Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has launched a new general election ad that falsely labels Vice President Kamala Harris the “border czar” and falsely suggests that 10 million people illegally crossed the southern border on her watch and are still “here.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has given children’s health and the “chronic disease epidemic” a prominent role in his campaign. Diagnoses of a variety of chronic conditions in children have increased in recent decades, but likely not to the extent that Kennedy claims or for the reasons he gives.
Netflix Co-founder and Executive Chairman Reed Hastings reportedly made a $7 million donation to a super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president. But some social media posts inaccurately claim that “Netflix just donated 7 million to Kamala.” The contribution was from Hastings, not the company.
When Vice President Kamala Harris was the attorney general of California in 2014, she announced a program to help young people transitioning out of the criminal justice system. She glibly referred to the 18-24 age group as “stupid,” saying people that age “make really bad decisions.” But social media posts have taken her words out of context.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation on social media began clouding coverage of the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump almost immediately after it happened. We addressed several of those claims.
Viral online posts make the unfounded claim that a woman at former President Donald Trump’s July 13 rally acted “suspicious,” suggesting that she might have been involved in a plot to assassinate Trump, and that a QAnon-related character may have also been involved. The FBI has said that the “investigation to date indicates the shooter acted alone.”
A chart widely shared on social media comparing macroeconomic indicators purports to show the country fared better under former President Donald Trump than President Joe Biden. However, the chart cites some figures that are inaccurate, outdated or misleading.
During his speech at the Republican National Convention, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota talked about “rioters” in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd in 2020, and misleadingly said that Vice President Kamala Harris “freed” from jail one of “the criminals” who “went on to murder a man” in neighboring St. Paul. Emmer is distorting the facts.
In an interview two days after an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden drew contrasts between himself, his Republican challenger, and Trump’s newly selected vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. We found that Biden made some claims that were misleading, exaggerated or out of context.
Posts from the anonymous online forum 4Chan have been spreading the false claim that Secret Service officials prevented an agent named “Jonathan Willis” from shooting former President Donald Trump’s attempted assassin. The Secret Service has no employee by that name, and the claim is “categorically false,” the agency said.