President Donald Trump and others in his circle have portrayed political violence as a problem exclusively or mostly on the left, which has then been used as justification for proposals that seek to crack down on left-leaning groups. While there is evidence of a rise in left-wing violence in recent years, data show that political violence in America spans the ideological spectrum.
Heated exchanges between some senators and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a Sept. 4 hearing amplified confusion about the availability of COVID-19 vaccinations for the fall, with Kennedy misleadingly claiming that “anybody” can still get a vaccine. HHS policies have created roadblocks to vaccine access.
Q: Did President Donald Trump solve seven wars in seven months?
A: Trump has claimed he “ended” six or seven wars since returning to the White House in January. Experts in international relations said the president has had a significant role in ending fighting in four conflicts, though officials in one country refute Trump’s claim. But some of the international disagreements Trump cites have not been wars, and some clashes have not ended, experts said.
President Donald Trump launched his second-term assault on mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines on Aug. 18, firing off a series of unfounded claims while announcing an effort to do away with both.
In the battle over Texas’ redistricting plan to pick up Republican House seats, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have made competing claims.
About six months into the second term of President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats are making conflicting and often misleading assessments of the Trump administration’s impact on inflation and prices. Both sides cherry-pick examples of consumer products to support their claims, while sometimes wrongly taking credit for lower prices or falsely casting blame for rising costs.
Border Czar Tom Homan has been repeating the misleading claim that there are “over 600,000 illegal aliens with criminal records walking the streets of this nation.” That number includes legal immigrants, not just those who entered the country illegally; about a third of them have only been charged, not convicted; and it’s unclear how many of them have been, or currently are, incarcerated.
As the Republican budget bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, nears the July 4 deadline set by the White House, lawmakers have been ramping up the rhetoric. We referee the claims from both sides.
Q: Has President Donald Trump issued a rule that VA doctors can refuse treatment to Democrats?
A: No. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs changed the wording in its bylaws to comply with recent executive orders. In making the changes, words including “national origin, politics, marital status” were removed from language prohibiting discrimination. But existing federal law already prohibits discrimination on those grounds, the VA says.
The disagreement between President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom over Trump deploying state National Guard troops to Los Angeles is now being debated in court. We’ll explain how the situation developed and answer some common questions.