Mid-to-late July is usually a time when American families gear up for a new school year. It’s filled with back-to-school sales, supply lists and a return to the structure an eight-hour school day provides. But as the U.S. grapples with escalating confirmed daily cases of COVID-19, parents, teachers and lawmakers are wrestling instead with questions […]
Early in the coronavirus outbreak, the lead federal agency fighting the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, generally recommended that only people with COVID-19 and showing symptoms should wear masks. But that changed April 3, when the CDC said people should wear a cloth face covering to cover their nose and mouth when out […]
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 […]
President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans pushed theories about the motivations of vandals who toppled a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass from its pedestal in a Rochester park over the July 4 weekend. In a tweet, Trump called the vandalism the work of “anarchists.” > Statue of Frederick Douglass Torn Down in Rochester https://t.co/8iEBxSHm52 via […]
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 […]
California plans to send all active registered voters a mail-in ballot ahead of the November election, a move the state’s top elections official says is meant to “fortify our democracy in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.” “Expanding vote-by-mail statewide is a necessity to protect our right to vote and our public health,” Secretary of […]
In the weeks since protests erupted after the death of George Floyd, one mysterious word has consistently popped up in press briefings, cable news broadcasts and social media posts: antifa. President Donald Trump has tweeted several times about the left-wing movement since late May, likening it to “other wacko groups of anarchists.” Attorney General William […]
Editor’s note: Have you ever wondered if the movie you just saw — that claimed to be based on a real story or historical events — was really accurate? So have we. We want to help you sort out the facts from the dramatic liberties. (We’ve also fact-checked BlacKkKlansman, The Post, Darkest Hour and Dunkirk.) […]
On a Sunday evening in St. Louis, a group of people calling for the city’s mayor to resign marched into the upscale neighborhood where she lived. They were met inside the gate of Portland Place by a white couple, one brandishing a rifle and the other a handgun, photos and video clips show. What caused […]
Let’s be honest, it’s been a bad few months for facts. At PolitiFact, we’re continuing to see a massive amount of misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and the protests for social change. It’s happening in the White House, and on Capitol Hill, in statehouses and on television. You’re probably seeing it online. We definitely are. At […]
Resuming campaigning after an extended hiatus for the pandemic, President Donald Trump made Wisconsin one of his first stops. Trump won battleground Wisconsin by less than 20,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden leads Trump 49% to 41% in the latest Marquette University Law School Poll. On June 25, 2020, Trump made stops in […]