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Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images.
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RFK Jr.'s Choice for V.P.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his running mate this week, and her name is Nicole Shanahan -- a wealthy attorney who bankrolled a pro-Kennedy TV ad during the Super Bowl that featured the same song and imagery as a John F. Kennedy ad in 1960.
Kennedy's campaign could make a difference in a close race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. We customarily write about major speeches by the top candidates, so we reviewed the remarks of Kennedy and Shanahan at the announcement in Oakland.
Both made statements that were false or misleading. Here are a couple of them:
- There’s no evidence that vaccines cause autism, contrary to the impression Shanahan left in questioning the safety of “one shot on top of another shot … throughout the course of childhood” just before citing an increase in the prevalence of autism.
- Kennedy faulted Trump’s and Biden’s pandemic policies for transferring “$4 trillion from the middle class” to “500 new billionaires.” But an Oxfam report that found 573 new global billionaires during the pandemic didn’t attribute the increase to U.S. policies alone.
For more, read our story "FactChecking RFK Jr.’s V.P. Announcement."
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To determine what impact illegal immigration has on the apportionment of House seats, we looked at analyses done by the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates lower immigration, and the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The first estimated that including those immigrants in population counts in 2020 meant that one Democratic state picked up a seat from a Republican state. The latter found there would be no difference in the partisan balance. Read more.
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The cargo ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge near Baltimore on March 26 had traveled about 4 nautical miles, which is approximately 4.5 miles, and reached speeds of about 8 knots, which is a little over 9 miles per hour, according to location data compiled by myshiptracking.com. The accident, which occurred at about 1:30 a.m., sent the center stretch of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River and left six road repair workers presumed dead. Read more.
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Deputy Managing Editor Rob Farley appeared on an Australian TV station to discuss former President Donald Trump's "bloodbath" remarks that caused a bit of a stir globally.
A weekly show called "Planet America" on ABC News in Australia devoted most of its March 20 program to this statement that Trump made during a rally in Ohio: "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath." (ABC stands for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.)
Leading up to that statement, as Rob explained to the show's hosts, Trump talked about Chinese auto manufacturers opening up auto plants in Mexico and what he would do to protect the U.S. auto industry.
"We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected," Trump said. "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it."
"In that context, it's reasonable to conclude that he was talking about an economic disaster," Rob said.
Click here to watch Rob discuss his story and our approach to fact-checking Trump.
For more, read Rob's story "Trump's 'Bloodbath' Comment."
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Reader: There is a story on Facebook that claims Hoda [Kotb] from the "Today" show interviewed Kelly Clarkson. The article claims Kelly told Hoda she lost 47 lbs in only 2 months using gummies she took twice a day and continued her same eating patterns. Did this interview really happen and did she really claim this?
FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: Hoda Kotb did interview Kelly Clarkson about the singer's weight loss. But that was in 2018 and there was nothing in the interview about gummies.
The “Today” show website has an article about Kota's 2018 interview with Clarkson about her weight loss. In it, Clarkson talks about changing her eating habits, not continuing the same eating patterns.
Facebook, unfortunately, is flooded with bogus articles about celebrities endorsing or selling gummies. Over the years, we’ve exposed a few such scams that have victimized celebrities such as Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity, CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and evangelical Christian leader Charles Stanley.
But new claims are constantly popping up.
Some celebrities are fighting back. In our Jan. 19, 2022, story about Gupta, we wrote:
In October, actor Clint Eastwood and Garrapata, the company that owns the rights to his likeness, won $6.1 million in a lawsuit against a Lithuanian company, Mediatonas UAB, for falsely claiming Eastwood had endorsed CBD products.
The bogus article about Gupta also includes the names of other celebrities, including Halle Berry, Randy Jackson and Tom Hanks, with phony testimonials for the advertised CBD product.
The claim about Clarkson using gummies to lose weight is new, but the Associated Press says that is false, too.
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Wrapping Up
Here's what else we've got for you this week:
- "Elon Musk Overstates Partisan Impact of Illegal Immigration on House Apportionment": In claiming that illegal immigration benefits Democrats, entrepreneur Elon Musk vastly overstated its impact on the apportionment of House seats and Electoral College votes.
- "Social Media Posts Misinterpret Biden on mRNA Cancer Vaccines": COVID-19 vaccines are not “being used to cure cancer,” as social media posts falsely claim, misinterpreting President Joe Biden’s reference to mRNA cancer vaccines during his State of the Union address. Biden was referring to the mRNA technology used to make the COVID-19 vaccines and being studied by researchers to treat cancer.
- "Posts Make Ominous, Unfounded Claims About April 8 Eclipse Preparations": Local governments are preparing residents for an influx of visitors during the April 8 solar eclipse that will be most visible along a narrow path through the U.S., with one Oklahoma county inviting the National Guard for support. But social media posts baselessly claim the preparations suggest “something catastrophic” will occur during the eclipse.
- "Baseless Conspiracy Theories Follow Key Bridge Collapse": The Francis Scott Key Bridge near Baltimore collapsed after being hit by a cargo ship in the early morning on March 26. Although all evidence points to an accident, conspiracy theorists spread the baseless claim that it was intentionally caused by a “cyber-attack.” Officials have dismissed the claim.
Y lo que publicamos en español (English versions are accessible in each story):
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