President Donald Trump has blamed improper forest management for Canadian wildfires whose smoke drifted into the Midwestern and Northeastern U.S. earlier this month. But climate change — and not a lack of “Debris Removal,” as Trump suggested — is the main factor leading to worsening Canadian wildfires and smoke pollution, experts from both sides of the border told us.
Multiple Democratic lawmakers have claimed that 8 million Americans have lost healthcare coverage as a result of the Trump-backed budget reconciliation bill that passed a year ago, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But experts told us the enrollment declines seen to date are largely due to other factors — including other Trump administration policies.
Our quarterly series presents just the statistics on various measures since Trump reentered the White House.
As a large outbreak of cyclospora has ravaged the Midwest, Democrats have frequently pinned blame on the Trump administration for terminating a monitoring program for the parasite. But the change to the program, called FoodNet, is unlikely to have played much of a direct role in the current outbreak, several food safety experts told us.
In claiming that American voting machines are vulnerable to manipulation, President Donald Trump provided an incomplete and distorted summary of the CIA’s reporting about Venezuelan efforts to manipulate electronic voting machines in that country.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that so-called Trump accounts, new federal investment and savings accounts for children, “could grow to hundreds of thousands of dollars” by the time children turn 18. That’s only true if parents or other donors contribute thousands of dollars per year, per child, assuming that future returns are close to the historic stock market averages.
In a July 16 prime-time speech that warned of “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure,” President Donald Trump cast doubt on the country’s ability to hold “free and fair elections” but offered no evidence that widespread fraud had occurred.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has baselessly tied alleged declines in sperm counts among teenagers to a “fertility crisis” or an “explosion in infertility.”
President Donald Trump said at a June faith conference that “religion is back in our country, bigger and stronger than it has been in many, many years” and “it’s going up.” The statement is misleading, as multiple surveys show lower religious affiliation and engagement than in past years — despite a recent rise in the perceived influence of religion in America.
Q: Does Barack Obama still owe contractors or subcontractors money for work done on his presidential library in Chicago?
A: Some subcontractors have said they were not paid for their work. The Obama Foundation told us that the construction project manager (Lakeside Alliance) has the “primary responsibility” to “hire and manage all the subcontractors for the project.” The foundation said it has “no outstanding disputed charges” with Lakeside Alliance nor “direct legal agreements or contracts” with subcontractors.
