Rem Rieder — an editor at the Washington Post, Miami Herald, American Journalism Review and USA TODAY — looks back at his year of fact-checking in the age of Donald Trump.
Checking the Facts in the World of Trump
Locations: National
No ‘Landslide’ for Biden, Either
Back in 2016, Donald Trump wrongly called his victory a “landslide.” Now, some are taking a page out of Trump’s book to claim Biden won in a landslide. He didn’t, either.
The Facts on Trump’s Post-Election Legal Challenges
For this story, we ignore the tweets and press conferences and look at what the president’s lawyers have been saying in court. Two things stick out: a lack of evidence of voter fraud and a long string of legal defeats and setbacks.
Paul Misleads on Natural Infection and COVID-19 Vaccines
In a tweet, Sen. Rand Paul misleadingly suggested that immunity from “[n]aturally acquired” COVID-19 was better than that from a vaccine. But it’s not known how immunity from the two sources compares — and the entire point of a vaccine is to offer immunity without the risk of getting sick.
U.S. Army Didn’t Seize Election Servers in Germany
A congressman and conservative news outlets are spreading the baseless claim that the U.S. Army seized an election software company’s server in Frankfurt, Germany, that could supposedly prove there was fraud in the 2020 election. There was no such seizure — and the company doesn’t even have a server in Frankfurt.
Rand Paul Baselessly Says Only Anti-Trump Protesters Arrested at MAGA March
Sen. Rand Paul claimed without evidence that only counterprotesters were arrested at the Million MAGA March and its tumultuous aftermath, and that they were solely responsible for the outbreaks of violence there.
Trump Tweets Conspiracy Theory About Deleted Votes
In a tweet, President Donald Trump on Nov. 12 pushed the baseless theory that voting systems deleted millions of votes for him and switched thousands of votes cast for him to his Democratic rival, President-elect Joe Biden.
Pennsylvania Postal Worker Waffles on Election Fraud Claim
A postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania, claimed that his superiors were backdating postmarks on ballots, then told federal investigators that he didn’t actually know that — and then went back to his original position. Despite the flimsiness of the claim, President Donald Trump and his supporters have used it in their effort to blame widespread election fraud for his electoral defeat.
Trump Baselessly Alleges COVID-19 Vaccine Announcement Was Delayed
In a series of tweets, President Donald Trump claimed — without evidence — that the pharma company Pfizer and his own FDA purposely held off on releasing positive interim results about a COVID-19 vaccine candidate until after the election.
Misleading Claim of Dead Registered Voters in Pennsylvania
A misleading claim that more than 21,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania are dead is circulating online. The figure comes from a conservative group that failed to convince a federal judge in October that its list was accurate.