Q: Were three Democratic state senators arrested in New Jersey for running a prostitution ring? A: No. The senators named in the story don’t even exist. FULL ANSWER Sixty-three cases of sex trafficking were reported in the state of New Jersey in 2017, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. […]
Facts Check
What Did Trump Say at Immigration Meeting?
What exactly did President Donald Trump say at a Jan. 11 White House meeting on immigration? At the meeting, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, presented a bipartisan plan to remove the threat of deportation for the 689,800 people who were illegally brought to the United States as children and afforded protection under […]
Trump’s Phony ‘Fake News’ Claims
President Donald Trump often dismisses news stories or media outlets that he doesn’t like as “fake news.” How often? A database of his public remarks contains 320 references last year to “fake news.” Usually, it’s a general complaint about news coverage — such as his Christmas Eve tweet: “The Fake News […]
Video: Trump’s Claim on Diversity Visas
In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper reviews President Donald Trump’s bogus claim that other countries are abusing a U.S. immigration program to send the U.S. “the worst of the worst.” Trump was referring to the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which uses a computer lottery system to randomly issue up to […]
Bogus Claim on Mosque Raid
Q: Were 11 would-be terrorists arrested in a late-night raid at a mosque? A: No. The FBI confirmed that there has been no such raid. FULL QUESTION Late Night Raid On Michigan Mosque Nets 11 ISIS Terrorists and More Than 40 Vests True story or not? FULL ANSWER Federal immigration […]
Pelosi Inflates Tax Cuts
Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi claimed that the new tax law will provide “at least a $1.3 trillion tax break for corporations.” That’s misleading. It’s true that the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that cutting the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent will reduce federal […]
The DACA Population Numbers
President Donald Trump said he has “heard” varying numbers on the DACA population — from 650,000 to 3 million. In fact, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said there were 689,800 active DACA recipients as of Sept. 4, 2017. DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was instituted […]
Freeman Didn’t Say ‘Lock Her Up’
Q: Did actor Morgan Freeman say that Hillary Clinton should be jailed? A: No. He has donated to Democrats and endorsed Clinton for president in 2016. FULL ANSWER Morgan Freeman endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. But, in October, a website called Your News Wire — which brews conspiracy […]
Cold Facts on the Globe’s Hottest Years
Sen. James Inhofe misleadingly claimed that the statistics behind the globe’s likely hottest years on record — 2014, 2015 and 2016 — were “meaningless” because the temperature increases were “well within the margin of error.” Taking into account the margins of error, there’s still a long-term warming trend. Inhofe, a […]
Bogus Black Lives Matter Stories Won’t Die
Q: Were a dozen or more women found dead in a freezer with “Black Lives Matter” carved in them? A: No. Versions of that false story have been circulating online for almost two years. FULL ANSWER Different versions of an internet hoax that originated almost two years ago are still […]