Latest Stories By Louis Jacobson

President Donald Trump listed scores of what he called “extreme” recommendations that emerged from weeks of meetings between advisers to Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and Sanders, the leading voice for the most progressive Democrats, released a sweeping 110-page document covering platform positions on immigration, health care, climate […]

Donald Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was vintage Trump: controversial, huge, symbolic. But he also meant a real wall.  “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Trump said when he launched his campaign for the […]

In Washington, there’s a history of announcing controversial actions on a Friday night, when the weekly news cycle is over and fewer Americans are watching. The announcement made by the White House on July 10 was a big one: President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone on charges stemming from Robert […]

EDITOR’S NOTE, Aug. 11, 2020: Here’s a link to a chart of vaccine candidates, updated through Aug. 10. More than four months into the coronavirus pandemic, how close is the U.S. and the world to a safe and effective vaccine? Scientists say they see steady progress and are expressing cautious optimism that a vaccine could […]

While Joe Biden has improved his standing in the polls in recent weeks, he’s still behind President Donald Trump in the money race. Nevertheless, Biden continues to make up ground and has been eating into Trump’s fundraising advantage. When we last looked at the two candidates’ fundraising picture on May 29, the combination of money […]

An ad by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign goes full-bore against those who would support “defunding the police.” pic.twitter.com/Jwv5ko6Y3j — Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) July 2, 2020   The July 2 ad features images of looting and violence in the streets, as an answering service narrates with a recorded voice: “You have reached the 911 police […]

Editor’s note: PolitiFact’s Stump Speech Analyzer looks at the content and accuracy of candidate stump speeches. Following our summary of the speech’s main themes, we present fact-checks of specific talking points. Read our previous stump speech analyzers for Joe Biden and the Democratic primary field. The speeches: Trump’s 41-minute speech at Mount Rushmore in South […]

In the days leading up to Kentucky’s June 23 primary, national figures raised alarms about the state’s Election Day voting infrastructure. Film director Ava Duvernay tweeted, “Kentucky has used Covid-19 as an excuse to slash polling places for Tuesday’s vital primary to defeat #MitchMcConnell.” Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams tweeted, “Voter suppression is no […]

As Americans continue to grapple with the novel coronavirus, one question is on a lot of people’s minds: Are we already seeing, or will we eventually see, a second wave of the virus? On June 16, Vice President Mike Pence penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined, “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave,’” […]

It’s time to let go of old ideas about how election night will work. This November, there’s a good chance we won’t have a clear winner in the wee hours of the morning. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many states are urging residents to vote by mail, and election officials are bracing for a more time-consuming […]

President Donald Trump may be opposed to rechristening the 10 U.S. military bases named for Confederate figures, but the idea is getting a serious look from top military brass and lawmakers We wondered why the bases have these names in the first place, so we checked with eight military historians. The historians were unanimous that […]

President Donald Trump in a Fox News interview criticized local officials who he believes have lost control of protesters, defended his controversial tweet that evoked use of excessive force by police and stood by his decision to stage a Bible-hoisting photo op at a church in Washington, D.C. Host Harris Faulkner told Trump he frightened […]