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Tag: PunditFact

  • What we can and can’t know about the death toll in Gaza

    What we can and can’t know about the death toll in Gaza

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    From the earliest days of the Israel-Hamas war, global leaders have questioned the reliability of fatality data coming out of Gaza. In October, without citing a specific reason, President Joe Biden said he had “no confidence” in the numbers.

    Today, the overall figure of people dead is reported at about 35,000. But there’s no clear understanding about how many of these people are combatants and how many are civilians.

    That’s because over most of the conflict, the figures have come from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, an agency of the region’s Hamas-controlled government. 

    Hamas, identified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997,  has ruled Gaza since it swept a majority in 2006 parliamentary elections. After Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people, Israel in its retaliation largely blocked foreign journalists from entering the Gaza strip. Israeli protesters blocked humanitarian aid. And Israeli attacks crushed Gaza’s infrastructure, fueling mounting concern about the Ministry of Health’s fatality data’s accuracy. 

    Without any other options, the United Nations and other leaders rely on Hamas government figures despite little transparency over its sources or methodology. 

    Its Ministry of Health describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression.”

    Confusion over the figures reached a boiling point May 8, when the U.N. released data that showed a significant reduction in the number of women and children who had died Gaza:  

    On May 6, the U.N. had reported greater than 9,500 women and greater than 14,500 children dead. Two days later, the figures showed 4,959 women and 7,797 children.

    “UN halves estimates of women and children killed in Gaza,” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” cohost Joe Scarborough wrote in a May 12 X post. Scarborough shared a May 11 Jerusalem Post article and said, “Apparently, the Hamas figures repeatedly cited are false.”

    Israeli officials also seized on the change: “The miraculous resurrection of the dead in Gaza,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote in a May 13 X post. “The @UN had reduced its estimate of women and children killed in Gaza by 50% and claims that it relied on data from the Hamas Ministry of Health. Anyone who relies on fake data from a terrorist organization in order to promote blood libels against Israel is antisemitic and supports terrorism.” 

    Another May 13 Instagram post said, “The UN quietly admitted the casualty numbers in Gaza were OVER INFLATED by nearly half.” 

    Others said that critiques of the Ministry of Health’s fatality data went too far. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that the reported death toll out of Gaza is likely an undercount of what he described as “mass slaughter.”

    Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, said no one is going to have exact numbers, but the Ministry of Health data is the best available. “Death tolls are a messy business — extremely difficult,” Charbonneau said. “And at the end of the day, no one is expecting 100% accuracy because it’s just impossible. We know the number’s big.” 

    How much can the available data tell us? It’s complicated.

    Mourners on May 19, 2024, pray over the bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, at the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip. (AP)

    Did the fatality statistics get ‘halved’?

    Not according to the U.N.’s explanation. 

    Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, said the overall number of fatalities recorded by authorities in Gaza and reported by the U.N. have “remained unchanged at more than 35,000 people” since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a violent attack on Israel. But the subcategorization on deaths of women and children changed because the ministry provided an updated breakdown of those whose identities it said had been fully documented. This was a smaller subset of the total number of fatalities.

    Typically, when a conflict occurs, the U.N. gets its casualty data from what Haq described as “our trusted sources on the ground,” then it cross-checks that information. The scale and intensity of the fighting in Gaza, however, sets this conflict apart and, in this case, Haq said, the U.N. has no means to verify firsthand the Ministry of Health’s data. 

    Although the data cannot be interpreted as incontrovertible, the U.N., World Health Organization and organizations that track conflict casualties said Hamas’ government-sourced data should not be dismissed outright.

    Following previous conflicts, the U.N.’s efforts to independently verify the Ministry of Health’s fatality data found only small discrepancies. That said, this conflict stands apart in its scale of destruction, experts said, making the statistics’ reliability more of an open question.

    Between the May 6 and May 8 updates, the total number of reported fatalities increased from 34,735 people to 34,844 people, including a subset of more than 10,000 people “reported missing or under the rubble.” 

    (Screenshot from the United Nations.)

    The Government Media Office provided the May 6 estimate of reported fatalities, which included more than 9,500 women and more than 14,500 children. The U.N.’s May 8 graphic’s demographic breakdown is what sparked confusion and concern.

    That graphic shows the Ministry of Health’s data for a smaller subset of the nearly 35,000 reported casualties, Haq said. It provides a breakdown of demographic information for 24,686 people the ministry had fully identified with their dates of birth and death, gender and ID number and whose deaths it had documented as of April 30, U.N. spokesperson Jens Laerke explained May 17.

    During a May 13 briefing, Haq said the change came after the Ministry of Health provided an updated breakdown of fatalities “for whom full details have been documented.” 

    (Screenshot from the United Nations.)

    “Out of those, then — out of that smaller number, that subset of identified bodies — you have 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly and 10,006 men,” Haq said during the briefing. People in the “elderly” group are not categorized by gender.

    The Ministry of Health told the U.N. that it is still in the process of detailing the identities of all who are found dead, according to Haq.

    We tried to contact the Government Media Office and Ministry of Health for additional information about the data but did not hear back. 

    How are deaths being recorded?

    Early in the conflict, fatality data came from public and private hospitals, where medical workers recorded names, ages, genders and ID numbers of people who died. The information went into an electronic database, according to news reports. 

    Attacks on hospitals and communications blackouts significantly impacted the quality of data over time, researchers at organizations that track data about armed conflict told us. 

    On Dec. 11, 2023, the Ministry of Health announced in a statistical digest that it had started incorporating media sources for its fatality figures, said David Adesnik, a senior fellow and research director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative, foreign policy-focused think tank. The ministry did not identify what media sources it was relying on but the proportion of data coming from media accounts increased over time, Adesnik said: “Media sources served as the documentation for more than three-fourths of deaths counted during the first three months of 2024.”

    The biggest change in the U.N.’s data in early May wasn’t the data format, but its source, Adesnik said. 

    The May 6 update sourced its information on women and children killed to the Government Media Office; the May 8 update identified only the Ministry of Health.

    During a May 17 press briefing, Laerke said that the U.N. views the Ministry of Health as the “best available source” for fatality data. Although the Government Media Office breakdown was used for a period when the ministry couldn’t provide data, the U.N. switched back to the ministry’s data when it became available again “because we provide the best available data at the time of reporting.” 

    Smoke rises May 21, 2024, following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. (AP)

    What’s uncertain about the death toll in Gaza?

    Salma Eissa, Middle East research manager for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, said data quality has diminished.

    “There has been a discernible downward trend in the quality of the data, which has continued since mid-February when only three of the eight Gaza hospitals meant to track fatalities were doing so,” Eissa said, citing April analysis by U.K.-based Action on Armed Violence, which records and investigates armed violence against civilians globally.

    Rachel Taylor, the executive director at Every Casualty Counts, a U.K.-based organization that focuses on recording and identifying armed violence deaths, said that the current scale of devastation means the Ministry of Health’s data collection methodology “can no longer be applied consistently” as it has in the past. 

    “Over the course of the violence, the hospitals have been destroyed,” said Taylor, who anticipates the actual numbers are higher than is being reported. “The morgues have been destroyed. The paper records have been destroyed. Healthcare professionals have been killed or displaced.”

    In the May 12 episode of the “Call Me Back” podcast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that about 14,000 combatants had been killed “and probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed.” We contacted the Israeli Defense Forces for additional information about that data and received no response. 

    Experts at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project cautioned that the Ministry of Health’s list of identified fatalities includes some deaths that might be attributable to Palestinian armed groups or have undetermined causes. 

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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  • PolitiFact.com – ‘Illegal immigrants’ can’t vote in New York City elections

    PolitiFact.com – ‘Illegal immigrants’ can’t vote in New York City elections

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    With one sentence, Fox News host Sean Hannity misinformed millions of viewers about voting rights in New York City.

    During the Feb. 29 episode of his prime-time show “Hannity,” which averages 2.36 million viewers, the host falsely claimed that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are allowed to vote in New York City elections. 

    Hannity was interviewing former President Donald Trump at the U.S. southern border. During a discussion about migrants entering the country, Trump said migrants are being allowed into the U.S. because the Biden administration “maybe want(s) the votes,” and that Democrats are trying to “register people right now as we speak,” a claim we previously rated Pants on Fire!  

    Hannity responded, “In New York City, for example, local elections, illegal immigrants can vote.”

    The show cut to a commercial break and let the inaccurate claim stand.

    New York City passed 2021 legislation that would have allowed some immigrants to vote in municipal elections. But that law never took effect. 

    We contacted Fox News for comment and did not receive a reply.

    (Internet Archive)

    Trump’s speculation about registering immigrants in the country illegally to vote echoes the discredited and racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory that says Democrats support increased immigration as part of a plan to replace white people with nonwhite people. Trump and other Republicans have pushed the theory in recent months.

    Noncitizens cannot vote in New York City municipal elections

    In 2021, New York City lawmakers approved legislation that would have allowed about 800,000 noncitizen New York residents to vote in municipal elections, if they had lived in the city for 30 days and were legal permanent residents of the U.S. or had work authorization. 

    The legislation would have applied to local elections. Only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in national elections.

    The New York City law was immediately challenged in court and never took effect. Nonetheless, it has been central to false claims that immigrants in the country illegally can vote in New York.

    In June 2022, before the law was scheduled to take effect, a New York judge struck it down, saying the measure violated the state constitution’s provision that “every citizen” is entitled to vote. That decision was appealed.

    On Feb. 21, a New York appeals court agreed with the lower court’s decision: “We determine that this local law was enacted in violation of the New York State Constitution and Municipal Home Rule Law, and thus, must be declared null and void.” 

    It is unclear whether the ruling will be appealed again. 

    Some cities across the U.S. have passed legislation to allow noncitizens to vote in some municipal elections, but that practice is not widespread. 

    Our ruling

    Hannity claimed in New York City “local elections, illegal immigrants can vote.”

    New York City passed 2021 legislation that would have granted some noncitizens the right to vote in local elections. That law never went into effect and was declared unconstitutional by a state appeals court in February. 

    We rate this claim False.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

    RELATED: Do ‘illegal immigrants now have the right to vote in New York’? No, that’s False

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  • PolitiFact – 3 conspiracy theories Putin promoted in his Tucker Carlson interview that Carlson didn’t challenge

    PolitiFact – 3 conspiracy theories Putin promoted in his Tucker Carlson interview that Carlson didn’t challenge

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced numerous unsubstantiated and conspiratorial views during his sprawling conversation with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

    Carlson, who promoted the interview as an antidote to what he described as “corrupt” media, offered little pushback.

    Over two hours and six minutes, Carlson provided Putin a platform to push baseless narratives — at times assisting with the effort.

    When Carlson asked Putin who was responsible for blowing up Nord Stream, the natural gas pipeline network that runs from Russia to Europe, Putin blamed the U.S. for the 2022 incident — and Carlson appeared to concur. Unmentioned: No state has taken responsibility for the blasts, which were ruled deliberate.

    At moments, it seemed Carlson was gearing up to challenge Putin, but he ended up conceding the point. 

    Carlson asked Putin whether Russia would release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, 32, who has been held for close to a year on espionage charges stemming from a reporting trip in Russia. “The guy’s obviously not a spy,” Carlson said before offering, “Maybe he was breaking your law in some way, but he’s not a super spy, and everybody knows that.” Putin responded by insisting otherwise. “He’s not just a journalist,” Putin said before the line of questioning ended.

    Unmentioned: The U.S. State Department, The Wall Street Journal and the Committee to Protect Journalists insist Gershkovich is being wrongly held. The Wall Street Journal responded that the attempts to portray Gershkovich as anything but a journalist were “total fiction.”

    Carlson’s rhetoric has been increasingly Russia friendly in recent years, with Carlson questioning the United States’ support for Ukraine following Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion and pushing Kremlin propaganda about the war. Carlson’s remarks have been broadcast by Russian state media on multiple occasions. 

    Carlson didn’t fact-check Putin, so we did. Here are three conspiracy theories Putin shared: 

    Putin’s claim that ‘Ukraine is an artificial state’

    Putin began the interview with a 30-minute near filibuster detailing the history of Russia and Ukraine by going back centuries. “Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will,” Putin said, referring to former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin.

    We’ve heard this from Putin before. What’s now Ukraine, he argued, was part of Russian territory as far back as the ninth century. In the interview, he said the Ukrainian state was established as part of the Soviet Union in 1922, and had never existed before then. After World War II, Ukraine was given land, including from Poland, Hungary and Romania, to which it had no historical claim, he said.

    Putin’s historical view is inaccurate and one-sided, historians told PolitiFact in 2022 after Putin launched the Ukraine war with a similar argument. Territory in Ukraine has been controlled by several countries or empires for hundreds of years before Russia gained hold.

    “Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is justified through grievous historical distortions that conflate the Rus’ state, founded in the ninth century in Kyiv, with the Russian state, which only began to take shape in Moscow several hundreds of years later,” said Faith Hillis, a University of Chicago history professor.

    Putin presents the Rus’ territory as Russia’s “primordial heritage” from more than 1,000 years ago, Hillis said.

    “This distorted view of history is not Putin’s invention,” Hillis said. “It is a rehashing of a narrative crafted by conservative defenders of the Russian empire in the nineteenth century.”

    Richard Arnold, a Muskingum University political science professor, said Putin’s reference to an “artificial state” may have something to do with the Soviet Theory of Ethnos, which holds that ethnic groups “were objective and natural, created in part by solar rays determining the abundance of crops in certain areas of the globe, and that the groups had a consciousness.”

    “Putin probably believes Ukraine is not a sufficiently ancient nation to be a ‘real’ ethnos, a ‘real’ nation,” Arnold said. “We can decide ourselves how scientifically rigorous such a concept is, which, if applied to the U.S., would suggest it is really a British nation.”

    Regardless of Putin’s theory, Arnold said, there were Ukrainian intellectuals in the 19th century who adopted nationalist language when discussing their country.

    Erik Herron, a West Virginia University political science professor, said the origins of Ukrainian statehood are complicated and have long been debated, but documented references to Ukraine are centuries old.

    “Regardless of when a formal Ukrainian state emerged, it was not ‘shaped at Stalin’s will,’ and the foundations for it were built over centuries through the development of a unique national identity,” Herron said. 

    In this photo the Sputnik news agency released Feb. 9, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Feb. 6, 2024. (Sputnik, via AP)

    Putin’s claim that Russia is pursuing ‘denazification’ in Ukraine 

    Putin has justified his invasion of Ukraine by claiming that Russia seeks to “denazify” Ukraine. During the interview, Carlson asked whether Putin had achieved the goals he had when he invaded Ukraine. 

    “No,” Putin replied. “We haven’t achieved our aims yet because one of them is denazification. This means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements.” 

    There’s no evidence Ukraine is a Nazi state. This falsehood has been fact-checked by experts and news organizations, including PolitiFact. Historians who study genocides and the Holocaust decried Putin’s narrative as “factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive.”

    Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust. 

    Neo-Nazi groups exist in Ukraine — as they do in the U.S. and Russia — but Putin overstates their power. In 2014, the white-supremicist-led Azov battalion played a key role in fighting Russian separatists, and the battalion received appreciation from some within the Ukrainian government, but experts say it represents a small portion of Ukraine’s military, PolitiFact reported in 2022. 

    The U.S. State Department has said Putin exploits a grain of truth to “manipulate international public opinion by drawing false parallels between Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine and the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany.”

    John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, pointed to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll that found Ukraine was among the European countries with the highest percentage of people who expressed “favorable views” of Jews.

    “If Ukraine was a hotbed of Nazis, then presumably antisemitism is going to be a disproportionately large problem,” Herbst said, adding that before Zelenskyy, Ukraine had a Jewish prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman.

    A woman cries in front of a house damaged during Russian shelling in the town of Vyshgorod near Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 24, 2022. (AP)

    The claim that the U.S. is run by a shadow government, not elected leaders  

    With Carlson’s prompting, Putin also argued that the U.S. isn’t being run by its elected officials. 

    “Twice you’ve described U.S. presidents making decisions and then being undercut by their agency heads,” Carlson summarized. “So it sounds like you’re describing a system that’s not run by the people who are elected, in your telling.”

    “That’s right, that’s right,” Putin said. 

    PolitiFact has repeatedly fact-checked the baseless conspiracy theory that “the deep state,” “a secret cabal,” or “a shadow government” plays an outsized role in American governance.

    Experts said Putin knew Carlson’s audience.

    “Putin understands who listens to Tucker Carlson, and he knows that former President Trump and his allies have made references to the ‘deep state,’” Herron said. “This type of claim only fuels divisions in the U.S., and that is one of Putin’s goals.” 

    Scott Radnitz, professor at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, said that by “signaling his agreement with Republican beliefs and repeating their talking points,” Putin also hoped to “build on their admiration for him.”

    Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist at Rand Corp. who has studied Russia-led propaganda campaigns, said that Putin’s task for the interview was to speak to “hardcore conservatives.” Pushing this narrative was Putin’s attempt to “accentuate any divisions” and advance lines that might “harden opposition” to the U.S. providing continued support for Ukraine.

    That Congress has not provided more aid for Ukraine helps disprove the idea of a shadow government working in Ukraine’s favor, Herron said. 

    “The president does not have deep state operatives or a shadow government funneling resources to Ukraine in defiance of Congress,” Herron said. Elected leaders make budget decisions, “and their preferences do not match the president’s preferences. Until this changes, aid for Ukraine’s war efforts is not coming from the U.S. budget precisely because of the decisions of elected leaders.”

    RELATED: Journalists haven’t ‘bothered’ to interview Putin? No, Tucker Carlson’s claim is Pants on Fire! 

    RELATED: Lie of the Year 2022: Putin’s lies to wage war and conceal horror in Ukraine

    RELATED: Putin’s one-sided history of Ukraine’s relationship with Russia



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  • PolitiFact – Taylor Swift: Singer, songwriter, psyop? How conservative pundits spread a wild theory

    PolitiFact – Taylor Swift: Singer, songwriter, psyop? How conservative pundits spread a wild theory

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    State the obvious: Celebrities often endorse political candidates. 

    You wouldn’t know that from recent chatter in conservative circles online and on TV that have added “psyop” to singer Taylor Swift’s lengthy resume. (Psyop is shorthand for psychological operation.)

    The prospect of Swift endorsing President Joe Biden a second time has sent some allies of former President Donald Trump down a conspiratorial rabbit hole about a Democratic plot involving Swift.

    Other iterations of the theory claim Swift’s romance with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce — and his team’s upcoming appearance in Super Bowl LXIII — is orchestrated to benefit Democrats. 

    Examples include: 

    • Conservative activist Jack Posobiec said Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, “tried to warn us about the Taylor Swift psyop and we didn’t listen.” 

    • Former Republican congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who has spread other conspiracy theories, said that the 8-year-old daughter of former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs proved “the Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop.” 

    • Conservative activist Benny Johnson jeered at news organizations’ efforts to rebut the falsehood. “Nothing says ‘Taylor Swift is not a psy-op’ like every major Corporate News show parroting the same talking points about her at once,” he wrote.

    Those examples were just from the past week; suspicion about Swift’s role in a plot to distract Americans or help Biden has been simmering for months in fringe online forums. 

    In early January, Fox News host Jesse Watters devoted a segment to promoting the Swift-psyop conspiracy theory, using supervillain-esque imagery and omitting important context.

    Watters’ primetime segment laid the groundwork for more mainstream conspiratorial commentary after Swift’s January appearances at Kelce’s playoff games.

    Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift walk together after an AFC Championship NFL football game between the Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, Jan. 28, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP)

    “You’ve got Taylor Swift herself,” said Whitney Phillips, a University of Oregon assistant professor of digital platforms and media ethics who researches conspiratorial belief and identity. “You’ve got the connection to the NFL, which just adds additional energy. You’ve got the fact that we’re approaching the 2024 election. You have the fact that Kelce was in those COVID vaccine commercials.” 

    Any one of those things could dominate a news cycle. Combined, Phillips said, it’s a cultural “perfect storm.”

    How influencers on the political right have pushed the theory

    Before Watters’ segment aired, speculation about Swift’s potential as a government operative was fodder for discussion on X and podcasts. 

    In June, the hosts of the podcast “Macrodosing” questioned whether Swift’s brief relationship with musician Matty Healy was orchestrated to cover up the existence of aliens. (A former military officer went public with claims that the U.S. government possessed nonhuman spacecraft). 

    “We started this out kind of joking around about the Taylor Swift thing,” said host Eric Sollenberger, also known as PFT Commenter. “Is Taylor Swift — is she a CIA asset? … What better way to distract America from finding out about aliens than having just Taylor Swift announce that she got dumped?” 

    Some of the “Macrodosing” hosts acknowledged the theory’s outlandishness and laughed at themselves. 

    Others were more serious about how Swift, who endorsed Biden in 2020 with a tray of cookies, could be used in the 2024 election.

    On National Voter Registration Day in September, Swift encouraged her Instagram followers to register to vote. Vote.org reported 35,000 registrations that day, up from 25,000 on the same day in 2022. 

    This action fed conspiracy theories. Mike Benz — a former State Department official under Trump who NBC News reported was once a content creator associated with white nationalists — shared a headline in September about Swift’s activism, writing on X: “I told you Taylor Swift was going to be wielded as instrument of statecraft…” 

    Benz had previously pushed the “statecraft” idea on his social media accounts. 

    Benz, who has more than 140,000 X followers, saw more evidence of government interference after a Dec. 2 opinion piece in The Hill discussed how Swift could “save Joe Biden.”

    Taylor Swift performs at the Monumental stadium during her Eras Tour concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. (AP)

    Swift stayed in the headlines as she attended Kelce’s games in fall and took her “Eras” tour to Argentina and Brazil in November. In December, Time magazine named her “Person of the Year.”

    Former Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller wrote Dec. 6 on X, “What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic.”

    Watters used an out-of-context video to introduce a possible ‘psyop’

    Early in his Jan. 9 broadcast, Watters flashed onscreen an edited photo of Swift with red lasers for eyes. Watters, who took over former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s evening slot in July, speculated that Swift’s popularity isn’t tied to her musical talent.

    (Screenshot from Internet Archive)

    “Well around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting,” Watters said. “What kind of asset? A psyop for combating online misinformation.” 

    He aired a clip of data engineer Alicia Marie Bargar saying at a conference almost five years ago that “social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change.” Bargar, who then worked as a research engineer at Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory, mentioned Swift as an example, because she is “a fairly influential online person.” 

    Watters cut in, saying, “‘Primetime’ obviously has no evidence” that Swift is a “front for a covert political agenda.” But he continued, mentioning Swift’s voter-registration efforts and that her relationship with Kelce had boosted the NFL’s ratings. “So how’s the psyop going?” 

    Bargar told Business Insider that her comment came from the 2019 International Conference on Cyber Conflict organized by NATO’s cyber defense hub — and that Watters took it out of context. 

    Swift was “an incidental example of a famous person to explain a social network analysis concept to the audience,” Bargar said. “This is a commonly used approach in academia to make theoretical concepts easier to understand.”

    In the full clip, Bargar discussed ways to counter covert influence campaigns. Because one way involved training influential people to spread desired messages, she mentioned Swift, who had shared a photo of herself next to a voting sign. 

    Bargar said that U.S. celebrities regularly post pictures of themselves voting to encourage others to vote, a strategy that “has a measurable effect” on turnout. Bargar went on to explain other methods for countering influence campaigns without mentioning Swift. Bargar told Business Insider she has no affiliation with NATO or the Pentagon. 

    “Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation. Period,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told PolitiFact Feb. 2. “I’m sure she has other chief priorities, as do we.”

    PolitiFact reached out to Bargar and Swift’s spokesperson, but did not hear back. 

    The theory’s new, wider audience isn’t swayed by debunking 

    Watters was the main amplifier of the Swift-as-psyop conspiracy theory, said NewsGuard senior analyst Macrina Wang. NewsGuard tracks online misinformation and produces weekly “Reality Check” reports. 

    Data from NewsGuard’s media monitoring tools showed a 13,000% increase in online mentions of “Taylor Swift” and “psyop” from Jan. 8 to Jan. 10 — the day after Watters’ Jan. 9 show, Wang said. That included mentions on X, Reddit, websites, blogs, news sites and forums — largely excluding mentions that aimed to debunk the idea.

    When Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens on Jan. 28, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, shared “wild speculation” that the Super Bowl would be rigged for Kelce’s team ahead of a “major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

    Days later on X, Benz scrutinized Swift’s use of emojis and punctuation — a behavior not so different from Swifties on the prowl for Easter eggs — to speculate that the conspiracy dated back years. He said it appeared Swift had been “handed” language critical of Trump ahead of the 2020 election.

    Phillips said she sees conservative commentators’ efforts to target Swift as an attempt to “grab the cultural microphone.” They are essentially arguing that Swift “is a form of liberal propaganda” who might mobilize people to vote for Democrats and “take away the voices of Republicans,” Phillips said. 

    “Taylor Swift is just a perfect opportunity to make that argument and make it loud and make it so that people can’t help but write articles about it,” she said. 

    Wang said that media scrutiny and fact-checks seemed to encourage proponents of the Swift theory to dig in their heels.

    “It comes from this systemic distrust of media and the establishment … and it’s almost like a badge of honor that people are trying to debunk the claim,” Wang said.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird and PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman contributed to this report.

    RELATED: What could a Taylor Swift endorsement mean for voter turnout in the 2024 election?

    RELATED: No, X is not blocking users from searching for Taylor Swift because of past “pro-Biden” images



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  • PolitiFact – Hannity said he’d leave his beliefs out of the DeSantis-Newsom debate. His charts hinted otherwise.

    PolitiFact – Hannity said he’d leave his beliefs out of the DeSantis-Newsom debate. His charts hinted otherwise.

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    Welcoming viewers to the Fox News prime-time “Great Red versus Blue State Debate” between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, host Sean Hannity assured his personal politics would not be part of the program. 

    “It’s kind of widely known that I am a conservative,” Hannity said Nov. 30. “However, tonight I will be moderating this debate. I will not be part of the debate. Our questions tonight will be coming from well-sourced, fact-centered perspectives.”

    In the 90-minute matchup, Hannity showed at least 20 graphics, with most of them painting California, blue states and Democrats’ leadership in a negative light compared with Florida, red states and Republican leadership. He encouraged DeSantis, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, to push back against Newsom’s attacks. 

    Many visuals contained factual information from government sources, including the U.S Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data Hannity selected often put Newsom on the defensive.

    More than an hour into the debate, Hannity invoked his own beliefs about President Joe Biden’s fitness to hold the highest office. 

    “Joe Biden is (experiencing) what I believe to be significant cognitive decline,” he said. “And, in other words, it’s the toughest job in the world. Is Joe Biden experiencing this cognitive decline? Is it a danger to the country? Do you find when he speaks — what is your reaction to it?”

    Hannity did not mention that former President Donald Trump, Biden’s leading 2024 rival according to recent polls, has had his fitness questioned, too. (DeSantis’ campaign has a “Trump Accident Tracker” of Trump blunders.) 

    We reached out to Hannity and Fox News for comment but did not hear back.

    Graphics, statistics generally favored red states and Florida

    Hannity started by showing three charts. First, “Blue state net migration losses,” followed by, “Red state net migration gains,” and then, “California vs. Florida total net migration.” 

    “In 2021, 2022, California’s lost 750,000 residents to other states,” Hannity said. “Governor DeSantis, during that same two-year period, you gained 454,000 residents from other states. … How do you explain this phenomenon? What’s going on?” 

    (Screenshots from Fox News)

    In a tax-related question, Hannity showed one graphic of California’s income tax rates — 6% for households with a median income of $84,000 and 13% for people with incomes of more than $1.355 million — side by side with Florida’s nonexistent income tax. He showed another comparing each state’s average property tax rate, sales tax, gasoline tax and corporate income tax. In all but one category (average property tax rate), California’s tax rate was higher. 

    (Screenshots from Fox News.)

    The two states’ different tax systems make direct comparisons difficult, and the graphics didn’t capture who bears the brunt of the tax burden. A 2018 study, for example, shows that under Florida’s system, lower income households paid a higher percentage of their income in taxes compared with the wealthiest taxpayers. 

    Next came a graphic comparing the states’ unemployment rates: 2.8% in Florida and 4.8% in California. These rates are accurate, and since January 2019, California’s unemployment has been higher than the national average, while Florida’s has been lower.

    (Screenshots from Fox News.)

    On immigration, Hannity spotlighted encounters at the southern border with foreign nationals from six countries. 

    “While some migrants I know want to come to America for a better life for themselves and their families — find the American dream,” he said. “Others are abusing the asylum process and, in the process, in search of where they’re coming from we are now learning that many are coming from some of our top geopolitical foes.”

    He then showed a graphic that cited U.S. Customs and Border Protection data “leaked to Fox News.” That count showed that Border Patrol agents in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 had encountered thousands of foreign nationals from China, Russia, Afghanistan and Egypt and hundreds of foreign nationals from Iran and Syria at the southern border. An encounter does not necessarily equal an entry into the country, because immigration officials have the discretion to turn away people.

    Citizenship data for border encounters is not publicly published for most of the countries Hannity listed, with the exception of Russia and China. For those countries, Hannity’s figures were close to the published data for southern land border encounters between ports of entry during fiscal year 2022 and 2023: 12,587 Russian nationals and 26,019 Chinese nationals. 

    (Screenshot from Fox News)

    Hannity asked: “What are the odds that Biden’s open borders have allowed terrorists and terrorist cells unvetted into this country? Is that a clear and present danger to every American?” 

    DeSantis answered, “The odds are 100%. Of course our enemies are going to take advantage of this.”

    When Hannity asked Newsom if he saw the same dangers, Newsom responded that he supported border security and that the asylum system is broken.

    For a question about gun ownership laws, Hannity pulled rankings from Everytown for Gun Safety. On one online list in 2023, the gun control advocacy group ranked states by “gun law strength,” putting California at No. 1.

    The language in Hannity’s graphic said California ranked No. 1 for the “most restrictive” gun laws, while Florida ranked No. 19. It also said California had more mass shootings than Florida since 2019.

    Newsom didn’t address Hannity’s question about why California had more mass shootings. Newsom said when it comes to overall gun deaths, Florida “has a 66% higher gun death rate” than California, which isn’t far off.

    How Hannity talked to Newsom, DeSantis

    Twice in the first 15 minutes, Hannity said Newsom had not directly answered a question about why blue states have seen net migration losses while red states have seen net migration gains. Newsom hadn’t addressed the question head on, but it wasn’t the only time he or DeSantis avoided giving an answer. Hannity pressed Newsom to answer questions more often than he did for DeSantis.

    About 16 minutes into the debate, Hannity interrupted Newsom, who had mentioned the Biden administration, to ask, “Is Joe Biden paying you tonight? I thought this was state versus state.” 

    A little more than an hour into the program, Hannity prompted DeSantis to respond to Newsom’s claim about Florida’s “book-banning binge” under DeSantis.

    “First, governor, Yes or no: Are the book bans … is that a state issue or a local issue?” Hannity asked DeSantis, who replied: “It’s local.”

    When DeSantis tried to say more, Hannity cut him off, “OK, that’s all I want to know.” Hannity then asked Newsom about specific books conservatives have alleged are inappropriate for schools.

    (Screenshot from Fox News)

    After showing a graphic of education statistics, Hannity asked: “Gov. Newsom, what is your explanation? You spend more money, and they have better results in Florida. Why?”

    On abortion, Hannity introduced a question by saying Newsom had been “unwilling to answer” questions about whether he supports any restrictions on abortion access. 

    Hannity did not bluntly ask DeSantis whether he would support or sign a national six-week abortion ban as president (something Newsom questioned DeSantis about). 

    Hannity more gently asked DeSantis about Florida’s abortion ban: “You had a 15-week rule in (Florida), you reduced it to six. My question is this: What was your thinking behind it? Was it for religious reasons? Was it for scientific reasons? What was the reason for you, from going from 15 weeks to six weeks?”

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  • PolitiFact – No, this video doesn’t show Israeli military killing people at Oct. 7 concert in Israel

    PolitiFact – No, this video doesn’t show Israeli military killing people at Oct. 7 concert in Israel

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    Editor’s note: This story contains references and links to graphic images and videos.

    Social media users recently circulated video footage they claimed shows an Israeli helicopter killing Israelis at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel. 

    Stew Peters, a far-right radio host and the filmmaker behind the anti-COVID-19 vaccine films “Died Suddenly” and “Watch the Water,” shared the 14-second video clip on X, formerly Twitter. 

    “VIDEO PROVES and ISRAEL ADMITS it slaughtered its own people on Oct. 7th,” Peters wrote Nov. 9. “This attack was NOT made by goat herders on paragliders. Footage from Israeli helicopter shows the IDF killing many people at October 7 concert in Israel. IDF helicopters fired on civilians fleeing the PsyTrance Music Festival.”

    Other social media users shared Peters’ post, and it 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.) We also found this video clip misrepresented on TikTok.

    (Screenshot from X)

    Peters misleads about what the clip shows. The Israel Defense Forces shared this clip Oct. 9 on X, saying it showed a series of Israeli attacks on Hamas fighters. Hamas fighters attacked concertgoers in Israel on Oct. 7, and more than 200 people were killed, according to Zaka, Israel’s rescue service. 

    Asked about his post, Peters referred PolitiFact to a series of news reports — some in Hebrew — that he said document “Israelis killing their own.” The information he sent did not include or appear to mention the video footage he shared on X. 

    Peters’ X post linked to an Oct. 30 article from a pro-Palestine media research organization that in turn linked to another Oct. 27 article from The Grayzone, a news organization historically on the political left. The Grayzone story included an embedded X post with the Israeli forces’ video footage, with a caption that said the footage showed Israeli forces “attacking Hamas fighters.” 

    We found no evidence to support Peters’ claim that the video clip showed Israeli forces killing people at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel. A group that works to geolocate video footage analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video and said it was not filmed at the music festival site.

    Where did the video footage originate?

    Hamas fighters attacked multiple locations in Israel on Oct. 7, including the Tribe of Nova music festival, where at least 260 people were killed, according to Zaka, Israel’s rescue service. Hamas’ attack at the music festival was documented by victims and journalists and confirmed by global heads of state, including the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.

    On Oct. 9, the Israel Defense Forces first posted a video showing this overhead footage on X that, starting at the 2:06 timestamp, shows air strikes followed by clouds of smoke and dust rising; at one point, people are visible before the strike. According to Google’s built-in translation, the Hebrew-language caption read: “Throughout the last day, Air Force planes have been carrying out extensive attacks along the length and breadth of the Gaza Strip, wreaking havoc on Hamas terrorists. In just the last three hours, about 130 targets were attacked using dozens of planes. The focus of the attack: Beit Hanon, Sajaya, Al Furkan and Rimal >>”

    An Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson provided a translation that largely matched Google’s. 

    We used reverse-image searches, but did not find the video shared online before the Israel Defense Forces’ Oct. 9 post. 

    An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told PolitiFact the video Peters shared matched the video it posted on X and said that it shows Israeli soldiers striking Hamas militants.

    (Screenshots from X)

    GeoConfirmed, a group that works to geolocate video footage, analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video, and concluded it was not filmed at the site of the Nova music festival.  

    Our ruling

    Peters claimed that video footage “shows the IDF killing many people at October 7 concert in Israel.”

    The original video was posted Oct. 9 by Israel Defense Forces, which said it showed the Israeli air force striking Hamas militants following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. 

    We did not find the video being shared online before the Israel Defense Forces’ Oct. 9 post, and a group that works to geolocate video footage analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video and said it was not filmed at the music festival site.

    We rate this claim False. 

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

    RELATED: Reports of 260 Israeli music fest deaths aren’t unsubstantiated. Photos, videos document toll

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