President Donald Trump, who himself faces questions about his ties to Russia, hinted at some sort of murky dealings involving the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “Hunter Biden got three and a half million dollars from the wife of the mayor of Moscow, Trump said Sept. 27 at a press conference. “Why did […]
The rival camps of President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spent the hours before their first general-election debate sparring over the issue of commercial breaks. “Biden’s handlers have asked for multiple breaks during the debate, which President Trump doesn’t need, so we have rejected that request,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told […]
For a term that’s at least 100 years old, “herd immunity” has gained new life in 2020. It starred in many headlines last month, when reports surfaced that a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and adviser to the president, Dr. Scott Atlas, recommended it as a strategy to combat COVID-19. The Washington Post reported that Atlas, a […]
UPDATE: See our fact-checks from the first debate here. PolitiFact, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, has been fact-checking presidential politics since 2007 and has rated more than 18,000 individual claims on our Truth-O-Meter. Follow along below for our live coverage. PolitiFact is also partnering with WRAL, our PolitiFact North Carolina affiliate, to present a live video stream with […]
UPDATE: See our fact-checks from the first debate here. PolitiFact is partnering with WRAL, our PolitiFact North Carolina affiliate, to present a live stream with live fact-checking of the first presidential debate. You can watch the feed below starting at 9 p.m. ET for live fact-checking. If you prefer to follow along with PolitiFact’s coverage […]
PolitiFact was barely four months old when we published our first fact-check of Joe Biden. It came almost 13 years ago, in mid-October 2007, during the thick of the Democratic presidential primary contest, and it involved a somewhat arcane point on troop withdrawals from Iraq during a debate. Biden, who would drop out of the […]
PolitiFact’s first fact-check Donald Trump was Feb. 14, 2011, for a statement related to the “birther” conspiracy theory, which doubted the American birth of then-president Barack Obama. Birtherism was the issue that effectively turned the real estate developer into a major political figure. Trump focused on Obama’s college years: “The people that went to school […]
In President Donald Trump’s 1987 book about business, “The Art of the Deal,” he sums up his approach to promotion in a word: “Bravado.” “I play to people’s fantasies,” he writes. “People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never […]
At PolitiFact, we’re gearing up for Election 2020 debates. It’s kind of our Super Bowl. There are four debates this fall: three presidential and one vice presidential. PolitiFact will fact-check the debates in real time on our website. Sign up for PolitiFact’s email to get a link to our fact-checking ahead of Tuesday’s debate. See […]
President Donald Trump has faced many adversaries, but none as unbending and deaf to his words as the coronavirus. Early on in the outbreak, as Trump was saying the country had just a handful of cases and matters were well under control, the virus was rampant in New York City. It just hadn’t made people […]
Protections for people with preexisting conditions is an issue that has followed President Donald Trump for his entire first term. Now, Trump has signed an Executive Order that he says locks in coverage regardless of anyone’s health history. “Any healthcare reform legislation that comes to my desk from Congress must protect the preexisting conditions or […]
On Sep. 23, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that a grand jury wouldn’t charge Louisville police officers with killing Breonna Taylor. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot to death by police in her apartment, has become an icon of racial injustice, and the grief over the attorney general’s announcement sparked more protests […]