|
|
C-SPAN screenshot
|
|
Trump's Address to Congress
President Donald Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress technically wasn't a State of the Union, since it came shortly after he took office this year. But it was the longest such speech to Congress. Trump spoke for 1 hour 39 minutes and 32 seconds, as measured by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
And our staff stayed up late to fact-check his remarks.
We wrote about 12 topics, among them:
- Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.” DOGE's own website only claims $105 billion in savings, and only purports to provide evidence for less than a third of that. It’s unclear how much, if any, of that is related to fraud, a criminal act.
- He misleadingly suggested that millions of people, incorrectly labeled as alive in the Social Security database, were collecting Social Security benefits.
- The president claimed to have “inherited … an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare” from his predecessor. But when Trump took office, economic growth was strong; unemployment was low, and inflation had fallen significantly.
Trump also made misleading remarks about autism rates in children, the closure of power plants, fentanyl coming from Canada and more.
See our full story for more on these claims and others: "FactChecking Trump’s Address to Congress."
And if watching a video is more appealing to you, we've got you covered. Social Media Manager Josh Diehl produced a video version of our story, summarizing our work in 7 minutes and 30 seconds.
|
|
|
|
|
When several readers asked us whether the proposed SAVE Act would prevent married women from registering to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate, we looked at the legislation and reached out to several experts. We contacted the lawmaker who introduced the House bill, voting rights advocate groups and a constitutional law professor with expertise in election law. For the answer to this question, see our Ask FactCheck: "Will SAVE Act Prevent Married Women from Registering to Vote?"
|
|
|
Medicaid is a jointly funded federal-state program that provides health care for low-income people and those with disabilities. Medicaid also covers long-term care expenses for the elderly. About 21% of the U.S. population, or 83 million people, have Medicaid coverage. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have argued over what a GOP House budget resolution would mean for the program. Both sides made misleading or speculative comments. Read more: "The War of Words Over Medicaid Cuts."
|
|
|
|
|
|
SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK
|
|
|
|
Our short video (below) on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downplaying the seriousness of an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas has been viewed more than 2.7 million times on Instagram.
|
|
|
Hearst Television, which has been one of our media partners since 2019, cited our work in a segment about Trump's address to Congress. You can watch the video on the website of Baltimore's WBAL-TV.
Also this week, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of our parent organization, the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Science Editor Jessica McDonald spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer about HHS Secretary Kennedy's comments on measles and vaccination. The Inquirer's article was published on March 6.
|
|
Wrapping Up
Here's what else we've got for you this week:
- Trump Exaggerates on U.S. and European Aid to Ukraine, Loans: As President Donald Trump has sought to secure rights to Ukraine’s minerals as compensation for U.S. aid to fight the Russian invasion, he has repeatedly overstated the amount of aid provided by the U.S. compared with Europe and exaggerated the extent to which European assistance – unlike U.S. aid — is in the form of guaranteed loans.
- Posts Spread False Claim About DOGE Halting Supposed Obamacare ‘Royalties’: Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have been tasked by President Donald Trump with slashing federal spending. But social media posts falsely claim that as part of that effort, DOGE stopped “royalties” to former President Barack Obama related to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. The claim came from a satirical website.
Y lo que publicamos en español (English versions are accessible in each story):
|
|
|
Do you like FactCheck.Weekly? Share it with a friend! They can subscribe here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
