Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday misrepresented in a social media post what the U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday ruling on presidential immunity means for his civil and criminal cases.
“TOTAL EXONERATION!” he wrote in the post on his Truth Social platform. “It is clear that the Supreme Court’s Brilliantly Written and Historic Decision ENDS all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the WHITE HOUSE AND DOJ INSPIRED CIVIL HOAXES in New York.”
But none of Trump’s pending cases have been dismissed as a result of the ruling, nor have the verdicts already reached against him been overturned. The ruling does amount to a major victory for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose legal strategy has focused on delaying court proceedings until after the 2024 election.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: The Supreme Court’s ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution means “total exoneration” for former President Donald Trump.
THE FACTS: Although the historic 6-3 ruling is a win for Trump, he has not been exonerated and his legal troubles are far from over. A delay of his Washington trial on charges of election interference has been indefinitely extended as a result. Also, he still faces charges in two other criminal cases, and the verdicts already reached against him in a criminal and a civil case have not been overturned.
Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and former U.S. attorney for the state’s Eastern District, told The Associated Press that Trump’s claim is “inaccurate for a number of reasons.”
“The court found immunity from prosecution, not exoneration,” she wrote in an email. “The court did not say that Trump’s conduct did not amount to criminal behavior. Just that prosecutors are not allowed to prosecute him for it because of the special role of a president and the need to permit him to make ‘bold’ and ‘fearless’ decisions without concern for criminal consequences.”
McQuade wrote that Trump’s case over classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate won’t be affected, as it arose from conduct committed after he left the White House. She added that any impact on his New York hush money trial “seems unlikely” since the crimes were committed in a personal capacity.
“In addition, the Court’s opinion is solely focused on immunity for criminal conduct,” McQuade continued, explaining that it will not protect him from civil liability in his cases regarding defamatory statements about advice columnist E. Jean Carroll or fraudulent business practices conducted at the Trump Organization.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority said former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” and are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts. Unofficial, or private, actions are exempt from such immunity.
This means that special counsel Jack Smith cannot proceed with significant allegations in his indictment accusing Trump of plotting to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss, or he must at least defend their use in future proceedings before the trial judge.
The case has not been dismissed. It was instead sent back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now “carefully analyze” whether other allegations involve official conduct for which the president would be immune from prosecution. The trial was supposed to have begun in March, but has been on hold since December to allow Trump to pursue his Supreme Court appeal.
However, the justices did knock out one aspect of the indictment, finding that Trump is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.
The opinion also stated that Trump is “at least presumptively immune” from allegations that he tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, to reject certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral vote win. But prosecutors can try to make the case that Trump’s pressure on Pence can still be part of the case against him, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
It is all but certain that the ruling means Trump will not face trial in Washington ahead of the 2024 election, as the need for further analysis is expected to tie up the case for months with legal wrangling over whether actions in the indictment were official or unofficial, the AP has reported.
Trump is facing charges in two other criminal cases, one over his alleged interference in Georgia’s 2020 election and the other over classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House. Trump’s lawyers have asserted presidential immunity in both cases, but a ruling on the matter has not been made in either.
The former president was convicted in May of 34 felony counts in his hush money trial in New York. After Monday’s ruling, the New York judge who presided over that trial postponed Trump’s sentencing until at least September and agreed to weigh the impact of the presidential immunity decision.
Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty as part of a civil fraud lawsuit, for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House. It is still under appeal.
In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in 1996 and for defaming her over the allegations, awarding her $5 million. Carroll was awarded an additional $83.3 million in January by a separate jury for Trump’s continued social media attacks against her. An appeal of the former decision was rejected in April. The latter case is still being appealed.
Manipulated video from an Associated Press report circulated on the eve of the match between Slovakia and Ukraine at this year’s European Championship, with the false claim that Slovak flags had been banned from all games because of their similarity to the Russian flag.
“UEFA has banned the Russian flag from being carried to all matches of the Ukrainian national team at Euro 2024 after some of them were hung in the stands in other matches,” says the voiceover made to sound like an AP reporter. “Security staff will seize Russian flags from all fans, regardless of the country of the rival. It also became known that the ban will also apply to the flags of Slovakia at the upcoming match with Ukraine. The organizers claim that the Slovak flag is very similar to the Russian one, which can cause provocations against Ukrainians.”
No such video exists and the AP has not reported that there is a ban of Slovak flags at the soccer tournament.
Here are the facts.
CLAIM: A video shows an AP report that says Slovak flags will be banned at Euro 2024 games because of how similar they are to the Russian flag.
THE FACTS: The 33-second video was created using fabricated audio combined with an actual AP video about a Tesla shareholder vote.
In the video, footage from Euro 2024 is shown over what is a voiceover purportedly by AP reporter Tom Krisher. After about 28 seconds, Krisher appears on screen. The voiceover claims that given the flags’ similarities, Slovak flags will not be permitted at the tournament.
Both flags have white, blue and red horizontal stripes positioned in the same order. Slovakia’s flag also includes the country’s coat of arms on its left side.
But the video was fabricated. The AP has not reported that there is any such ban.
“The video circulating on social media is not an AP video and features a false and manipulated clip of an AP staffer,” AP spokesperson Nicole Meir wrote in an email. “The AP did not report on a UEFA ban of Slovak flags.”
The footage of Krisher was taken from an AP video published on June 13 about a Tesla shareholder vote to restore CEO Elon Musk’s $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier this year. Krisher covers the auto industry for the AP, Meir confirmed.
After Russian flags were displayed in the stands at other matches, the UEFA said that security staff would try to intercept and remove Russian flags from being displayed at the Munich stadium where Ukraine played Romania on Monday afternoon in its first Euro 2024 match, the AP has reported.
German authorities previously said they only wanted to allow flags of the participating teams to be brought to stadiums and official fan zones broadcasting games on big screens in the 10 host cities.
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This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said during his debate with President Joe Biden last week that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol involved a “relatively small” group of people who were “in many cases ushered in by the police.”
But that’s not what happened. Thousands of his supporters were outside the Capitol that day and hundreds broke in, many of them beating and injuring law enforcement officers in brutal hand-to-hand combat as the officers tried to stop them from storming through windows and doors. There is ample video evidence of the violence, and more than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot.
Many of those who broke into the Capitol were echoing Trump’s false claims of election fraud, and some menacingly called out the names of lawmakers — particularly then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to try to object to Biden’s legitimate win. The rioters interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory, but lawmakers who had evacuated both chambers returned that night to finish.
Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee to challenge Biden, has not only continued to mislead voters about what happened that day but has also heaped praise on the rioters, calling them “hostages” and promising to pardon them if he is elected. A look at some of his false claims:
‘PEACEFULLY AND PATRIOTICALLY’
CLAIM: At the debate, Trump was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what he would say to any voters “who believe that you have violated your constitutional oath through your actions, inaction on January 6, 2021, and worry that you’ll do it again?” Trump simply replied: “Well, I didn’t say that to anybody. I said peacefully and patriotically.”
THE FACTS: In a speech on the White House Ellipse the morning of Jan. 6 to thousands of supporters, Trump did tell the crowd to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol. But he also used far more incendiary language when speaking off the cuff in other parts of the speech, such as telling the crowd: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Trump did not address Tapper’s question about his inaction as his supporters broke into the building and injured police. More than three hours elapsed between the time his supporters violently breached the Capitol perimeter and Trump’s first effort to get the rioters to disperse. He released a video message at 4:17 p.m. that day in which he asked his supporters to go home but reassured them, “We love you, you’re very special.”
Some rioters facing criminal charges have said in court they believed they had been following Trump’s instructions on Jan. 6. And evidence shown during trials illustrates that far-right extremists were galvanized by a Trump tweet inviting his supporters to a “wild” protest on Jan. 6. “He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!!” wrote one Oath Keepers member who was convicted of seditious conspiracy.
POLICE ‘LET THEM IN’
CLAIM: Trump said at the debate: “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol. And in many cases were ushered in by the police.” The next day, Trump said at a rally: “So many of these people were told to go in, right? The police: ‘Go in, go in, go in.’”
THE FACTS: More than 100 Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers were injured, some severely, as they tried to keep the rioters from breaking into the Capitol. In some cases police retreated or stepped aside as they were overwhelmed by the violent, advancing mob, but there is no evidence that any rioter was “ushered” into the building.
In an internal memo last year, U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said that the allegation that “our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides’” is “outrageous and false.” Manger said police were completely overwhelmed and outnumbered, and in many cases resorted to de-escalation tactics to try to persuade rioters to leave the building.
The Capitol Police said in a statement this week that “under extreme circumstances, our officers performed their duties to the best of their ability to protect the members of Congress. With the assistance of multiple law enforcement agencies and the National Guard, which more than doubled the number of officers on site, it took several hours to secure the U.S. Capitol. At the end of the day, because of our officers’ dedication, nobody who they were charged with protecting was hurt and the legislative process continued.”
NATIONAL GUARD RESPONSE
CLAIM: Trump said he offered 10,000 National Guard troops to Pelosi and “she now admits that she turned it down.” Referring to a video Pelosi’s daughter took that day, Trump claimed that Pelosi said, “I take full responsibility for January 6.”
THE FACTS: Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that he offered National Guard troops to the Capitol and that his offer was rejected. He has previously said he signed an order for 20,000 troops to go to the Capitol.
While Trump was involved in discussions in the days prior to Jan. 6 about whether the National Guard would be called ahead of the joint session, he issued no such order or formal request before or during the rioting, and the guard’s arrival was delayed for hours as Pentagon officials deliberated over how to proceed.
In a 2022 interview with the Democratic-led House committee that investigated the attack, Christopher Miller, the acting Defense secretary at that time, confirmed that there was no order from the president.
The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol, and two members of that board — the House Sergeant at Arms and the Senate Sergeant at Arms — decided through informal discussions not to call the guard ahead of the joint session that was eventually interrupted by Trump’s supporters, despite a request from the Capitol Police. The House Sergeant at Arms reports to the Speaker of the House, who was then Pelosi, and the Senate Sergeant at Arms reported to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. But Pelosi’s office has said she was never informed of the request.
The board eventually requested the guard’s assistance after the rioting was underway, and Pelosi and McConnell called the Pentagon and begged for military assistance. Pence, who was in a secure location inside the building, also called the Pentagon to demand reinforcements.
In a video recently released by House Republicans, Pelosi is seen in the back of a car on Jan. 6 and talking to an aide. In the raw video recorded by her daughter, Pelosi is angrily asking her aide why the National Guard wasn’t at the Capitol when the rioting started. “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” she asks.
“We did not have any accountability for what was going on there and we should have, this is ridiculous,” Pelosi says, while her aide responds that security officials thought they had sufficient resources. “They clearly didn’t know and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more,” Pelosi says in the video.
There is no mention of a request from Trump, and Pelosi never said that she took “full responsibility for Jan. 6.”
In a statement, Pelosi spokesman Ian Krager said Trump’s repeated comments about Pelosi are revisionist history.
“Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed again and again that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination on January 6th,” Krager said. “The Speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on January 6th or any other day of the week.”
‘INNOCENT’ RIOTERS
CLAIM: Trump said to Biden during the debate, “What they’ve done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, what you have done, how you’ve destroyed the lives of so many people.”
THE FACTS: Echoing Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, rioters at the Capitol engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and a slew of rioters were carrying weapons, including firearms, knives, brass knuckle gloves, a pitchfork, a hatchet, a sledgehammer and a bow. They also used makeshift weapons, including flagpoles, a table leg, hockey stick and crutch, to attack officers. Police officers were bruised and bloodied, some dragged into the crowd and beaten. One officer was crushed in a doorframe and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him. One rioter has been charged with climbing scaffolding and firing a gun in the air during the melee.
The rioters broke through windows and doors, ransacking the Capitol and briefly occupying the Senate chamber. Senators had evacuated minutes earlier. They also tried to break into the House chamber, breaking glass windows and beating on the doors. But police held them off with guns drawn.
About 900 of the rioters have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds of them receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years. Hundreds of people who went into the Capitol but did not attack police or damage the building were charged only with misdemeanors.
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Associated Press writers Barbara Whitaker, Alanna Durkin Richer, Melissa Goldin and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
Trump falsely represented the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a relatively small number of people who were ushered in by police and misstated the strength of the economy during his administration.
The latest on the Biden-Trump debate
The debate was a critical moment in Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s presidential rematch to make their cases before a national television audience.
Take a look at the facts around false and misleading claims frequently made by the two candidates.
Both candidateswasted no timesparring over policy during their 90-minute faceoff. These are the takeaways.
Biden, who tends to lean more on exaggerations and embellishments rather than outright lies, misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID. Here’s a look at the false and misleading claims on Thursday night by the two candidates.
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JAN. 6
TRUMP: “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. The attack on the U.S. Capitol was the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years. As thoroughly documented by video, photographs and people who were there, thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.
In an internal memo on March 7, 2023, U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said that the allegation that “our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides’” is “outrageous and false.” A Capitol Police spokesperson confirmed the memo’s authenticity to The Associated Press. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot. More than 850 people have pleaded guilty to crimes, and 200 others have been convicted at trial.
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TRUMP, on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s actions on Jan. 6: “Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down.”
THE FACTS: Pelosi did not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.
The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol. It is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.
The House Sergeant at Arms reported to Pelosi and the Senate Sergeant at Arms reported to McConnell. There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand. Drew Hammill, a then-spokesperson for Pelosi, said after the insurrection that Pelosi was never informed of such a request.
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TAXES AND REGULATIONS
TRUMP, on Biden: “He wants to raise your taxes by four times.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate.
Trump has used that line at rallies, but it has no basis in fact. Biden actually wants to prevent tax increases on anyone making less than $400,000, which is the vast majority of taxpayers.
More importantly, Biden’s budget proposal does not increase taxes as much as Trump claims, though the increases are focused on corporations and the wealthy. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for individuals are set to expire after 2025, because they were not fully funded when they became law.
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TRUMP, referring to Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s victory: “On January 6th we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever on January 6th.”
THE FACTS: The current federal income tax was only instituted in 1913, and tax rates have fluctuated significantly in the decades since. Rates were lower in the 1920s, just prior to the Great Depression. Trump did cut taxes during his time in the White House, but the rates weren’t the lowest in history.
Government regulations have also ebbed and flowed in the country’s history, but there’s been an overall increase in regulations as the country modernized and its population grew. There are now many more regulations covering the environment, employment, financial transactions and other aspects of daily life. While Trump slashed some regulations, he didn’t take the country back to the less regulated days of its past.
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INSULIN
BIDEN: “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”
THE FACTS: No, that’s not exactly right. Out-of-pocket insulin costs for older Americans on Medicare were capped at $35 in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law. The cap took effect last year, when many drugmakers announced they would lower the price of the drug to $35 for most users on private insurance. But Biden regularly overstates that many people used to pay up to $400 monthly. People with diabetes who have Medicare or private insurance paid about $450 yearly prior to the law, a Department of Health and Human Services study released in December 2022 found.
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CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP, touting his environmental record, said that “during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever” and that he supports “immaculate” air and water.
THE FACTS: That’s far from the whole story. During his presidency, Trump rolled back some provisions of the Clean Water Act, eased regulations on coal, oil and gas companies and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. When wildfires struck California in 2020, Trump dismissed the scientific consensus that climate change had played a role. Trump also dismissed scientists’ warnings about climate change and routinely proposed deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. Those reductions were blocked by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
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ABORTION
TRUMP: “The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.”
THE FACTS: Trump inaccurately referred to abortions after birth. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.
Abortion rights advocates say terms like this and “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Abortions later in pregnancy also are usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk, medical experts say. In most cases, these are also wanted pregnancies, experts say.
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RUSSIA
TRUMP on Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia: “He should have had him out a long time ago, but Putin’s probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time.”
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to say that Biden pays any sort of fee “every time” to secure the release of hostages and wrongfully detained Americans. There’s also zero evidence that Putin is asking for any money in order to free Gershkovich. Just like in the Trump administration, the deals during the Biden administration that have brought home hostages and detainees involved prisoner swaps — not money transfers.
Trump’s reference to money appeared to be about the 2023 deal in which the U.S. secured the release of five detained Americans in Iran after billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets were transferred from banks in South Korea to Qatar. The U.S. has said that that the money would be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food.
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COVID-19
BIDEN: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.
THE FACTS: That’s overstating it. Rather, Trump asked whether it would be possible to inject disinfectant into the lungs.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute,” he said at an April 2020 press conference. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
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SUPER PREDATORS
TRUMP: “What he’s done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them ‘super predators.’ … We can’t forget that – super predators … And they’ve taken great offense at it.”
THE FACTS: This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue. It was Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, who used the term “super predator” to advocate for the 1994 crime bill that Biden co-authored more than thirty years ago. Biden did warn of “predators” in a floor speech in support of his bill.
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MIGRANTS
TRUMP, referring to Biden: “He’s the one that killed people with a bad border and flooding hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in.”
THE FACTS: A mass influx of migrants coming into the U.S. illegally across the southern border has led to a number of false and misleading claims by Trump. For example, he regularly claims other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send to the U.S. There is no evidence to support that.
Trump has also argued the influx of immigrants is causing a crime surge in the U.S., although statistics actually show violent crime is on the way down.
There have been recent high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally. But FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. Studies have found that people living in the country illegally are less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes. For more than a century, critics of immigration have sought to link new arrivals to crime. In 1931, the Wickersham Commission did not find any evidence supporting a connection between immigration and increased crime, and many studies since then have reached similar conclusions.
Texas is the only state that tracks crimes by immigration status. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “considerably lower felony arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than legal immigrants or native-born.
Some crime is expected given the large population of immigrants. There were an estimated 10.5 million people in the country illegally in 2021, according to the latest estimate by Pew Research Center, a figure that has almost certainly risen with large influxes at the border. In 2022, the Census Bureau estimated the foreign-born population at 46.2 million, or nearly 14% of the total, with most states seeing double-digit percentage increases in the last dozen years.
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CHARLOTTESVILLE
BIDEN, referring to Trump after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017: “The one who said I think they’re fine people on both sides.”
THE FACTS: Trump did use those words to describe attendees of the deadly rally, which was planned by white nationalists. But as Trump supporters have pointed out, he also said that day that he wasn’t talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists in attendance.
“You had some very bad people in that group,” Trump said during a news conference a few days after the rally, “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
He then added that he wasn’t talking about “the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” Instead, he said, the press had been unfair in its treatment of protesters who were there to innocently and legally protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The gathering planned by white nationalists shocked the nation when it exploded into chaos: violent brawling in the streets, racist and antisemitic chants, smoke bombs, and finally, a car speeding into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens more.
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ECONOMY
TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in history.”
THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy. Trump had the ignominy of leaving the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered.
But even if you take out issues caused by the pandemic, economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump’s first three years. That’s pretty solid. But it’s nowhere near the 4% averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger so far under Biden than under Trump.
Trump did have the unemployment rate get as low as 3.5% before the pandemic. But again, the labor force participation rate for people 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. working population — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate has also been higher under Biden than Trump.
Trump also likes to talk about how low inflation was under him. Gasoline fell as low as $1.77 a gallon. But, of course, that price dip happened during pandemic lockdowns when few people were driving. The low prices were due to a global health crisis, not Trump’s policies.
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Similarly, average 30-year mortgage rates dipped to 2.65% during the pandemic. Those low rates were a byproduct of Federal Reserve efforts to prop up a weak economy, rather than the sign of strength that Trump now suggests it was.
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MILITARY DEATHS
BIDEN: “The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.”
”THE FACTS: At least 16 service members have been killed in hostile action since Biden took office in January 2021. On Aug. 26, 2021, 13 died during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdrew from the country. An enemy drone killed three U.S. service members at a desert base in Jordan on Jan. 28 of this year.
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PRESIDENTIAL RECORD
BIDEN: “159, or 58, don’t know an exact number, presidential historians, they’ve had meetings and they voted, who is the worst president in American history … They said he was the worst in all American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture.”
THE FACTS: That’s almost right, but not quite. The survey in question, a project from professors at the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, included 154 usable responses, from 525 respondents invited to participate.
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GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS
TRUMP, on Minneapolis protests after the killing of George Floyd: “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”
THE FACTS: Trump didn’t call the National Guard into Minneapolis during the unrest following the death of George Floyd. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deployed the National Guard to the city.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Elliot Spagat, Eric Tucker, Ali Swenson, Christina Cassidy, Amanda Seitz, Stephen Groves, David Klepper, Melissa Goldin and Hope Yen contributed to this report.
False reports that President Joe Biden had a “medical emergency” while traveling back to Delaware on Friday after a campaign stop in Wisconsin, spread widely on social media on Friday. They were without merit.
Here’s a look at the facts.
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CLAIM: President Joe Biden had a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One on Friday.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There were no signs of a medical emergency on the flight, according to an Associated Press reporter who was traveling with Biden. Air Force One arrived at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, at 7:22 p.m. The president exited the plane on his own, saluted and spoke with an officer at the base of the stairs and took a question from a reporter before leaving the airport.
THE FACTS: As Biden returned to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, after a campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday social media users falsely claimed that the president had suffered a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One.
Air Force One landed in New Castle, Delaware, at 7:22 p.m. about the same time posts started spreading about Biden’s alleged medical emergency.
“I just received a tip from an anonymous source,” reads one X post. “My source says that Joe Biden is currently experiencing a medical emergency on Air Force One as I type this. No further details are known.”
Another X post states: “Joe Biden is reportedly having a medical emergency on Air Force One right now. Press access has been removed.” It had received approximately 15,000 likes and 10,900 shares as of Saturday morning.
The posts presented no evidence that such an event occurred. Press access was not removed.
Video shows Biden walking down the steps of Air Force One in Delaware, speaking with an officer, answering a reporter’s question about whether he would watch a highly anticipated interview he did with ABC News’ George Stephanopolous and getting into a car, all without issue.
There were no signs of an emergency aboard Air Force One and the press was not denied access to the plane at any point, according to an AP reporter who was traveling on Air Force One with Biden during the flight from Wisconsin to Delaware. The reporter added that press was able to move about the plane as usual and that a door separating press from Biden’s top staff was open for most of the flight.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates called the claim “100% false” in an X post on Friday night.
Other posts claimed that the press did not see Biden when the presidential motorcade arrived at his home Friday night and that his campaign had canceled upcoming events as a result of the supposed emergency.
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A press pool was in Biden’s motorcade when he was dropped off at his Wilmington home, according to the AP reporter who was traveling with the president. The reporter said journalists did not see him enter the house, but they routinely do not see him enter his Wilmington home because it is set back from the street and it is typical to only see the motorcade going through the gates leading to the house.
Biden had no public events planned for Saturday. He was scheduled to speak at a National Education Association convention on Sunday, but canceled after the union’s staff announced a strike on Friday.
“President Biden is a fierce supporter of unions and he won’t cross a picket line,” his campaign said in a statement. “The President is still planning to travel to Pennsylvania this weekend.”
___
Associated Press reporters Colleen Long and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
For the past few years, North Carolina Democrats have worried every time Gov. Roy Cooper has left the state — fearful that Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson would seize the opportunity as acting governor to issue executive orders and help the GOP-led legislature quickly pass conservative laws.
Sometimes Cooper has even left in secret, not telling Robinson — or his predecessor, former Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest — that he’s been gone.
Those concerns among Robinson opponents are bubbling up again on socialmedia now that Cooper has been put on a short list of possible running mates for Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president since President Joe Biden dropped out.
As political strategists and media pundits speculate about the pros and cons of each potential vice presidential pick, North Carolina’s succession laws stand out.
The state constitution says: “During the absence of the governor from the state, or during the physical or mental incapacity of the governor to perform the duties of his office, the lieutenant governor shall be acting governor. The further order of succession as acting governor shall be prescribed by law.”
Does that mean Robinson could take executive action with Cooper out of town? It depends on who you ask.
Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, has had the opportunity to take executive action as acting governor many times — and he’s done it once before. But it likely would be difficult for him to make a permanent mark on state law.
After Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October, Robinson assumed the role of acting governor and declared “North Carolina Solidarity With Israel Week” while Cooper was in Japan pursuing economic development recruitment efforts.
Cooper could strike down executive orders upon return, so those could be short lived. And for Robinson to pass laws with Cooper out of the state, both legislative chambers would have to meet, pass a bill and get Robinson’s approval before Cooper gets back to the state, an exceedingly difficult feat — even in a legislature with a veto-proof majority.
Interpreting the law
North Carolina case law doesn’t appear to provide a significantly deeper interpretation of the state’s gubernatorial succession law. A big reason might be because the governor and lieutenant governor represented the same political party for most of modern history.
Meanwhile, legal analysts disagree over how the state’s gubernatorial succession laws should be applied.
Robinson’s office interprets the statute as written, said Brian P. LiVecchi, Robinson’s chief of staff and general counsel. “When the governor is out of state, the lieutenant governor serves with the powers and duties of the Governor,” LiVecchi said.
Gerry Cohen, an attorney who worked with the legislature for more than 30 years, agrees with that interpretation.
“An acting governor has all the powers of the governor,” Cohen said. “I researched this about 15 years ago and found out that the [lieutenant governor] as acting governor signed extradition warrants not uncommonly.”
Cooper’s office disagrees. His office has previously said Robinson has no real authority to act as governor, so long as the governor can continue to perform his duties. The transfer of powers whenever the governor leaves the state dates back to at least the 19th century — long before the advent of technology that enables people to work from far-flung places. The office has pointed to rulings in other states striking down rules similar to the one in the North Carolina Constitution.
Critics, including those in Cooper’s office, say it’s antiquated and that in modern times, the governor can easily conduct the state’s business even if he or she is physically located in Washington, or even Japan.
“The governor’s official duties at times require out-of-state travel, and the governor remains the state’s chief executive whether traveling for trade missions, meetings in Washington, National Governors Association Meetings, policy summits or visits with family,” said Sadie Weiner, a spokeswoman for Cooper.
“North Carolina’s constitution contains language similar to other states where this issue has been settled reasonably to conclude that the governor’s powers do not transfer to the lieutenant governor so long as the governor is able to remain in communication and direct state government action when traveling,” she said. “If the governor ceded official responsibility and authority during any physical travel outside North Carolina, it would lead to chaos and confusion.”
When Cooper has announced travel out of state, he has been quick to emphasize that he’s still in charge. Before the Japan trip, his office said Cooper would continue to direct state business” while traveling. Attorney General Josh Stein’s office agrees. State Department of Justice attorneys reviewed the issue years ago, according to Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for the office.
“Their conclusion was that under the constitution a governor is not absent from the state within the meaning of the relevant clause simply because he or she has physically stepped beyond the state’s borders,” Brewer said. “A governor is absent only if they have lost the ability to contact the state during travel in a way that prevents them from fulfilling the duties of the office.”
Stein, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, will face Robinson in the November general election. Cooper is nearing the end of his second term as governor and is prohibited by law from running again.
Anticipating action
While Robinson has previously taken action as acting governor, some say he would be unlikely to make any controversial moves while campaigning for governor.
While he used Cooper’s Japan trip to issue the pro-Israel proclamation, Robinson doesn’t appear to have taken any formal actions as governor when Cooper was in Europe for a week this spring, when he was on another economic development summit. Nor has Robinson tried to sign any bills into law, issue other executive orders, hire or fire state officials, or other gubernatorial duties, during shorter windows when Cooper has been out of state for a day, or even a few hours.
Historically, North Carolina’s statewide elections are close contests, often decided by 1 to 4 percentage points. To win, candidates typically need to appeal to unaffiliated voters — North Carolina’s largest voting bloc. So Robinson would be wise to tread carefully, some in his party say.
“It would be complete political suicide [for Robinson] to try and preform roles of the governor,” Dallas Woodhouse, former executive director of the state Republican Party, said on social media.
A spokesman for Robinson’s campaign declined to comment on whether Robinson might want to take actions as acting governor in the next few months, if given the chance, to show voters how he might govern if elected.
U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat representing a Raleigh district, agreed that Robinson would hurt his reputation by seizing the reins of state government with Cooper out of the state.
“If Mark Robinson starts to do some of the crazy things … when Governor Cooper is out of the state, it will just give the voters a taste of what he would be like as governor,” Ross said. “And I think that would be helpful to Josh Stein.”
WRAL state government reporter Will Doran contributed to this report.
Wrestler Andre the Giant once said, “I hate Hulk Hogan very much. He is a big ugly goon and I want to squash his face.”
Rating:
For more than a decade, an image containing a quote attributed to professional wrestler and actor André the Giant — the stage name of André René Roussimoff — has circulated online. In the alleged quote shared in the posts, André the Giant insulted fellow pro wrestler Terry Bollea, better known by his stage name Hulk Hogan, as follows:
I don’t like to speak badly of people. I have grown up thinking and being told that if you cannot say something nice about someone, you should not say anything at all. But I must break that rule in this case because I hate Hulk Hogan very much. He is a big ugly goon and I want to squash his face.
(X user @briangaar)
The image appears to have first circulated online in November 2012, when it was the subject of multiple Reddit posts. In the years since, it popped up on Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and in at least 19 separate Reddit posts, as found by the Reddit-focused reverse image search page Karma Decay. In a handful of instances, the quote has also circulated on its own, without the image.
Readers hoping to verify the authenticity of the quote, however, will be disappointed to find that none of these posts contains any information about the original context of the quote or the image in which it is most frequently shared.
In July 2024, some X users began to question the quote’s veracity following a popular post featuring the image that had, as of this writing, received around 14,000 retweets and 107,000 likes. Other users were quick to point out that the wrestlers were reported to have been friends in real life, and the animosity sometimes expressed between André the Giant and Hulk Hogan was an example of kayfabe, which Merriam-Webster defines as “the tacit agreement between professional wrestlers and their fans to pretend that overtly staged wrestling events, stories, characters, etc., are genuine.”
the quote itself is most likely an in-character one promoting an upcoming match between the two.
but, that being said, many in the industry do not exactly have a high opinion of the hulkster for a very wide variety of reasons. hogan was an egomaniac grifter diva
Although kayfabe is a plausible explanation for the quote in that it could clarify why André the Giant would have said these words, it in no way proves that he actually did.
Some commenters, particularly on Reddit, have noted that the image containing the quote appears to be a clipping from an “Apter mag,” one of the multiple wrestling magazines for which Bill Apter served as an editor in the late 1970s and 1980s. These magazines, which included Pro Wrestling Illustrated, The Wrestler, and Inside Wrestling, were known for playing into kayfabe storylines.
Snopes agrees that the formatting of the text from the widely shared image very closely resembles that used in “X-Ray,” a regular feature of The Wrestler, one of the magazines Apter worked on. The feature consisted of quotes about individual wrestlers as solicited from figures in the pro wrestling world. Below, for example, is a screenshot of one such feature about Hulk Hogan from a May 1982 issue of The Wrestler.
(Internet Archive)
The André the Giant quote from the claim, however, does not appear in that issue’s “X-Ray,” nor does it appear in any of the dozens of other issues of The Wrestler magazine we’ve able to access so far.
We’ve reached out to Apter to ask if he’s able to point us toward a secure citation for the André the Giant quote, and will update this story if and when we hear back. For now, Snopes rates this claim as “Research in Progress.”
We’ve previously covered multiple claims of photos purporting to show André the Giant.
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After President Joe Biden addressed the nation July 24 about his decision to exit the 2024 presidential race, Biden walked out into the White House’s Rose Garden standing tall. But some social media users claimed the president looked too tall.
A July 25 Instagram post shared a video of Biden walking from the Oval Office to the Rose Garden, with first lady Jill Biden and other Biden family members standing behind him. The video’s narrator said, “People are saying Joe Biden looks a lot taller.”
The Instagram video then showed photos of Joe and Jill Biden together to note their height difference, implying that it wasn’t as big in those instances. “There’s obviously something going on here,” the narrator said, flashing back to the Rose Garden and noting that Jill Biden was wearing heels.
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
(Screengrab from Instagram)
We saw the same claimcirculatingon X, where the footage of Biden was beingusedto prop up the false conspiracy theory that Biden employs a body double for public appearances. This conspiracy gained traction ahead of the June 27 presidential debate.
Social media users have also speculated that Biden’s recent appearances, including a July 22 phone call with Vice President Kamala Harris, have been generated with artificial intelligence. We found no credible evidence to support this claim.
Also, people stop growing during adolescence. So, it’s biologically improbable that Biden, as an 81-year-old, grew taller over the few days he isolated in his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home following his COVID-19 diagnosis July 17. Biden’s official health summary from February says he is 6 feet tall.
So if Biden doesn’t have a body double, and he didn’t have miraculous growth spurt, what explains Biden’s taller appearance in the Rose Garden video?
It’s the camera angle.
Biden was standing atop the steps by the colonnade outside of the Oval Office, and the cameraperson was in the Rose Garden. So Biden stood in an elevated position compared with the person filming.
(Left image is a screengrab from Instagram. Right photo is courtesy of The Associated Press.)
Joe Biden also appears taller in the video because he is standing a few steps in front of Jill Biden, and people closer to the camera will naturally look bigger. Another photo of the Bidens, which was taken just before they walked out of the Oval Office and toward the Rose Garden, shows less of an apparent height difference because they are standing side by side.
We rate the claim that a video shows Biden was taller when he emerged from a July 24 Oval Office speech Pants on Fire!
Republican candidates oftencriticizeDemocrats for throttling the U.S. energy sector or blame them for high gasoline prices. But just days before she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, stole a page from the Republican playbook and boasted about U.S. energy production during Joe Biden’s presidency.
In July 18 remarks in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris said, “Today, America has record energy production and we are energy independent.”
Harris is right about record energy production, but she’s only partly right about energy independence. By some definitions, the U.S. is energy independent, but by an important one, it’s not.
Does the U.S. have record energy production today?
This part of Harris’s statement is accurate.
Overall U.S. energy production — which includes everything from heating oil to gasoline to sources used to generate electricity such as coal, natural gas and renewables — hit 102.82 quadrillion British thermal units in 2023, more than 4% higher than the 2022 level, which was the previous record.
This reflects recent growth in U.S. energy production, which has flourished under both of the last two presidents, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Experts credit the growth in shale oil and shale gas production, increases in renewable energies such as solar and wind and improvements in the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles.
Some definitions of energy independence have been met
As for the other part of Harris’ statement, some definitions of “energy independence” have been met — but not all.
One definition that was met under both Trump and Biden is the U.S. exporting more energy than it imports.
The Energy Information Administration, a federal office that tracks energy statistics, found that in 2019 — when Trump was president — the United States became a net exporter of overall energy for the first time since 1952.
That has continued ever since, with the gap widening to a record level in 2023, the most recent full year with available statistics.
Another, narrower, measure of energy independence is whether the U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum specifically. In 2020, the U.S. became a net exporter of petroleum for the first time since at least 1949. That has continued through 2022, the last year with available data.
When we asked the Harris campaign to support its claim, it pointed to these metrics, and to a March 2024 report by the financial services company J.P.Morgan that used these statistics to support its conclusion that “the U.S. has achieved U.S. energy independence for the first time in 40 years.”
Other signs of energy independence have not been met
There is one important metric keeping the U.S. from complete energy independence. The data for crude oil — which is used to manufacture gasoline, which for many consumers is top of mind — has not followed the same pattern as energy overall.
Crude oil imports outpaced exports in each of the four years Trump was president, and during Biden’s first three years in office. Crude oil and petroleum are different; the U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, a finished product, but a net importer of crude oil, a raw product used to make petroleum and petroleum products.
There’s a reason for the imbalance in crude oil imports and exports, experts say. Although the U.S. theoretically produces enough crude oil to satisfy its consumption, the U.S. cannot refine all of the crude oil it produces.
Crude is graded by its weight and its “sweetness,” a measure of the oil’s sulfur content. Most U.S.-produced oil is “light” and “sweet,” and although some U.S. refineries can process it, many cannot.
These refineries are built to process heavier, less sweet crude (also called heavy, sour crude) from the Middle East and other overseas suppliers. That’s a holdover from past decades, when the U.S. was primarily importing its crude.
This mismatch keeps the U.S. from simply using its own crude production to serve all of its domestic needs. Changing the mix of refineries to accommodate U.S.-produced crude oil would be expensive and take years to complete.
This means the U.S. is exporting a lot of its domestically produced crude on the international market. To make up for this, the U.S. still must import a substantial amount of oil for domestic use.
Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies, said a more accurate term for the U.S. position right now is “net self-sufficiency.”
“To be self-sufficient means you produce everything you need,” Finley said. “On a net basis, that is true for the U.S. in recent years. But to be independent means that what happens around the world doesn’t matter to you. That is absolutely false.”
For instance, much of New England relies on foreign imports of oil and natural gas because the region lacks pipeline capacity and because of laws that regulate domestic shipping, said Hugh Daigle, an associate professor of petroleum and geosystems engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
So, even in a period of greater energy independence for the U.S., its supply is still sensitive to international events, experts said. Harris’ claim glosses over this reality.
“While the U.S. produces more energy than it consumes, it remains closely connected to — and dependent on — global developments,” Finley said.
The last time we looked at a claim about energy independence in 2023, we rated it Half True. However, in that fact-check, of former Vice President Mike Pence, we did not also address the claim Harris mentioned about record-high energy production, which she was correct about.
Our ruling
Harris said, “Today, America has record energy production and we are energy independent.”
Harris is correct about overall energy production being at a record high, and she is correct that the U.S. is energy independent by some definitions — being a net energy exporter, a net petroleum exporter and producing more energy than it consumes.
However, the U.S. is not a net exporter of crude oil, which is the source of gasoline.
Many U.S. refineries cannot process the type of crude oil produced in the U.S., so serving the domestic market requires importing a different type of oil from overseas. This keeps the U.S. and its economy beholden to overseas developments.
When Vice President Kamala Harris was the attorney general of California in 2014, she announced a program to help young people transitioning out of the criminal justice system. She glibly referred to the 18-24 age group as “stupid,” saying people that age “make really bad decisions.” But social media posts have taken her words out of context.
Full Story
Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptiveDemocraticnominee for president, online posts have begun to focus on comments she has made in various settings over the years.
One popular video clip that’s been circulating came from a 2014 speech Harris gave at a symposium hosted by the Ford Foundation. At the time, Harris was California’s attorney general, and she was announcing a new program, “Back on Track,” aimed at reducing recidivism among young, nonviolent offenders.
Harris described it as “a new approach to criminal justice policy.” The program was based, in part, on an initiative she had implemented in 2005 as the district attorney in San Francisco. In explaining that initiative, she pointed out the difference in how young people who go to college are characterized compared with how young people in the criminal justice system are characterized.
“When I was at Howard University,” Harris said, “we were 18 through 24 and you know what we were called? College kids. But when you turn 18 and you’re in the [criminal justice] system, you are considered an adult — period — without any regard to the fact that that is the very phase of life in which we have invested billions of dollars in colleges and universities knowing that is the prime phase of life during which we mold and shape and direct someone to become a productive adult.”
Harris continued, “What’s the other thing we know about this population? And it’s a specific phase of life — remember, age is more than a chronological fact. What else do we know about this population, 18 through 24? They are stupid.” The audience laughed, and Harris continued, “That is why we put them in dormitories and they have a resident assistant! They make really bad decisions.”
She then explained how the San Francisco initiative had worked — bringing in social workers and financial literacy teachers to help direct young offenders who were leaving prison toward jobs as a way to keep them from reoffending.
But socialmediaposts have used clips of Harris’ speech that include only the last paragraph above and highlight the phrase, “They are stupid,” suggesting that she was insulting the intelligence of that age group as a whole.
Not only do those posts take her words out of context, but they also ignore an underlying issue reflected in Harris’ remarks — brain development isn’t complete until around age 24. Young people may continue to need some guidance until then.
“The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s,” according to the National Institute of Mental Health. “The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions.”
So, Harris may have been a little glib in her 2014 speech. But she was addressing the fact that young people who are in the criminal justice system are still developing, and she was advocating programs that would help them develop responsible skills. The posts circulating online take her words out of context and miss the larger point she was making.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, is facing a reprisal of attacks from some conservatives and their surrogates on her racial and cultural heritage, ethnic background and gender.
A list recently sharedacrosssocialmedia titled “Kamala Harris Facts,” contains wrong or missing-context claims about her background, including that she is “Not African American — Indian & Jamaican.” These attacks — similar to ones raised when she was named President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020 — misrepresent Harris’ heritage.
On television and social media, some people have also falsely and repeatedly claimed Harris isn’t eligible for the presidency because of her family’s immigrant background. Harris was born in 1964 in Oakland, California, and as someone born in the U.S., is constitutionally eligible to be president.
All of this reflects a poor understanding of history and the fluid nature and various interpretations of racial identity in the United States, race and politics experts say.
“The approach to Harris in this instance, the attempt to ‘other’ her, is a common practice in American politics,” said Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University. “These tactics will continue because they work. People have to prepare themselves to check their own biases and fears and use logic and facts to guide their decision-making when these kinds of attacks occur.”
According to a October 2022 report by the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that seeks to advance civil rights and liberties in technology, women of color candidates in the 2020 general elections “were twice as likely as other candidates to be targeted with or be the subject of mis- and disinformation, and more likely to receive sexist and racist abuse than any other group.”
We consulted experts in Caribbean and Africana studies, political science professors and anthropologists to learn more about how Harris’ gender, multicultural and multiracial background offers a unique glimpse into how American politics grapples with issues of race and identity.
Harris’ background: From California to Canada and back again
Harris grew up in a Black middle-class neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris and father, Donald Harris, would often join civil rights protests.
Donald Harris was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. after he got into the University of California, Berkeley, Kamala Harris wrote in her autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.” Shyamala Gopalan Harris was born in Chennai, India, and moved to California after graduating from the University of Delhi to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkeley.
The couple separated around the time Harris was 5 and divorced a few years later, Harris wrote in her book.
Kamala Harris lived in California until she was in middle school, when she moved to Montreal after her mother was offered a teaching position at McGill University. Kamala Harris attended college at Howard University, an historically Black university, in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings in 1989.
African ancestral connections
Several experts told us that the implication that Jamaicans aren’t African or connected to Africa is wrong on its face.
According to a 2011 census, 92.1% of Jamaicans are Black, with genetic studies showing that the vast majority are descendants of people from sub-Saharan Africa.
“Jamaica is a country where more than 90% of the population is of African ancestry,” Judith Byfield, a Cornell University professor who teaches Caribbean and African history, previously told PolitiFact. “So the idea that because her dad is Jamaican she has no African ancestry is completely false.”
Byfield said people scrutinizing Harris’ ethnic background often conflate several different categories.
“Jamaican is a national identity at the same time that it’s also a cultural identity and you can say the same for her Indian heritage,” she said. “Those are her parents, but she’s born here, and I think for first-generation people, there’s always a bit of tension between the extent that they are American, and by the extent they’ve been shaped and framed by their parents’ cultural affiliations.”
The African diaspora refers to the many communities of people of African descent dispersed throughout the world as a result of historic movements, both voluntary and involuntary.
During the more-than-400-years-long trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 15 million African men, women and children were kidnapped from their homelands, forced into ships, and forced to endure a weekslong journey in crowded. filthy conditions before being sold into enslavement. The slave trade took millions of people to different regions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
In a 2020 op-ed, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie described how Jamaica was home to a brutal and violent plantation system and was a pivotal point in the slave trade.
“Many Jamaicans trace their origins directly to slavery and the mass importation of African captives,” Bouie wrote. “Based on a genealogical account by her father, there is a strong chance Kamala Harris is one of them. What’s more, many descendants of enslaved people in the Americas have European ancestry on account of the pervasive sexual violence whites perpetuated wherever slavery took root.”
Some anthropologists and ethnographers consider the African American identifier more broadly to encompass Black people who come from a wide range of countries, while others see it as being limited to Americans descended from people who were enslaved in America.
Grant said that claims that say Jamaican people are not African are unaware of slavery’s global reach.
“Slavery impacted many people from Africa, and we went to many places,” Grant said. “Harris’ father’s people got dropped off in Jamaica. Mine got dropped off in Haiti. The African diaspora is huge, and it is worldwide, so to suggest that a Jamaican is not African, or connected to Africa is not acknowledging the vestiges of slavery.”
Harris on being raised and living as a Black woman in America
Harris told The Washington Post in 2019 that she identifies simply as “an American,” and that she’s been comfortable with her identity from an early age, something she credits to her Hindu immigrant single mother, who adopted Black culture and immersed her daughters in it. Harris said that she grew up embracing her Indian culture while proudly living as a Black girl. She said the same in her book, “The Truths We Hold.”
She told the Post that she hasn’t spent much time dwelling on how to categorize herself, but being forced to define herself was more of a struggle when she first ran for office.
We have plenty of ways to categorize people, but racialized categorization has structural implications, Tracie Canada, a sociocultural anthropologist and an assistant professor of cultural anthropology and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Duke University, previously told us when she taught at Notre Dame.
“Anti-Black racism, anti-Black violence, those are the things that actually matter,” Canada said. “Those are systemic problems and structural issues, so no matter how she identifies or how we identify her, is she going to be implicated in that systemic problem?”
Dianne Pinderhughes, a professor of Africana studies and political science at the University of Notre Dame, had told PolitiFact that the subject of racial identity is complex, especially for Harris, because she was immersed in Black culture and community since she was very young.
“You have a person who was socialized from her earliest years to be socially, culturally African American and also was supported and immersed in African American organizations,” Pinderhughes said. “I think the way race is played out in the United States, it’s just been the case for centuries, that people who have some color are usually assimilated in an African American community of some sort, and that community recognizes people who are willing to look in the mirror and recognize them as well.”
Another aspect of racial identity has a lot to do with where a person grew up or now lives. People’s local community tends to weigh heavily on how they identify themselves, experts said.
Byfield, who is of Jamaican descent and grew up in Queens, New York, said her life experience involved a blended community of Black individuals who came from countries all over the world. But they banded together in their identity and shared experiences. That may have been Harris’ experience, too.
“She has chosen to define herself in terms of the American landscape, and I think those of us who have had a multinational, cultural lifestyle, we’ve all had to figure out individually how to come to terms with it,” Byfield said. “You have all these different groups from different African countries, as well as Caribbean countries. African American community in the U.S. is not from one place, everyone is from everywhere.”
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris failed the California bar exam on her first attempt, soon after she graduated law school in 1989.
Rating:
Context
Harris eventually succeeded in the bar exam and was admitted to the California bar in 1990, a year after she graduated law school.
On July 24, 2024, at a campaign rally, former U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic frontrunner for president, on her lawyer credentials. Trump claimed she was a “lousy student” and “couldn’t pass her bar exams.”
A number of posts on X discussed Harris’ credentials, questioning why she became a prosecutor and later attorney general of California after having failed her bar exam.
Harris did fail the California bar exam on her first attempt but she later passed and was admitted to the California bar in 1990, just a year after she graduated. As such, we rate this claim as “True” with added context.
The bar exam is a qualifying written exam administered by a jurisdiction for lawyers to practice law in that particular state.
According to a 2016 New York Times profile of Harris about her Senate campaign, she did fail the bar exam on her first try. Harris described consoling a recent law graduate who did not make it either: “[Harris] failed the bar exam the first time she took it. Harris says she recently consoled a young law graduate who also didn’t pass; ‘I told her, it’s not a measure of your capacity.'”
Harris was admitted to the bar in June 1990 according to the State Bar of California records. She graduated from the University of California Hastings school of law in 1989.
The California bar exam has been described as notoriously difficult. According to the Los Angeles Times there was an only 41.8% pass rate in 1985. In July 1989, according to the Los Angeles Times, 59.5% of people passed and won the right to practice law from the July 1989 exams, and the pass rate was 72.2% among the 4,909 people taking the exam for the first time.
We have not been able to confirm the pass rate for when Harris took the exam again. Only 33.9% of people passed the February 2024 general bar exam.
Sources
“Bar Examination.” LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bar_examination. Accessed 26 July 2024.
Bazelon, Emily. “Kamala Harris, a ‘Top Cop’ in the Era of Black Lives Matter.” The New York Times, 25 May 2016. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/kamala-harris-a-top-cop-in-the-era-of-black-lives-matter.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.
Kepley, John. “UC Law SF Congratulates Kamala Harris ’89: California’s next U.S. Senator.” UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings), 9 Nov. 2016, https://uclawsf.edu/2016/11/09/uc-hastings-congratulates-kamala-harris-89-californias-next-u-s-senator/. Accessed 26 July 2024.
Oliver, Myrna. “41.8% Pass Rate Baffles Experts : Legal Profession Frets as Bar Exam Failures Soar.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 1985, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-01-20-mn-10438-story.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.
“PASSING THE BAR EXAM.” Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 1990, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-03-me-1540-story.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.
“State Bar Releases Results of February 2024 Bar Exam.” The State Bar of California, http://www.calbar.ca.gov/About-Us/News/News-Releases/state-bar-releases-results-of-february-2024-bar-exam. Accessed 26 July 2024.
“Trump Turns His Focus to Harris at His First Rally after Biden’s Exit from the 2024 Race.” NBC News, 25 July 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-turns-focus-harris-first-rally-bidens-exit-2024-race-rcna163496. Accessed 26 July 2024.
“Trump Turns His Full Focus on Harris at His First Rally since Biden’s Exit from the 2024 Race.” AP News, 24 July 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-charlotte-north-carolina-harris-7c7e6e405fecc8927a63763c76f2db1e. Accessed 26 July 2024.
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In his first two solo rallies as the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance took aim at Vice President Kamala Harris. But in several instances, Vance twisted Harris’ words or her record.
Vance said Harris “supported abolishing ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].” Back in 2018, Harris said elected leaders should “critically reexamine ICE and its role,” but she did not call for abolishing the agency and all its functions.
He said Harris “wanted to defund the police.” Harris talked repeatedly about “reimagining public safety and how we achieve it,” but she never advocated slashing or cutting police budgets altogether.
Vance said Harris had failed as “America’s border czar,” but Harris’ role in the Biden administration was to address the “root causes” of immigration in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Vance said Harris “called Joe Biden a racist and then ran with him two months later.” During a Democratic primary debate in 2019, Harris criticized Biden’s position on two race-related issues, but she began her comments, “I do not believe you are a racist.”
Vance said that Harris “voted to eliminate the filibuster and pass the green new scam.” Harris said in 2019 that she was “prepared to get rid of” the procedural rule to pass the so-called “Green New Deal,” but that nonbinding resolution never received a vote.
In back-to-back solo rallies on July 22, Vance spoke in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, and then in Radford, Virginia. Many of Vance’s attack lines parroted the talking points contained in a National Republican Senatorial Committee memo that paints Harris as “an avowed radical.”
Harris on ICE
In his speech in Virginia, Vance distorted the facts in claiming that Harris “supported abolishing ICE.” He’s referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security agency charged with “enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”
Back in 2018, several Democratic leaders were making calls to abolish ICE. On her campaign website when she ran for a House seat in New York in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote that ICE represented “part of an unchecked expansion of executive powers that led to the widespread erosion of Americans’ civil rights.” In calling for abolishment of the agency, Ocasio-Cortez claimed ICE “operates with virtually no accountability, ripping apart families and holding our friends and neighbors indefinitely in inhumane detention centers scattered across the United States.”
While serving as a senator in June 2018, Harris was also critical of the way ICE operated during former President Donald Trump administration — such as its enforcement of Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy that resulted in children being separated from their parents who were detained for entering the U.S. illegally. Harris said the government should “critically reexamine” ICE’s role, adding that might mean “starting from scratch.” Here’s the relevant part of a June 2018 interview with MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt (starting at the 8:55 mark).
Hunt, MSNBC, June 24, 2018: A lot of the signs at the rally you just held were people standing there saying, ‘Abolish ICE.’ Is that a position that you agree with?
Harris: Listen, I think there’s no question that we’ve got to critically reexamine ICE and its role and the way it is being administered and the work it is doing. And we need to probably think about starting from scratch, because there’s a lot that is wrong with the way that it’s conducting itself. And we need to deal with that.
Hunt: What do you think should be the alternative to ICE?
Harris: Well, first of all, I don’t think that the government should be in the position of separating families. And that is clearly what is part of what’s happening at ICE and DHS. You look at what’s happening, again, in terms of how they’re conducting their perspective on asylum seekers. That is a real problem and is contrary to all of the spirit and the reason that we even have the asylum rules and laws in the first place. So their mission, I think, is very much in question, and has to be reexamined.
In an interview on “The View” in July 2019, Harris was asked if she would get rid of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
“I would not,” Harris said. “We need to restructure and reform it. … We need to deal with it and fix it, but I do not believe in getting rid of it.” Several times, Harris added, “I believe in border security.”
So Harris called for reexamining the way ICE was functioning under the Trump administration, and she talked about the possibility of “starting from scratch.” But she never called for abolishing the agency and its functions altogether.
Harris on Defunding the Police
Vance said Harris “wanted to defund the police,” adding, “even Joe Biden never went so far as to say he wanted to defund the police.” Neither did Harris.
Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, speaks at a campaign rally on July 22 in Radford, Virginia. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.
Rather, in a series of interviews in mid-June 2020, Harris carefully drew out her position on the “defund the police” movement that arose in the wake of protests and riots in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man, after a white police officer kneeled on his neck during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
In her interviews, Harris talked about “reimagining public safety and how we achieve it.” The answer, she said, is not “more police on the streets” but rather investing more in struggling communities — in things such as education, job creation, affordable housing and health care — as a way to make them safer. She never agreed that that meant slashing or eliminating police budgets.
As we have written, there is no agreed upon definition for the term “defund the police.” Some critics of the police, who believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement, really do want to abolish police forces and replace them with other community safety entities. Others advocate shifting some money and functions away from police departments to social service agencies.
Amid the Floyd protests, Harris put herself at the forefront of the debate about police conduct. On June 8, 2020, she co-sponsored a bill that sought to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct and to eliminate discriminatory policing practices. At that time, Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. Harris was picked as Biden’s vice presidential running mate until August.
In an interview on ABC’s “The View” the same day, June 8, 2020, Meghan McCain asked if Harris supported “defunding and removing police from American communities.”
Harris, ABC’s “The View,” June 8, 2020: I think that a big part of this conversation really is about reimagining how we do public safety in America. Which I support, which is this: We have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses and access to health care regardless of how much money people have. That’s how you achieve safe and healthy communities. …
Here’s the other thing, when I talk to law enforcement, they know that they don’t want to be nor are they skilled to be the ones who are responding to someone with mental illness or substance abuse or–or the homeless population, but in many cities, that’s what’s happening because we are not directing those resources, those public resources to where they need to go, which is addressing mental health, homelessness, substance abuse, so that we don’t have to have a police response because we are smarter.
McCain: … Are you for defunding the police?
Harris: How are you defining “defund the police”?
McCain: Well, I’m not for anything remotely for that, so I would ask the protesters the same thing, but I … assume it’s removing police, and as congresswoman Ilhan Omar said, bringing in a whole new way of governing and a law and order into a community.
Harris: … So, again, we need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety in America and to have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing but yet there is a dire need in those same cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, resources going into job training and job creation.
Harris hit the same themes in an interview the same day on MSNBC, adding, “We don’t want police officers to be dealing with the homeless issue. We don’t want police officers to be dealing with substance abuse and mental health. No — we should be putting those resources into our public health systems, we should be looking at our budgets and asking, ‘Are we getting the best return on our investment as taxpayers?’”
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America” the following day, June 9, 2020, Harris said accusations from Trump that radical left Democrats supported defunding the police, Harris characterized that as “creating fear where none is necessary.” In that same interview, she said she applauded then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to reallocate about $150 million from policing to health and youth initiatives. And she again stressed the need to “invest in communities” to make them healthy and safer.
“We have to stop militarization of police,” Harris said. “But that doesn’t mean we get rid of police. Of course not. We have to be practical about this.”
In a Sept. 6, 2020, interview on CNN, after she was the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, Harris was asked about a quote from her 2009 book about support for more police on the streets, and how that jibed with her more recent position that increasing the number of police officers was not the answer for safer communities.
“What I would say now is what I would say then, which is I want to make sure that if a woman is raped, a child is molested, one human being murders another human being, that there will be a police officer that responds to that case and that there will be accountability and consequence for the offender,” Harris responded.
So Harris advocated investing more in struggling communities as a means to make them safer, and she discussed redefining government roles so that social service and mental health agencies respond to some emergencies rather than police. But she didn’t call for eliminating police departments, as the “defund the police” phrase suggests.
Harris Was Not Named ‘Border Czar’
Vance said Harris failed as “America’s border czar,” attaching a title to her — as Trump has as well — that is not accurate.
“Kamala Harris is America’s border czar,” Vance said in Virginia, “and how’s our border doing, ladies and gentlemen? She hasn’t talked to the chief of Border Patrol a single time in her entire tenure as border czar. Remember, on her very first day in office, she and Biden suspended deportations, they stopped construction of the border wall, and they reimplemented catch and release. The border crisis is a Kamala Harris crisis.”
As we wrote on the third night of the Republican National Convention when Rep. Matt Gaetz and others wrongly said Harris was appointed a “border czar,” Harris was not appointed to be the person in charge of border security.
In 2021, Biden tapped Harris to head up a Central American initiative called the “Roots Causes Strategy,” an effort to “address the root causes of migration” from “from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.” It seeks to deter migration from those countries by, among other things, providing funds for natural disasters, fighting corruption, and creating partnerships with the private sector and international organizations.
In a meeting on immigration on March 24, 2021, Biden announced that he had tapped Harris to “help in stemming the movement of so many folks” from Mexico and the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras).
Harris said she looked “forward to engaging in diplomacy with government, with private sector, with civil society, and — and the leaders of each in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and ensure shared prosperity in the region.”
The following month, when a reporter asked Harris if she had a trip planned to the southern border, Harris responded, “The president has asked Secretary Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border.” She clarified that “I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what then-vice president did many years ago.”
When Harris and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas did visit the border in El Paso in June 2021, Mayorkas noted, “The vice president is leading our nation’s effort to tackle the root causes of migration — why people leave their home in the first place.” Mayorkas said it was his responsibility to “secure the border.”
A big part of Harris’ efforts have been focused on encouraging private sector investment in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as Mexico, which, as of March had resulted in “more than $5.2 billion in private sector commitments for northern Central America,” according to a White House press release. Harris has also met with Central American leaders to encourage a “focus on good governance and labor rights,” again with the aim of addressing some of the root causes of migration.
Although it is difficult to measure the success of those programs in stemming migration, Customs and Border Protection statistics show that illegal immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has decreased since 2021. Illegal border-crossing attempts by Mexicans, however, have risen since 2021.
Harris Did Not Call Biden a Racist
Vance tried to turn the tables on Democrats pointing out that he once made numerous biting comments criticizing Trump, by wrongly claiming that Harris once called Biden a racist.
“You know, it’s so funny,” Vance said. “The media says, ‘Well, you know, JD said some critical things about President Trump 10 years ago.’ And Kamala Harris, of course, called Joe Biden a racist and then ran with him two months later.”
Vance’s past criticisms of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign are well-documented. In 2016, Vance wrote an opinion piece that likened Trump to “cultural heroin,” and in an interview that year he flatly said, “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him.” In a July 2021 interview on Fox News, Vance said he regretted those comments and he regretted “being wrong about the guy.”
As for Harris, she did provide one of the more contentious moments of a June 27, 2019, Democratic primary debate, aggressively confronting Biden on two race-related issues: Biden’s past opposition to school busing and his comments about working with “some civility” in the 1970s with two segregationist southern Democrats, Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia.
As we wrote, Harris began her comments by saying to Biden, “I do not believe you are a racist.” But Harris, who is Black, said that “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.” Biden responded by saying, “I did not praise racists.” Harris didn’t say he did. She said he talked about their reputations, and Biden did say that he was able to work with them in a civil way to get things done in the Senate, despite their political and personal differences.
Harris on the ‘Green New Deal’
Vance accused Harris of voting to end a Senate procedural rule so that Democratic lawmakers could pass climate change legislation.
“She voted to eliminate the filibuster and pass the green new scam, destroying energy jobs in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and driving up the cost of goods,” Vance said. “That’s why we’ve got an affordability crisis in this country, my friends, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they’d rather buy oil and gas from tin-pot dictators all over the world. I say they should buy it right here, from American workers.”
Vance appeared to be referring to the “Green New Deal,” a nonbinding resolution that outlined ways the U.S. should address climate change. However, it never received a vote in the House or the Senate after being introduced in February 2019.
At a September 2019 town hall, Harris, then a U.S. senator running for president, did say she would be willing to eliminate the Senate filibuster, a rule that requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation, to enact the measure into law. “Here’s my point: If they [Congress] fail to act, as president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal,” she said while answering a question.
But, as we said, the resolution was not brought to the Senate floor, so there was no filibuster to end. And there is no way that legislation could have “destroyed energy jobs” and increased “the cost of goods,” as Vance claimed, since it didn’t become law. The NRSC memo itself said Harris “pledged to eliminate the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal.”
His other claim that Biden and Harris would “rather buy oil and gas from tin-pot dictators” than “American workers” is also misleading.
Under the Biden administration, more crude oil and natural gas is being produced in the U.S. than ever before. Besides, while natural gas and crude oil are imported to the U.S. from other countries to help meet domestic demand, “these are all [business] decisions made by private companies,” not the federal government, Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told us in a phone interview. “There’s not a lot of space for the administration to impact that.”
In addition, about 99% of natural gas imports to the U.S. come from Canada, which does not have a dictatorship. Canada also has consistently been the source of about 60% of crude oil imports to the U.S. in recent years. After Canada, the main suppliers of U.S. crude oil imports are Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Colombia — the sametop five countries for imports during the Trump administration.
Vance may have been referring to the fact that in 2023, the Biden administration temporarily lifted Trump-era energy sanctions on Venezuela, once again allowing imports from oil and gas companies in that nation, which is run by an authoritarian government. But the sanctions were reimposed in April, after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro went back on his agreement to work toward having free and fair elections in the country this year.
Even during the period when the sanctions were removed, less than 3% of U.S. crude oil imports were coming from Venezuela, according to federal data.
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A false online rumor claims U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his July 24, 2024, live televised address while seated in a fake Oval Office located in a White House bunker. According to the rumor, a photo of the wristwatch worn by Biden displayed the incorrect time, purportedly indicating his remarks were not actually broadcast live.
These claims and Biden’s speech related to the president’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election. On July 21, 2024, he announced in a letter he would no longer seek a second term. In the letter, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his preference for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
The idea behind the false rumor apparently was that — following Biden’s announcement he would drop out — unidentified forces of “pure evil” controlled the White House, with even the president himself no longer having freedom or power.
X user Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) promoted this rumor in posts and in a video on Rumble.com. Other users also shared similar rumors or simply engaged with Wallace’s posts. As we have previously reported, Wallace is a known purveyor of misinformation, using X as a megaphone for the large-scale promotion of false rumors.
However, one twist in this specific case came when Wallace accidentally debunked his own conspiracy theory with a new post about a different false rumor. Soon after, Wallace deleted that newer post.
Wallace did not respond to our direct message asking questions about his false posts, including whether he personally believes the content he posts or if his efforts mainly center around making money via content monetization.
In this story, we’ll walk through Wallace’s false posts about the Biden-bunker conspiracy theory, review the facts, present evidence, explain how Wallace accidentally disproved his own posts and then examine the specific language he chose for his video.
Wallace’s Posts
On July 24, Wallace posted, “The Watch From Their ‘Live’ ‘Joe Biden’ Speech Tonight DISPLAYED THE WRONG TIME. What’s really going on here is much more dark and disturbing than most can even imagine.” Quotation marks around both “live” and “Joe Biden” indicated Wallace’s attempt to persuade his followers into believing a false rumor about a Biden “body double” — a matter we’ve reported about before — as well as the false claim Biden did not deliver his speech live.
In a subsequent post, Wallace linked to a monetized video on his Rumble.com account, falsely claiming, “EXCLUSIVE REPORT: JOE BIDEN IS BEING HELD IN THE BUNKER UNDER THE WHITE HOUSE! SPREAD THIS VIDEO QUICKLY BEFORE THEY PUT IT ON THE BLACKLIST.”
In a third post, from July 25, Wallace once again linked to the video, adding, “FAKE OVAL OFFICE EXPOSED! ONLY WATCH THIS FOOTAGE IF YOU ARE PREPARED TO EXPERIENCE PURE EVIL.”
‘Fluttering’ and ‘Movement’ Visible Behind Biden
In Wallace’s brief video posted on Rumble.com, he displayed a close-up view of the window directly behind Biden. Wallace said, “As you can also see right here, the fluttering in the background. Strange movement that is not commonplace. This coming in from @ImMeme0 on X.”
However, as a community note on X revealed, the “fluttering” and “movement” were nothing more than a reflection of Biden’s teleprompter repeatedly moving and pausing as he read his speech.
Biden’s Watch
Regarding the false rumor Biden’s watch displayed the incorrect time, Wallace said in his video on Rumble.com, “It was filmed at around 1:38 p.m., I believe, which means that Joe Biden was filming that in the daytime, and yet, huh, I wonder why it’s dark outside.” Wallace then said in his video he couldn’t definitively confirm the wristwatch rumor.
However, as X user @dieworkwear and others noted, high-qualitypictures captured by professional photographers in the Oval Office during the address showed Biden’s watch correctly displayed a time just after 8:00 p.m. EDT — the same time he started his speech.
For example, The Associated Press’ chief photographer Evan Vucci captured a picture showing Biden’s watch reading 8:06 p.m. The Getty Images website hosts the complete, uncropped image.
Biden’s watch displayed the time 8:06 p.m. EDT. With Adobe Photoshop, we cropped the photo, zoomed in and applied the “Smart Sharpen” effect to help the hands of the watch appear clearer. (Getty Images)
Wallace Accidentally Disproved His Own Rumor
In Wallace’s video on Rumble.com, he claimed the audio of Biden’s Oval Office address sounded “like it is being filmed in a basement, likely a bunker or something where Joe Biden is being held possibly under the White House.”
However, Biden delivered his speech in the genuine Oval Office, with first lady Jill Biden and other family members photographed in the room. Getty Images photojournalist Andrew Harnik even snapped severalpictures from outdoors, looking into the Oval Office through either the glass windows or doorways.
Further, Wallace himself unknowingly debunked his own bunker rumor when posting a newer, different misleading claim about the first lady. He then apparently tried to cover up his mistake by deleting that newer post.
That deleted post — captured by another user (archived) and witnessed by this Snopes reporter before Wallace removed it — showed a video of Biden and his family walking directly out of the Oval Office — not a bunker — after his July 24 address, where White House staff greeted them. That newer post received at least 4.6 million views before Wallace removed it.
WPRI-TV posted on YouTube the same video of Biden and his family walking out of the Oval Office:
As of this writing, we found no record of Wallace attempting to correct or retract his false Biden-bunker posts and video. (The definition of disinformation is the deliberate promotion of misinformation.)
Wallace Tells Viewers His False Claims Should ‘Scare’ Them
In Wallace’s video promoting the false Biden-bunker rumor — a rumor posted just days following the July 13 attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — he chose words for his viewers including “very dark,” “disturbing,” “strange,” “intense,” “pure evil” and “very scary.” He also called the people supposedly behind the false plot “psychopaths,” telling his viewers they should be more than scared about the purported developments he described.
Specifically, Wallace told viewers — again, completely based on false claims — “This is one of the most intense challenges to the Constitution of the United States and to the democracy that we’ve lived under for so many years that we’ve ever seen in the history of this country. Very scary stuff indeed.” He then added, “And what we’re seeing right now should not only scare us. What we are witnessing right now shows how desperate these psychopaths truly are.”
After a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump July 13, social media users looked into trading activity of Trump Media stock and said there was something suspicious.
“Austin Private Wealth shorted 12 million shares of Donald Trump stock on July 12,” a man in a July 21 Instagram post said.
In a July 18 Instagram post, a woman said, “Why did the firm Austin Private Wealth take a huge bet against Donald Trump’s stock the day before the assassination attempt? The firm just happens to be majority held by BlackRock and Vanguard.”
(Screenshot from Instagram)
But legal filings and a statement from the firm showed that the number of shares and the date cited in this claim were inaccurate.
Austin Private Wealth is an investment advisory company based in Austin, Texas. Securities and Exchange Commission records show that the firm filed a July 12 report that did show a “put” amount of 12 million on Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., or DJT. (DJT is the company’s stock ticker symbol and the former president’s initials). The report said the put was for the quarter that ended June 30 — several days before the assassination attempt. In a July 17 statement, Austin Private Wealth said the July 12 report reflected its positions on June 28.
A Business Insider article defined put options as “contracts that allow investors to sell a specific number of securities at a predetermined price within a specified timeframe.” Traders typically buy them when they expect the stock’s underlying asset to fall, according to Business Insider.
Buying put options is similar, but different from short selling or shorting, where “investors sell borrowed stocks in the hope of buying them back for a lower price.”
Austin Private Wealth’s statement said the amount of shorted Trump Media shares reported on the July 12 filing was “incorrect” and that it was amended when the error was found.
“No client of APW holds, or has ever held, a put on DJT in the quantity initially reported. The correct holding amount was 12 contracts, or 1,200 shares — not 12 million shares, as was filed in error,” its statement read. “We deeply regret this error and the concern it has caused, especially at such a fraught moment for our nation.”
The financial advisory company added that a third-party vendor increased the number of shares by a multiple of 10,000 for DJT and other contracts, an error that was not caught before the filing.
The report was amended July 16, but the Trump Media put options were absent in the amended filing. In a published FAQ, the company said “the total holdings of the underlying stock and related options were below the de minimis amount (or threshold) for actual reporting” after the error was corrected.
Securities and Exchange Commission rules state that for Form 13F, the one Austin Private Wealth filed, a manager may choose not to report holdings of less than 10,000 shares.
The company told PolitiFact in an email that it did not short-sell or buy put options of Trump Media shares “between June 28 and July 13.”
In response to claims that Austin Private Wealth is “majority-held” by BlackRock and Vanguard, the company told PolitiFact, “Austin Private Wealth is a firm owned solely by individual partners based in Austin — BlackRock and Vanguard are not and have never been shareholders.”
Austin Private Wealth did not short 12 million shares of Trump Media the day before the former president was targeted in an assassination attempt. We rate that claim False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
In a 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga rejected several defenses presented by ABC, including their argument of protection under a fair reporting privilege. This decision allows Trump’s lawsuit to proceed, seeking unspecified damages.
Trump celebrated the ruling as a “big win” on Truth Social. The lawsuit, filed in Miami, stems from Stephanopoulos’s March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on “This Week,” where he repeatedly stated Trump was found liable for rape.
ABC and Stephanopoulos had argued that a previous ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Carroll’s trials, should apply. Kaplan had stated that Carroll’s description of the incident as rape was not significantly different from the jury’s finding of sexual abuse. However, Judge Altonaga disagreed, noting that the distinction in legal terms is significant in this context.
The case will now move to the discovery phase, bringing it closer to trial. Judge Altonaga emphasized that a reasonable jury could potentially find Stephanopoulos’s statements defamatory, making dismissal inappropriate at this stage.
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Shortly after a gunman opened fire on former President Donald Trump’s July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, misinformation about the assassination attempt spread rapidly online. The shooting also became central to Trump and other Republicans’ messages at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Trump was struck in the upper part of his right ear before Secret Service agents escorted him off stage. He was then taken to a local hospital for treatment. One person in the audience was killed and two others were injured. The Secret Service said its snipers killed the gunman.
PolitiFact has fact-checked numerous claims about the assassination attempt, the shooter, Trump’s injuries and the Secret Service’s role that day. See a post or claim you want us to fact-check? Send it to [email protected].
Thousands of rally attendees, including news photographers and reporters, witnessed the event, and the FBI is investigating it as an assassination attempt.
Trump recounted the assassination attempt during his RNC speech
Trump opened his acceptance speech on the RNC’s final night by recounting the July 13 assassination attempt he survived at his rally five days earlier. Read his remarks in full context here.
Trump also credited his survival of the assassination attempt to a graphic about immigration. Here’s what the graphic was about.
Shooter was misidentified and his record was misstated
Numerous false claims about the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, have circulated online in the days since the assassination attempt.
Claims about Trump’s injuries and Trump family activity
Several claims about Trump, his family and his injuries have gone viral since the shooting.
A photo doesn’t show a bullet hole in Trump’s chest. The apparent hole in the authentic image is a crease in a Secret Service agent’s jacket. Neither Trump, FBI investigators nor any major news outlets have mentioned a bullet hitting Trump’s chest.
Trump’s right ear did not “grow back” after it was wounded in the shooting. A photo claiming to show this is from 2022; Trump has worn a bandage on his ear since July 13.
Trump’s youngest son, Barron, didn’t attend the July 13 rally, as one photo claims to show. The image was taken at a different rally, four days before the shooting.
The Secret Service’s role on day of shooting
Although the Secret Service has been under scrutiny since the assassination attempt, some posts made false claims about agents’ actions.
Trump rally shooting put scrutiny on Secret Service women, diversity efforts. Here are the facts.
A photo was altered to make it appear as though Secret Service agents were smiling as they escorted Trump offstage after the assassination attempt. In the original photo, the agents weren’t smiling.
An anonymous 4chan user claimed he was a Secret Service agent named Jonathan Willis who had been ordered not to shoot the gunman who opened fire on Trump. But a Secret Service spokesperson said this was false and that the Secret Service doesn’t employ anyone by that name.
A Secret Service sniper wasn’t wearing a red string bracelet tied to Kabbalah Judaism. A zoomed-in photo of the sniper shows he was wearing a black band with red letters and a black string with red and black beads.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s death was not linked to the Trump rally or the Secret Service’s oversight. The Texas Democrat died July 19 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June.
