FactCheck.org's Weekly Update

For nearly two months, President Trump has touted an 85% decline in the nation’s COVID-19 case fatality rate since April — and has attributed the drop to improvements in treatment. But better treatment is only part of the story.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says President Trump has been “clear” in calling for the public to “wear face coverings when you can’t social distance.” The official messaging from the White House has been clear. The president’s statements have been anything but.

The president repeatedly sows doubt about mail-in voting, echoing what intelligence officials have said is a Russian strategy to undermine public trust in the election. We review his statements this month and recap our stories on his false, misleading and unsupported claims.

Continuing a yearslong trend, President Donald Trump made false and misleading comments about new auto plants in Michigan, and the industry at large.

At a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Nevada voters are not required to sign their mail ballots and, if they do sign them, the signatures don’t have to be verified.

President Trump has repeatedly conflated winning a Nobel Peace Prize with being nominated for one, and has wrongly faulted the media for ignoring his nomination after making former President Obama’s nomination in 2009 “the biggest story I’ve ever seen.”

President Trump’s reelection campaign claims a video it posted on social media shows Joe Biden botching the Pledge of Allegiance. But Biden’s words were taken out of context. He wasn’t trying to recite the full pledge, as the post could lead some to believe.

At a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that a Pennsylvania court had permitted election officials “to take as long as they want” to count mail-in ballots.

Joe Biden made false and exaggerated claims while arguing that the Senate should let the next president choose Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court replacement. 

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have made competing claims about Biden’s early statements on the coronavirus.

A Facebook user claims the cost of her insulin dropped 75% thanks to “Trumps Prescription Bill.” There has been no such legislation passed, and actions by the Trump administration aimed at lowering prescription drug costs have yet to take effect.

A social media post claims that Social Security checks have not been sent by mail “since 2013 because it’s not secure.” The Social Security Administration required electronic payment transfers in compliance with a 1996 federal law — not due to security concerns. Even so, about 850,000 checks are still mailed each month.

A clip from a television interview with former Vice President Joe Biden is circulating online with the false claim that he is reading from a teleprompter. Actually, Biden was looking at a screen showing a viewer’s question before he looks at the interviewer in the room with him.

Social media posts — without evidence — have accused McDonald’s of taking down American flags in support of Black Lives Matter and antifa. The company says that is “not true.”

Facebook posts claim that President Donald Trump has withheld aid from California to fight wildfires, while offering help to Russia. That’s a rehash of a controversy in 2019, when Trump threatened to withhold aid from California, while offering help to Russia. The Trump administration has provided federal assistance to California for the recent wildfires.

After Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, social media users reprised a false claim about the late Supreme Court justice — arguing she wanted to “lower the age of consent for sex to 12.” The old falsehood is a distortion of a report she co-authored in the 1970s on sex bias in federal laws.

Facebook posts falsely claim that the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was “nominated and confirmed 43 days before an election.” She was nominated and confirmed more than three years before the next presidential election.

Viral social media posts falsely claim that no one has died at home from COVID-19, implying that poor medical care contributed to the deaths or that the disease is a hoax. Nearly 10,000 coronavirus victims have died in their homes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An image of a bogus tweet supposedly from the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about Hillary Clinton began circulating after Ginsburg’s death. Ginsburg does not have a personal Twitter account, and did not author the tweet claiming knowledge of “information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.”

Facebook posts claim that Sen. Kamala Harris said, “I like taking the guns early.” She didn’t say that, but President Donald Trump did.