Republican and Democratic leaders have either downplayed or overstated the estimated impact of the House reconciliation bill on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that due to work requirements in the bill, 3.2 million people would lose all of their SNAP benefits, which provide financial help to low-income people for groceries.
Stories by Alan Jaffe
Checking the Math on White House, GOP Claims About ‘Big Beautiful Bill’
Multiple independent analyses say the recently passed House reconciliation bill — even with its deep spending cuts in some areas — would add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit over 10 years. Those analyses contradict Republican lawmakers who have downplayed the net cost of the bill and White House claims that it wouldn’t increase the deficit at all.
Trump, Allies Spread Unfounded Claims About Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis
Former President Joe Biden’s office announced on May 18 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer two days earlier, following the discovery of a prostate nodule. President Donald Trump and others have suggested, without evidence, that Biden’s diagnosis had been known much earlier and hidden from the public.
Unwrapping Qatar’s $400 Million Winged Gift to Trump
President Donald Trump announced that the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar was giving the United States a Boeing 747-8 jet to replace the aging Air Force One aircrafts used by the president. But the proposed gift has raised a maelstrom of legal questions from Democrats, who say the gift would need the approval of Congress.
Was Record of Heroic Nurse Wiped from Defense Department Archives?
Q: Did President Donald Trump call military nurse Ruby Bradley a “loser,” and were there orders for her service history to be removed from Department of Defense archives?
A: There’s no evidence for these claims. We could find no record of Trump referring to nurse Ruby Bradley, who received 34 medals for her service during World War II and the Korean War. A Pentagon spokesperson told us that there was “nothing deleted and/or taken offline related to Ruby Bradley”
Tracking Trump’s Promises at the 100-Day Mark
Trump’s Misleading Promotion of ‘Clean’ Coal
While presenting a series of executive orders conceived to increase electricity generation from coal, President Donald Trump misleadingly suggested that environmental regulations were to blame for the industry’s decline, wrongly said that coal plants are being opened “all over Germany,” and misleadingly, and repeatedly, referred to coal as “clean.”
Legal Scholars Dispute Constitutional ‘Loophole’ for a Third Trump Term
President Donald Trump said in a March 30 interview that “there are methods” for him to serve a third term in the White House, and a Daily Mail article referred to a “loophole” in the 22nd Amendment that would make it possible. But legal experts told us the “loophole” legal argument is “implausible” and “defeats the clear intent” of the amendment.
Viral Posts Share Phony ‘Leaked’ Audio of Vance Criticizing Musk
Vice President JD Vance has said White House adviser Elon Musk has made “mistakes” in his work with the Department of Government Efficiency. But social media posts are sharing what experts said is a manipulated audio clip that purports to be Vance making much harsher remarks about Musk. The vice president’s spokesperson called the clip “100% fake.”
Posts Fabricate Claims About Trump’s Response to Duterte’s Arrest
In 2017, President Donald Trump expressed admiration for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drug suspects. But social media posts have falsely claimed that Trump has ordered Duterte’s release from the International Criminal Court, where he faces charges of crimes against humanity. We could find no response from Trump regarding Duterte’s arrest.