An ad from a super PAC supporting Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley features a heart-wrenching testimonial from the father of a woman who was murdered in 2025. The ad falsely implies the accused murderer was one of the prisoners released during the COVID-19 pandemic when Whatley’s Democratic opponent, Roy Cooper, was governor of North Carolina. Cooper had nothing to do with the accused murderer’s release.
A TV ad attacks Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s decision during the COVID-19 pandemic to release more than 1,800 prisoners convicted of non-violent or non-sexual felonies. But the details of the case featured in the ad don’t fit the ad’s narrative.
Political ads and social media attacks by opponents of Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman have sought to portray Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor as dangerously soft on crime, but some of the claims stretch the facts.
In this video, we review several false and misleading claims that President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden made at the final presidential debate on Oct. 22.
The candidates repeated talking points from the stump and added some new twists on the facts.
President Donald Trump suggests that the percentage of “illegal aliens” in federal prisons supports the need for a border wall. But it’s misleading to look only at the federal prison population, since state prisons and local jails house approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population.
Q: Did former President Barack Obama pardon Wendell Callahan, who was later accused of killing three people after his early release?
A: No. Congress unanimously passed a bill changing drug sentencing laws and Obama signed it. Callahan petitioned for early release under the new law and it was approved by a federal judge.