President Joe Biden said in April 2022 that some of the funding in a Ukraine aid package that Congress later overwhelmingly approved could be used to pay pensions for Ukrainians amid the ongoing war with Russia. That is not a new development, as several viral tweets have misleadingly claimed in recent days.
The derailment of a freight train carrying toxic chemicals in eastern Ohio has sparked a slew of unfounded claims by conservative commentators. There’s no indication that this incident will rise to the level of a “domestic Chernobyl”; it has been covered steadily by the media; federal and state agencies are monitoring air and water quality and its impact on people and animals.
Responding to a question on what NATO could do to deter Russia’s nuclear threat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said NATO and its allies should use “preventive actions” against Russia. But the Kremlin and social media posts have misquoted Zelensky, claiming he referred to nuclear strikes when he was referring to economic sanctions against Russia.
Health problems that are reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System after vaccination are not necessarily caused by a vaccine. Yet social media posts distorted a comment from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official about such reports to falsely say he admitted the vaccines cause “debilitating illnesses.”
Former President Donald Trump says two Jan. 6, 2021, tweets that the “highly partisan January 6th Committee” tried to hide have now been “fully restored” by Twitter and “fully exonerate me.” But the posts are included, and discussed at length, in the committee’s final report.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland wears head coverings on the House floor to cover his hair loss while undergoing treatment for cancer. Social media posts falsely claim that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, refused to allow Raskin to wear his head covering. The posts misinterpret a joke Raskin made in response to a question.
President Joe Biden has said there are hundreds, if not a thousand, billionaires paying lower federal tax rates than schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters and nurses. What his audience may not know is that his comparison relies on including wealthy families’ gains on unsold stock as income.
Moderna’s CEO said in January that the company’s total production in 2019 was “100,000 dose,” referring to all its vaccines and therapeutics. Online posts distorted the remarks to falsely claim Moderna made COVID-19 vaccines “before the pandemic started.” Moderna’s first batch of COVID-19 vaccines wasn’t ready until February 2020.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said in April 2021 that they do not believe America is a racist nation — although both have said America has a history of racism and racism does exist in the country today.
Former President Donald Trump’s latest defense for having classified documents found by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago home is that many of them were simply “empty folders” stamped “classified” on the outside that Trump kept as mementos. The FBI says it did find dozens of empty folders, but it also found 103 classified documents.