Latest Stories By Jon Greenberg

Showing 85-96 of 542 items
Trump with shadow

Trump’s term ends with half of his campaign promises unachieved

“Promises made, promises kept.” That’s what President Donald Trump told his supporters at rally after rally — in Greenville, N.C., Montoursville, Penn., Green Bay, Wisc., Des Moines, Iowa, and on and on, from coast to coast. It was a stock phrase in his pitch to hold the presidency. By our count of his campaign promises, […]
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Pelosi with second impeachment article

Fact-checking the House impeachment debate about Trump, Capitol riot

A week after supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol, Trump became the first president to be impeached twice. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump a “clear and present danger” to the nation. The final vote was 232 to 197. While most Republicans rejected impeachment as unnecessary, vindictive or rushed, 10 of them broke with […]
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Police in Capitol

Black Lives Matter protests and the Capitol assault: Comparing the police response

The police response to the assault and vandalism of the federal Capitol building has unleashed a wave of comparisons to the summer Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C.  President-elect Joe Biden said the restrained handling of the Trump supporters at the Capitol reflected unequal justice. His granddaughter had sent him a photo of row […]
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Lou Dobbs art

How Fox News, Newsmax vote-rigging coverage squares with defamation law

After weeks of sharing baseless allegations that the voting system firms Smartmatic  and Dominion Systems had manipulated the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Fox News and Newsmax ran segments that debunked their own coverage. Media legal scholars say that move highlights the promise and the limits of the current guardrails against spreading false information. […]
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Hunter Biden headshot 10/11/2012

The Hunter Biden investigations: An update

President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is back in the news. Hunter Biden put out a statement Dec. 9, saying that the U.S. attorney in Delaware is investigating his taxes.  “I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately,” Biden said. Before […]
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Biden-Obama composite

How Biden managed to win far more votes in 2020 than Obama did in 2008 — but far fewer counties

As members of the Electoral College certified Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump, a popular social media post claimed that election results from 2008 show that Biden’s 2020 victory is simply not plausible. The Dec. 10 Facebook post makes the case this way: “Biden won more votes in 2020 than Obama did in 2008?  […]
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Thanksgiving Cornucopia

At Thanksgiving, fact-checkers give thanks

2020 has been a year much in need of truth, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we at PolitiFact want to voice our thanks to the people, projects and places that have helped us bring you the facts. No such list can be complete. Our work relies on literally hundreds of experts to tease out […]
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Masked Nebraska football fan

In Nebraska, skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 put localities, governor on separate tracks

As the virus surges nationwide, one by one, governors who once resisted calls for stricter coronavirus measures have relented. Since November, Republican governors in North Dakota, Utah and Iowa have imposed tighter limits on gatherings and mandated masks. But in a few statehouses, a raging virus is still seen as insufficient reason to dictate something […]
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fauci and trump press briefing Feb 29 2020

Can Donald Trump fire Anthony Fauci?

While President Donald Trump has been saying that the country is rounding the corner on the coronavirus pandemic, the government’s head of infectious diseases Anthony Fauci has said the opposite, warning that the country “is in for a whole lot of hurt.” “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into […]
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Jones Tuberville side by side

In the Alabama Senate race, the political football is football itself

Nowhere across the political map are Republicans more likely to pick up a U.S. Senate seat on Nov. 3 than in Alabama. Democrat Doug Jones holds office in the deeply red state courtesy of a special election that pitted him against a man accused of seeking a romantic relationship with an underage woman. Jones now […]
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Covid nurses in Utah

Did the White House say the pandemic is over?

If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it’s that science and politics can be a dangerous brew. The national press jumped on an Oct. 27 White House press release that, by some lights, claimed victory over the coronavirus. The release, under the banner of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, announced […]
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As auto industry plateaus, Donald Trump touts car plants that don’t exist

At a September rally in Freeland, Mich., Trump described great success in reviving automotive jobs. He boasted that he wrangled a promise from Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for Japanese companies to expand in the U.S. “They announced five car companies are coming to Michigan,” Trump told the crowd. They aren’t coming — not five, […]
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Showing 85-96 of 542 items