Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have been tasked by President Donald Trump with slashing federal spending. But social media posts falsely claim that as part of that effort, DOGE stopped “royalties” to former President Barack Obama related to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. The claim came from a satirical website.
A few speakers put some spin on the facts about Trump’s plans for another term.
Donald Trump said that when he was president, he told the leader of a large NATO country that if the country was “delinquent” in its payments to NATO and Russia attacked it, “I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” Trump has long mischaracterized what he calls “delinquent” payments.
Efforts to stop child sex trafficking in the U.S. have been underway for decades, led by presidents including Joe Biden. But an Instagram post makes the false claims that former President Donald Trump was the first to “acknowledge that children are being sold for sex in the U.S.” and that Biden “rescinded” a Trump order addressing the problem.
Former President Donald Trump made a series of faulty comparisons to other past presidents to argue that he was being held to a double standard regarding the FBI’s pursuit of his presidential documents.
The votes are still being counted and the results are unofficial, but former Vice President Joe Biden already has surpassed former President Barack Obama’s record of 69.4 million votes in 2008. But conservative personalities on social media falsely dismiss that achievement as “a damn lie.”
Facebook users falsely claim a post critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was written by actor Clint Eastwood. A nearly identical post aimed at former President Barack Obama — and also misattributed to Eastwood — has circulated since 2013.
A popular bar graph on social media claims to show that the number of human trafficking arrests skyrocketed under President Donald Trump, compared to those under former President Barack Obama. But the chart misleads by using cherry-picked and, in some cases, faulty numbers.
An image circulating on social media claims to show former President Barack Obama, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Melinda Gates at the “Wuhan lab in 2015.” The photo was actually taken at the National Institutes of Health campus in Maryland — and Melinda Gates is not in the picture.
President Donald Trump has falsely claimed his administration invested “$2.5 trillion in all of the greatest equipment in the world” for the military. That’s approximately the total for defense budgets from 2017 to 2020, but the cost of purchasing new military equipment was 20% of that.