While announcing an investment in clean energy programs, Vice President Kamala Harris mistakenly said “reduce population” when she meant “reduce pollution.” Online posts shared a video of the gaffe and misleadingly claimed “her goal is to reduce population to fight climate change.” The transcript of her remarks shows the mistake and corrects it.
As a former 2020 presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris — now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate — was on our fact-checking radar this election cycle. Here’s a rundown of the claims we addressed.
A post on social media falsely claims to show litter left behind by Climate Strike protesters in London on Sept. 20. The photo is from a completely unrelated event in April.
Making a point about Defense Department waste, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang related a secondhand story about a Navy fighter pilot who said that airmen routinely dumped fuel into the Pacific Ocean at the end of the fiscal year as a way to preserve the following year’s fuel budget. But the story doesn’t add up.
Just as CNN was beginning its climate town hall event, President Donald Trump tweeted a list of “8 facts” boasting of the nation’s air quality and carbon emissions reductions. Several of his “facts,” however, are inaccurate or misleading.
In a July 8 speech dedicated to the environment, President Donald Trump made a series of misleading or false statements as he played up the U.S.’s environmental achievements, many of which predate his time as commander-in-chief.
Joe Biden distorted the facts when he asserted that the auto industry thought the Obama administration’s fuel standards were “a good idea” and that automakers “didn’t even agree” with President Donald Trump’s proposal to roll them back.
Headlines shared widely on social media misleadingly tell readers New York City will “ban” hot dogs. A city spokesman told us a plan to phase out government purchases of processed meats and reduce purchases of beef “would not impact hot dogs” sold “at baseball games, street vendors, restaurants, etc.”
Falsely declaring that he has “always” been a supporter of the Great Lakes, President Donald Trump announced that he would fully fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative with $300 million, telling a Michigan crowd he would finally get done something they “have been trying to get for over 30 years.”
We explain what the Green New Deal includes — and doesn’t — and why there is confusion over some of the content.