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President Donald Trump repeated his false claims that the election was “rigged” and characterized mail-in ballots as a “disaster” in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. Bartiromo allowed him to make his case without challenging him on his lack of proof. “We won the election easily,” Trump said Nov. 29 in an interview that […]

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 […]

A few days after Pennsylvania announced a broad mask mandate to combat a surge in coronavirus cases, bloggers expressed shock that the far-reaching rules might apply to professional football players.  One viral tweet says:  “Are people nationally aware that the Steelers, Eagles, Penn State, etc. and their opponents will evidently be required to wear masks […]

Can President Donald Trump wield the power of the pardon to protect himself? This is a question readers have asked us, so we asked legal scholars about a range of scenarios. Trump himself has asserted that doing so would be legal, although as he raised the possibility, he added that he wouldn’t need to, because […]

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 […]

Since the election, we’ve heard from many readers who are disappointed with our fact-checking work on the election results. Here are a few of the comments we’ve received. “As usual you lie. There are countless election poll watchers who have given sworn affidavits in illegal activities at the polls.  You are so far left-wing that […]

During a 90-minute press conference led by Rudy Giuliani, lawyers representing President Donald Trump made their best case to overturn an election Trump lost to Joe Biden. Their case invoked the TV show “Law & Order,” the movie “My Cousin Vinny,” Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Mickey Mouse, antifa, and the Philadelphia Eagles football team. Tying it […]

President Donald Trump continues to maintain that he won the 2020 presidential election, despite all evidence to the contrary. And he is continuing to block the transition to a new government headed by Joe Biden on Jan. 20. What he’s doing is certainly not normal for a departing president. But is it allowed? What is […]

Joe Biden is president-elect of the United States. But in Facebook groups, conservative media and the Trump White House, the battle for the presidency is far from over. Since Election Day, PolitiFact has fact-checked more than 80 misleading or false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Federal agencies, state election officials and technology […]

President Donald Trump says he and his administration’s Operation Warp Speed deserve credit for the promising news from biotech companies about vaccines to prevent COVID-19. Drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna announced that preliminary data for their vaccines show they are 95% and 94.5% effective, respectively, against COVID-19. The companies plan to request emergency-use authorization from the […]

With small indoor gatherings driving a record surge of new coronavirus cases across the U.S., public health officials are worried about the holiday season accelerating a worsening situation. Thanksgiving comes at a difficult time in the pandemic. Hospitals across the U.S. are being overwhelmed by new COVID-19 patients as the country sets daily infection records, […]

Within a week, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna announced that they had produced vaccines that were highly effective at preventing COVID-19, a possible turning point in the course of the pandemic. The Moderna vaccine, announced on Nov. 16, was found to be 95% effective at preventing the disease, according to an early analysis of clinical […]