A 1978 photo of a Somalian army recruit has been misidentified on social media as Rep. Ilhan Omar, who wasn’t born until 1982. Full Story A 41-year-old photo of a woman with a gun in Somalia is being used to spread misinformation about Rep. Ilhan Omar, a 36-year-old […]

Ads posted on Facebook from a committee working to reelect President Donald Trump claim that Democrats are calling for the Second Amendment to be repealed. To support the claim, the Trump campaign pointed to statements by a few state lawmakers and one candidate for U.S. Senate. The ads, however, could […]

Quick Take Viral posts on social media make the baseless claim that the shooter in Odessa, Texas, had a sticker on his car for Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. The Texas Department of Public Safety said there was no sticker on the car he was driving during the attack. Full […]