The official U.S. statistics on trade with Canada show that the United States has a trade surplus with our neighbor to the north. The U.S. surplus was $2.8 billion in 2017, according to the Census Bureau. Yet, President Donald Trump has claimed that t
Search Results (472) for: factchecking
FactCheck.org→ Trump Blames Own Border Policy on Democrats
President Donald Trump wrongly blamed Democrats for a Trump administration policy that will separate parents and their young children caught entering the U.S. illegally. “We have to break up families,” Trump claimed, because of “bad laws
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Misleading Attack on Mueller Team
President Donald Trump made several misleading comments when questioning the impartiality of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his investigative team. Trump said, “In all fairness, Bob Mueller worked for [President] Obama for eight years
FactCheck.org→ It’s International Fact-Checking Day
Today, April 2, is the second annual International Fact-Checking Day. To mark the occasion, we’ve answered several questions from our readers about fact-checking. We’ve posted our answers in video form on Facebook. Our staff answers these q
FactCheck.org→ Obama Not Ordered to Pay $400M Restitution
Q: Did a federal court order former President Barack Obama to pay “$400 million in restitution”? A: No. Multiple sites have carried the fictitious story. FULL ANSWER Former President Barack Obama would be in a particularly undesirable financial si
FactCheck.org→ GM Korea Didn’t Announce Move to Detroit
General Motors will close one of its four assembly plants in South Korea in May. It did not say it was moving production to Detroit instead, as President Trump claimed. “That was not part of the announcement,” GM spokesman Patrick Morrissey
FactCheck.org→ Trump Puts New Twist on Visa Misinformation
President Donald Trump repeatedly has mangled the facts about the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program — as we have documented. This week, he found a new way to misrepresent the program. Trump said those who win the diversity visa lottery are awarded
FactCheck.org→ Groundhog Friday, Groundhog Day Edition
Politicians often make the same claims over and over again, leaving us fact-checkers empathizing with Bill Murray’s character in that 1993 classic “Groundhog Day.” This week was no different. To highlight the repeats we’ve debun
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Phony ‘Fake News’ Claims
President Donald Trump often dismisses news stories or media outlets that he doesn’t like as “fake news.” How often? A database of his public remarks contains 320 references last year to “fake news.” Usually, it’s a
FactCheck.org→ The Whoppers of 2017
Summary We first dubbed President Donald Trump, then just a candidate, as “King of Whoppers” in our annual roundup of notable false claims for 2015. He dominated our list that year – and again in 2016 – but there was still plenty of room for ot
FactCheck.org→ The Whoppers of 2017
Summary We first dubbed President Donald Trump, then just a candidate, as “King of Whoppers” in our annual roundup of notable false claims for 2015. He dominated our list that year – and again in 2016 – but there was still plenty of room for ot
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Rare Apology
Sen. Bernie Sanders wrongly said President Donald Trump has never apologized for his comments on the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he bragged about sexually inappropriate behavior. Trump did apologize at the time for his comments in a pr
FactCheck.org→ Video: Trump’s Criticism of FBI
In this week’s fact-checking segment, CNN’s Jake Tapper looks at President Donald Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton “lied many times to the FBI and nothing happened to her” — suggesting Clinton was treated differently than
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Claims Don’t Add Up
Summary In touting Republican tax bills, President Donald Trump made several claims that don’t add up. The nation’s real gross domestic product grew 4.6 percent and 5.2 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2014, respectively. But T
FactCheck.org→ GOP, Democrats Spin Tax Plan
Summary House Republicans on Nov. 2 introduced a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s tax code, and almost immediately both parties distorted the facts about the plan to advance their partisan agendas: The tax plan isn’t the “biggest tax cut in
FactCheck.org→ The Facts on Uranium One
Two House committees have said that they will investigate the Obama administration’s approval of a deal that gave Russia a financial interest in U.S. uranium production. The 2010 deal allowed Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy agency, to acquire a c
FactCheck.org→ Groundhog Friday: Trump Edition
President Donald Trump repeated some misleading claims this week as he made the rounds on conservative radio talk shows, delivered a speech to a conservative group and held a press conference with the Senate Republican leader. So, we decided for this
FactCheck.org→ Cruz on Social Security as a ‘Ponzi Scheme’
In a televised debate on taxes, Sen. Ted Cruz denied that he ever called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.” But in a 2011 interview, Cruz gave the definition of a “Ponzi scheme” and said it fits Social Security. “That is ex
FactCheck.org→ Democrats Overstate Trump Tax Plan Effects
Democratic senators have used outdated or inflated figures to attack the GOP tax plan, when sticking to the facts would have served them just as well. Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted an image of a chart that exaggerates how much President Donald Trump and
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s U.N. Speech
Summary In his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump reprised misleading talking points on everything from job growth to defense spending. We’ve written about variations of some of these claims numerous times, but sinc
FactCheck.org→ Explaining McCain’s Defense ‘Cut’
Sen. John McCain says the budget deal President Donald Trump reached with Democratic leaders “basically freezes last year’s funding in place, which is a cut of $52 billion” in defense spending. In fact, the deal doesn’t cut the defense
FactCheck.org→ Who Benefits From Corporate Tax Cut?
In advocating for a corporate tax cut, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin overstates the consensus when he says “most economists believe that over 70 percent of corporate taxes are paid for by the workers.” In fact, who bears the brunt of co
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Phoenix Fiction
Summary President Donald Trump delivered a raucous, error-filled speech in Arizona on Aug. 22, just days after he was uniformly criticized for blaming “both sides” for the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Vir
FactCheck.org→ More MS-13 Gang Nonsense
President Donald Trump is once again grossly exaggerating the success of his efforts to deport members of the MS-13, a gang founded by El Salvadoran immigrants. This time he claims that his administration has removed “pretty much” half of the gang
FactCheck.org→ Video: Trump and Coal Jobs
In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper discusses President Donald Trump’s remarks at his June 21 Iowa rally about coal mining jobs. As we wrote in our story, “FactChecking Trump’s Iowa Rally,” the pre
FactCheck.org→ 100 Days of Whoppers
Summary Donald Trump — whom we crowned the “King of Whoppers” when he was a long-shot candidate in 2015 — has held true to form during his first 100 days as president of the United States. In his first hour as president, he pain
FactCheck.org→ Trump Spins His First 100 Days
Summary In an interview with the Associated Press, President Donald Trump put some spin on what he has done — and hasn’t done — as he nears the completion of his first 100 days in office: Trump said he has not labeled China a curren
FactCheck.org→ Trump Takes More Undue Credit
President Donald Trump wrongly boasted that Toyota’s plan to invest over $1 billion in its largest manufacturing plant in Kentucky would “not have been made if we didn’t win the election.” A Toyota spokesman told us the car comp
PolitiFact→ Fact-checking fake news on International Fact-checking Day
Move over internet hoaxes and fake news, it’s time for International Factchecking Day. This year, fact-checkers around the world are taking a stand in favor of facts. We’ve declared April 2 — the day after April Fool’s Day &mdas
FactCheck.org→ Employer Premiums and the ACA
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed that “because of Obamacare, premiums on everybody have gone up … whether you’re in an employer-based system or not.” Employer premiums have been affected somewhat, but they’ve b
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Address to Congress
Summary In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Donald Trump stuck closely to his prepared remarks, but ran afoul of the facts in some cases. Trump said the U.S. has spent $6 trillion in the Middle East and “with this $6 t
FactCheck.org→ Video: Trump’s News Conference
Donald Trump held his first solo press conference as president on Feb. 16. This video examines some of the claims that Trump made about his anti-terrorism executive order, his Electoral College victory, his record on jobs and Russia’s ownership o