Former President Donald Trump left a note for President Joe Biden, contrary to a popular claim online suggesting that he did not. Biden confirmed he received a letter, which he called “generous,” but did not disclose its contents.
Before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, social media users shared a false claim that there was no flag flying over the White House — suggesting it was a sign that the military had taken control of the government. In fact, the flag was flying above the White House on Jan. 20, and Biden is president.
Returning to a time when inaugural addresses promised unity and hope, but few facts, the newly sworn-in President Joe Biden delivered a traditional speech at his inauguration that offered little for fact-checkers.
A raging virus, a struggling economy and a fast-growing mountain of debt.
A bogus headline on social media claims that President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration has been cancelled and that major TV networks are set to “lose” their “licenses.” The falsehood relies on a debunked post wrongly claiming that President Donald Trump has “invoked” the Insurrection Act and will remain in power.
The process of certifying Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States occurred in the early morning hours of Jan. 7, after being disrupted by rioters and delayed by Republicans who repeated false and misleading claims about the election results.
A hand count of paper ballots in Antrim County, Michigan, has verified the election results there, refuting a “forensics report” promoted by President Donald Trump that baselessly claimed the election equipment in the county was “designed” to create “systemic fraud and influence election results.” Experts said the faulty report showed a misunderstanding of voting system technology.
Our list of the 10 most egregious falsehoods of the year.
Facebook posts have repeated a false claim about a “one in a quadrillion” chance that President-elect Joe Biden received more votes than President Donald Trump in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Experts told us the claim misuses a questionable statistical analysis that made implausible assumptions about the 2020 election.
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.