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** Providing Context for Leavitt’s Examples of ‘Violent Rhetoric’
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The annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner descended into chaos on April 25 when an armed man tried to enter the event in an alleged attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump.

Two days later, at a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called out multiple Democrats in Congress, and the host of a late-night TV show, for “hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed” at Trump that she said had contributed to another apparent effort to take his life.

Leavitt said: "Just two days prior to the shooting, ABC’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, disgustingly called first lady Melania Trump an expectant widow. Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?"

Later, she went on to cite several “despicable statements” from Democratic lawmakers that she said were "inspiring violence" against the president and other Republicans. As one example, she said, "Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, just this April, this month, said we are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time."

Jeffries, the leader of House Democrats, responded forcefully to the criticism in an April 27 press conference, calling Leavitt a “stone-cold liar” and claiming that the Democratic statements she had quoted were “all taken out of context.”

Indeed, Senior Writer D'Angelo Gore and Staff Writer Saranac Spencer reviewed the statements highlighted by Leavitt and found that most -- though not all -- were presented without important context that shows them in a different way than Leavitt presented.

Jeffries was talking about the ongoing back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats over the redrawing of congressional district lines when he said, "We are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time." In fact, the minority leader borrowed that line from an anonymous “person close to the president” who told the New York Times last August that “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” was the White House’s redistricting strategy.

Also, the full context suggests that Kimmel was joking about the age difference between Donald and Melania Trump when he said in a segment on his April 23 show that the first lady had "a glow like an expectant widow."

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not — by any stretch of the definition — a call to assassination," Kimmel later said.

For D'Angelo's and Sara's complete analysis of the quotes, read "Providing Context for Leavitt’s Examples of 'Violent Rhetoric ([link removed]) .'"
IN THE NEWS
The Department of Justice this week announced an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey based on an image he shared on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged to spell out “86 47.” Donald Trump is the 47th president, and the indictment alleges the phrase “86” was “a serious expression of an intent to do harm” to Trump. Legal experts said the ambiguity of what 86 means will make this a difficult case for the Justice Department. Read more: “Definition of ’86’ at the Heart of Comey Indictment. ([link removed]) ”
HOW WE KNOW
In looking into claims about the clinical trials for the childhood pneumococcal vaccine, we interviewed Dr. Steven Black, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and veteran vaccine clinical trialist who was involved in the original trial for the vaccine. He explained the reasons for using a vaccine against meningococcal disease as a control in that trial. Today’s childhood pneumococcal vaccines target either 15 or 20 pneumococcal bacterial serotypes. Read more: "The Persistent Misleading Claim That Vaccines Aren’t Properly Tested for Safety ([link removed]) ."
WORTHY OF NOTE
FactCheck.org has won ([link removed]) a National Headliner Award for online beat reporting of government and political coverage. Our series on “How Project 2025 Has Unfolded Under Trump ([link removed]) ” won first place in that category.

We won first place in the same category last year ([link removed]) . The National Headliner Awards were founded in 1934 by the Press Club of Atlantic City.

The Project 2025 series ([link removed]) , which was published over several days in late September and early October, was written by Eugene Kiely, our former director. Eugene explained in detail how President Donald Trump was implementing or trying to implement many elements of Project 2025, a policy manual that was produced by the Heritage Foundation and written by veterans of Trump’s administrations or campaigns, along with other conservatives. Trump had distanced himself from the document during the 2024 campaign, saying he knew “nothing about Project 2025.”

We recommend setting aside some time to read the series, which the judges called a “powerful deep dive that showed how Project 2025 was implemented across the federal government. Excellent explanatory lookback at promises made and kept — with an easy-to-navigate presentation.”


** Wrapping Up
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Here's what else we've got for you this week:
* RFK Jr.’s Unsupported Claims About Tylenol-Autism Study He Called ‘Garbage’ ([link removed])
During an April 17 congressional hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for retraction of a new Danish study that didn’t find a link between Tylenol and autism, repeatedly calling it “garbage” and baselessly suggesting that it was industry-generated and “fraudulent.”

Y lo que publicamos en español ([link removed]) (English versions are accessible in each story):
* Los números de Trump, actualización de abril de 2026 ([link removed])
Nuestra primera actualización trimestral de diversos indicadores económicos y sociales durante el segundo mandato de Trump como presidente.

* La engañosa y persistente afirmación de que las vacunas no se someten a pruebas de seguridad adecuadas ([link removed])
Es un argumento común y engañoso en los círculos antivacunas: las vacunas infantiles podrían ser inseguras porque pocas, si acaso alguna, se han sometido a ensayos controlados con placebo antes de su aprobación. Sin embargo, esta afirmación malinterpreta el proceso de pruebas de seguridad de las vacunas y se basa en una definición restrictiva de placebo, según nos han dicho los científicos.

* ¿Qué sabemos sobre el “turismo de nacimiento”? ([link removed])
P: ¿Qué tan real es el turismo de nacimiento?
A: El gobierno no proporciona estimaciones sobre la magnitud del llamado turismo de nacimiento, es decir, la práctica de mujeres embarazadas que viajan a Estados Unidos con visas de turismo con el fin de obtener ciudadanía estadounidense para su hijo por derecho de nacimiento. Un grupo externo ha estimado que podría tratarse de más de 20.000 nacimientos al año. Algunos argumentan que no es lo suficientemente común como para justificar la modificación de las políticas de ciudadanía por derecho de nacimiento que han estado vigentes por mucho tiempo.

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