Every election cycle since 2010, we have published profiles of some of the many outside groups trying to influence who gets elected to Congress and the White House. Today, we’re launching our latest Players Guide with write-ups of eight of the biggest spenders so far for the 2026 midterms.
Announcing a pause on more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to Minnesota and California last month, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz accused state officials of being too lax about fraud, citing among other things the results of a provider verification process in Minnesota and the rapid growth of a California home care program. But he left out important context in both cases.
In a contentious interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made several false, misleading and baseless claims about the origins of Lyme disease and the respiratory syncytial virus, the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the science shows about autism, vaccination and acetaminophen use during pregnancy.
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.
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.
FactCheck.org has won the 2025 Sigma Delta Chi award for fact-checking from the Society of Professional Journalists. This is our fourth win in the fact-checking category and our fifth award from SPJ overall.