Tag Archives: The Washington Post’s Fact Checker

McConnell, Schumer, Ryan, Pelosi fact-checked clips featured in new TV News Archive collections

Today the Internet Archive’s TV News Archive unveils growing TV news collections focused on congressional leadership and top Trump administration officials, expanding our experimental Trump Archive to other newsworthy government officials. Together, all of the collections include links to more than 1,200 fact-checked clips–and counting–by our national fact-checking partners, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker.

These experimental video clip collections, which contain more than 3,500 hours of video, include archives focused on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky.; Sen. Minority Leader Charles (“Chuck”) Schumer, D., N.Y.; House Speaker Paul Ryan, R., Wis.; and House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., as well as top Trump officials past and present such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Download a csv of fact-checked video statements or see all the fact-checked clips.

Visit the U.S. Congress archive.

Visit the Executive Branch archive.

Visit the Trump Archive.

We created these largely hand-curated collections as part of our experimentation in demonstrating how Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms could be harnessed to create useful, ethical, public resources for journalists and researchers in the months and years ahead. Other experiments include:

  • the Political TV Ad Archive, which tracked airings of political ads in the 2016 elections by using the Duplitron, an open source audio fingerprinting tool;
  • the Trump Archive, launched in January;
  • Face-O-Matic, an experimental Slack app created in partnership with Matroid that uses facial detection to find congressional leaders’ faces on TV news. Face-O-Matic has quickly proved its mettle by helping our researchers find clips suitable for inclusion in the U.S. Congress Archive; future plans include making data available in CSV and JSON formats.
  • in the works: TV Architect Tracey Jaquith is experimenting with detection of text in the chyrons that run on the bottom third of cable TV news channels. Stay tuned.

Red check mark shows there’s a fact-check in this footage featuring House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif. Follow the link below the clip to see the fact-check, in this case by The Washington Post’s Fact Checker.

At present, our vast collection of TV news –1.4 million shows collected since 2009–is searchable via closed-captioning. But closed captions, while helpful, can’t help a user find clips of a particular person speaking; instead, when searching a name such as “Charles Schumer” it returns a mix of news stories about the congressman, as well as clips where he speaks at news conferences, on the Senate floor, or in other venues.

We are working towards a future in which AI enrichment of video metadata will more precisely identify for fact-checkers and researchers when a public official is actually speaking, or some other televised record of that official making an assertion of fact. This could include, for example, camera footage of tweets.

Such clips become a part of the historical record, with online links that don’t rot, a central part of the Internet Archive’s mission to preserve knowledge. And they can help fact-checkers decide where to concentrate their efforts, by finding on-the-record assertions of fact by public officials. Finally, these collections could prove useful for teachers, documentary makers, or anybody interested in exploring on-the-record statements by public officials.

For example, here are two dueling views of the minimum wage, brought to the public by McConnell and Schumer.

In this interview on Fox News in January 2014, McConnell says, “The minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people.” PolitiFact’s Steve Contorno rated this claim as “mostly true.” While government statistics do show that half of the people making the minimum wage are young, 20 percent are in their late 20s or early 30s and another 30 percent are 35 or older. Contorno also points out that it’s a stretch to call these jobs “entry-level,” but rather are “in the food or retail businesses or similar industries with little hope for career advancement.”

Schumer presents a different assertion on the minimum wage, saying on “Morning Joe” in May 2014 that with a rate of $10.10/hour “you get out of poverty.” PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson rated this claim as “half true”: “Since the households helped by the $10.10 wage account for 46 percent of all impoverished households, Schumer is right slightly less than half the time.”

These new collections reflect the hard work of many at the Internet Archive, including Robin Chin, Katie Dahl, Tracey Jaquith, Roger MacDonald, Dan Schultz, and Nancy Watzman.

As we move forward, we would love to hear from you. Contact us with questions, ideas, and concerns at tvnews@archive.org. And to keep up-to-date with our experiments, sign up for our weekly TV News Archive newsletter.

 

TV News Record: adventures with Face-O-Matic

A weekly round up on what’s happening at the TV News Archive by Katie Dahl and Nancy Watzman

This week we bring you adventures with Face-O-Matic; fact-checks on President Donald Trump’s legislative record and on health care reform; and we follow the TV on use of the term “lies” and “lying.”

Here’s a face, there’s a face, everywhere a face…

Face-O-Matic, our new experimental Slack app that finds faces of political leaders on major national cable networks, has given us a whole new perspective on how imagery is used in news production. Sure, Face-O-Matic picks up clips of President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., and others speaking, whether on the floor, at press conferences, or at a luncheon.

However, often these elected officials’ faces are used to illustrate a point a news anchor is making, or in footage without audio, sometimes as a floating head somewhere on the screen, or as part of a tweet. Face-O-Matic even picks up faces in a crowd.

Face-O-Matic can help find frequently re-aired clips.

Face-O-Matic can find even images that are only briefly displayed on the screen.

Face-O-Matic finds both still and video of Trump in a single clip.

Please take Face-O-Matic on a spin and share your feedback with us, tvnews@archive.org. This blog post explains how it fits into our overall plan to turn TV news into data. To install,  for now you’ll need to ask your Slack team administrator or owner to set it up. The administrator can click on the button below to get started. Visit Slack to learn how to set up or join a Slack team. Questions? Contact Dan Schultz, dan.schultz@archive.org.

Fact-check: Trump has signed more bills than any president ever (wrong)

News cameras captured Trump saying, “We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president ever.” (A moment later, he commented that he doesn’t “like Pinocchios,” referring to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker rating system.)

Glenn Kessler, reporting for that same fact-checking site, explained why Trump is not, in fact, besting his predecessors in the White House when it comes to bill signing. But, he refrains from stating how many Pinocchios the president had earned: “Tempted as we are to give the president Pinocchios for his statement, he seemed to be speaking off the cuff and was operating on outdated information from his first 100 days. We don’t play gotcha here at The Fact Checker, and we appreciate that he added a caveat. He certainly appeared to pause for a moment and wonder if he was right. For Trump, that’s a step in the right direction…But he’s way off the mark and actually falling behind in legislative output.”



Fact-check: “bushel” of Pence claims on health care reform (range from “twists the facts” to “false”)

Also writing for The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Michelle Ye Hee Lee checked a number of statements Vice President Mike Pence made about the Senate health care reform bill during an appearance at the National Governors Association.

These included, for example, the claim, “I know Governor Kasich isn’t with us, but I suspect that he’s very troubled to know that in Ohio alone, nearly 60,000 disabled citizens are stuck on waiting lists, leaving them without the care they need for months or even years.”

Lee wrote that this claim is false: “[T]here’s no evidence the wait lists are tied to Medicaid expansion. We previously gave four Pinocchios to a similar claim….The expansion and wait list populations are separate, and expansion doesn’t necessarily affect the wait list population….Whether people move off the wait list depends on many factors, such as how urgent their needs are, how long they’ll need services and whether the states have money to pay for them. Many times, a slot opens up only if someone receiving services moves out of the state or dies.”



Follow the TV

There’s been much controversy in news gathering circles about when, whether, and how to invoke the word “lie” when reporting on public officials. One of our archivists, Robin Chin, has noticed a number of prominent uses of the term by commentators in recent TV news coverage.

For example, here’s Shepard Smith on Fox News on July 14 saying, “Jared Kushner filled out his form. I think it’s an F-86 saying who he met with and what he had done… He went back and added 100 names and places. None of these people made it… Why is it lie after lie after lie? … My grandmother used to say when first we practice to — oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. The deception, Chris, is mind boggling.”

And here’s Tom Brokaw on July 16 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying: “Certainly there are atmospherics here that call to mind Watergate, the kind of denial of the obvious and the petty lying that is going on. But at the same time, Watergate, I like to think, was there by itself and this president is entangling himself in that kind of discussion they we’re having here today when it’s not in the interest of anyone, most of all this country, when we have so many issues before us. It’s got to get cleaned up.

On July 17, on “CNN: Tonight With Don Lemon,” here is David Gergen saying: “Other presidents succeed at this by just being straightforward about the facts. And it’s gone on for so long and so duplicitous and so much double speak that you begin to wonder, this is quite intentional. This may be quite intentional. You create a fog bank of lies and uncertainties and vagueness and create so many different details that people just sort of say, the hell with that, I don’t want to watch this… My sense is that a lot of Americans are starting to tune out…”

Search captions for terms you are interested in at the TV News Archive. For trends, try the Television Explorer, built by data scientist Kalev Leetaru, and powered by TV News Archive data, which can provide quick visualizations of terms broken down by network.

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TV News Record: Donald Trump Jr makes “email” popular on TV again

This week the term “email” took on a new meaning in the annals of political controversy, President Donald Trump traveled to Poland, and the Senate continued to struggle with health care reform.

Email back on TV following Trump Jr.’s release of email exchange

Email as a technology may be on the way out (or just evolving), but its place in political history, already assured, got an even bigger boost this week when Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday released a June 2016 email chain in which he exclaimed “I love it” to the prospect of receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton through Russian intermediaries.

The term “email” is spiking again on TV news broadcasts, though it has not yet climbed to levels in the lead up to the November 2016 elections. In those months, particularly Fox news networks hammered on storylines of both hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to do official business while serving as secretary of state.

However, with congressional and federal investigations of possible Russian tampering with the elections underway, we are early in the life cycle of this story. Stay tuned, and remember that searching terms on TV news is just a few clicks away on Television Explorer, which is fueled by TV News Archive data.

Search of term “emails” on Television Explorer, fueled by TV News Archive data. (Click on image to see larger.)



Following the TV 

The Watergate movie “All the President’s Men,” made the term “follow the money” an inspiration for journalists everywhere; thanks to the TV News Archive, enterprising reporters and researchers can “follow the TV” – find and link to past statements of public officials relevant to a current story.

With this week’s news putting Russia’s involvement in the election back in the headlines, past statements by members of the Trump camp become interesting watching. For example, here’s former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in July 2016, saying “that’s absurd” to the allegation of a Putin-Trump connection.  Here’s Donald Trump Jr. in July 2016 saying it was “disgusting” to say the DNC email hack was perpetrated by the Russian government to support Trump. And here is advisor Kellyanne Conway in December 2016 saying “absolutely not” to a question about whether the Trump campaign was in contact with Russians trying to influence the election.



Factcheck: Obama knew about Russian interference in election and did nothing about it (mostly false)

At a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda last week, President Trump said “Barack Obama when he was president found out about this, in terms of if it were Russia, found out about it in August. Now the election was in November. That is a lot of time he did nothing about it.”

According to Lauren Carroll reporting for Politifact, the Obama administration took several steps after learning of the interference. Among them: “Obama personally confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin and told him to back off… On Oct. 7, the Obama administration publicly identified Russia for the first time as being behind election-related hacks, issuing a joint statement from Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence… Also, throughout August and up through the election, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson encouraged state-level election officials, through official statements and phone calls, to protect voting-related systems from cyber intrusions…However, the Obama administration took its most significant actions against Russia after Nov. 8. In late December, Obama ordered 35 Russian diplomats and suspected intelligence agents to leave the United States, and he also imposed narrow sanctions on some Russian individuals and organizations.”



Factcheck:  Billions are pouring into NATO because of the Trump administration (four Pinocchios)

During a speech in Poland last week, President Donald Trump said about about his calls for increased defense spending by other countries for NATO, “As a result of this insistence, billions of dollars more have begun to pour into NATO.”

“These budget decisions were made during the 2016 calendar year, before Trump became president,” reported Michelle Ye Hee Lee, for The Washington Post’s Fact Checker. She quoted Alexander Vershbow, former deputy secretary general of NATO, who said: “Who deserves the most credit? Vladimir Putin. It was the invasion of Crimea, the launching of insurgency backed by Russia in Eastern Ukraine, that was the wake-up call for the majority of the allies.”



Factcheck: hundreds of thousands will die if the Senate health care bill passes (can’t say)

With the Senate debating health care reform, FactCheck.org checked a recent statement by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif, where she said, “We do know that… hundreds of thousands of people will die if this bill (Senate health care bill) passes.”

Lori Robertson and Robert Farley wrote, “the research uses terms like ‘could’ and ‘suggests’ and ‘cannot definitively demonstrate a causal relationship,’ not the definitive ‘will’ favored by opponents of the bill. We can’t say whether any specific projection is a correct or valid number.”

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TV News Record: Fox on CNN, getting Gorsuch right + fact-checks

We changed our name! Our weekly updates from the TV News Archive are now titled TV News Record, to reflect our goal of providing many ways for viewers to put the news in context, whether through fact checks from our national fact-checking partners, visualizations of patterns of news coverage, or other ways of using TV news metadata to deepen analysis of the news.

This week we present fact-checks by fact-checking groups of claims about gang arrests, fraudulent votes, the Russia investigations, and Medicaid. But first, some observations about cable news coverage of news this week and realized hopes for the newest Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch by the religious right.

Fox devotes most air time to CNN story retraction 

In a stark reminder of how which cable channel you watch affects what news you see, Dave Weigel of The Washington Post noted this week that while health care was big news on Capitol Hill Tuesday evening, Fox cable stations were busy reporting on the fallout over a retracted story by CNN related to Russia investigations: “The network’s prime-time shows, ratings kings of cable news, ignored the health-care story,” he wrote. Meanwhile, “The CNN story, sparked by a retracted report on Russia and Trump and inflamed by the sting video, sprawled across multiple segments.”

Weigel’s analysis is borne out by plugging key search terms into the Television Explorer, a tool built by data scientist Kalev Leetaru fueled by TV News Archive data. Search for the term “retraction” near “story” over the 72-hour period ending on June 30, and Fox news dominates.

A search for “retraction” near “story” over 72 hour period ending at 10:20 am ET, June 30, 2017.

The converse is also true: a similar search for “health care” near “Senate” yielded the following results, with CNN  devoting the most attention to the story, and more than four times as much as Fox News did.

“Health care” near “Senate,” 72 hour period ending 10:20 am ET, June 30 2017.

Such searches are easily done on Television Explorer. With the explosion of coverage over the past 24 hours about President Donald Trump’s tweets about MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, we’re keeping on eye on this search of “Trump” near “tweet.” Questions? Contact tvnews@archive.org.

Getting Gorsuch right

In the lead up to the Senate’s confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, many commentators noted that his appeal to conservatives was enhanced by his stance on religious issues. With the conclusion of the Court’s term on Monday, Gorsuch’s champions were vindicated with his decisions in such matters as Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, in which Gorsuch sided with the majority affirming that a church was eligible for public funding to build a playground. Here is CNN reporter Ariane de Vogue back in April 2017 explaining why the case matters:

And now on to this week’s highlighted TV news fact-checks.

Claim: MS-13 gang members are being deported by the thousands (hundreds)

At a rally speech in Iowa on June 21, President Trump said of MS-13, “They don’t like to shoot people. They like to cut people. They do things that nobody can believe. These are true animals. We are moving them out of the country by the thousands, by the thousands. We’re getting them out, MS-13.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee reported for the Washington Post’s Fact Checker that while the Trump administration has increased enforcement against gang activity, deportations “are in the hundreds, not the thousands, under Trump.”  The reporters at FactCheck.org concurred, and quoted Danielle Bennett, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who said the agency “does not track gang removals by specific gang.”

Claim: People hired for independent Russia investigations are all Hillary supporters (mostly false)

In a recent TV interview, President Trump said “I can say that the people that have been hired (for the independent Russia investigation) are all Hillary Clinton supporters, some of them worked for Hillary Clinton.”

For PolitiFact, Manuela Tobias reported “Three of the eight available Mueller hires made campaign contributions to Clinton, which undermines Trump’s statement that all are Clinton supporters. Furthermore, none of them have worked for Clinton directly. Two represented either the Clinton Foundation or an aide, never her, and working for WilmerHale, which has also represented key members of Trump’s White House.”

You’re grandfathered in if you became a Medicaid recipient under Obamacare (mostly false)

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday about the proposed GOP health care legislation, “If you became a Medicaid recipient through the Obamacare expansion, you are grandfathered in.”

Joshua Gillin reported for PolitiFact, “The ‘grandfathered expansion enrollees’ would have to maintain near-continuous coverage, with no breaks of more than a month, in order to get the higher rate.” He continued, “Continuous coverage can be hard for Medicaid recipients to maintain. Medicaid patients have to continuously provide proof of income, and if a patient goes over the income limit, they lose coverage. This is a concept known as churning.”

Claim: 5.7 million undocumented immigrants might have voted in 2008 (wrong)

On a recent morning show, Fox co-host Ainsley Earhardt said of the 2008 election, “5.7 million – that’s how many illegal immigrants might have voted.”

According to Amy Sherman at PolitiFact, “Trump has made repeated claims about massive voter fraud and election rigging, which we’ve debunked again and again and again and again and again and again and again (and we debunked a claim by his spokesman Sean Spicer).” She goes on to explain that the figure used by Earhardt “is based on an extrapolation of a controversial study that relied on a very small number of responses. Researchers involved in the underlying survey of voters have cautioned against using their data to reach conclusions about noncitizen voters.”

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TV news fact-checked: health care & more + this press briefing will not be televised

by Katie Dahl and Nancy Watzman

This week the Senate released its version of health care, so to mark the occasion we offer a trio of recent health care fact checks from The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker. Other fact-checking highlights include: a claim that Saudia Arabia has been spending money on Trump hotels (true, says PolitiFact) and Ivanka Trump asserts American workers have a skill gap (also true, reports Politifact).

But before we present these fact-checks, we pause for a moment to present this commentary from CNN’s Jim Acosta on the White House’s refusal to allow cameras in a growing number of press briefings: “That wouldn’t be tolerated in city council meetings, or at a governor’s press conference,” he noted. “And here we have the representative of the president of the United States saying no you can’t cover it that way….it’s like we’re not even covering a White House anymore…it’s like we’re just covering bad reality television, is what it feels like now.”

Claim: 1.8 million jobs will be lost as a result of the AHCA (two Pinocchios)

Earlier this month, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., said, “Americans will lose their health coverage because of his proposal. And it is a job loser. Estimated to be 1.8 million jobs lost. Donald Trump is a job loser.”

Glenn Kessler reported for the Washington Post’s Fact Checker: “We often warn readers to be wary of job claims made by politicians based on think-tank studies. This is a case in point. Pelosi was careful to say ‘estimated,’ but two groups of researchers, using apparently the same economic model, came up with different estimates of jobs losses under the AHCA by 2022 – 1.8 million and 413,000.”

Claim: the reconciliation process will be used for the AHCA (upside down Pinocchio or flip-flop)

At a recent press briefing, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., described the upcoming legislative process for the American Health Care Act, “Unfortunately, it will have to be a Republicans-only exercise. But we’re working hard to get there.”

Kessler responded that “McConnell’s position has changed, even though he will not acknowledge it. He was against the reconciliation process for health care in 2010; he has embraced it now. He was against secrecy and closed-door dealmaking before; he now oversees the most secretive health-care bill process ever. And he was against voting on a bill that was broadly unpopular — and now he is pushing for a bill even more unpopular than the ACA in 2010.”

Claim: insurers are leaving the health care exchanges because of Obamacare (three Pinocchios)

President Donald Trump talked with Republican senators about health care, saying among other claims, “Insurers are fleeing the market. Last week it was announced that one of the largest insurers is pulling out of Ohio — the great state of Ohio.”

 Kessler wrote that Trump “ignores that many say they are exiting the business because of uncertainty created by the Trump administration, in particular whether it will continue to pay ‘cost-sharing reductions’ to insurance companies. These payments help reduce co-pays and deductibles for low-income patients on the exchanges. Without those subsidies, insurance companies have to foot more of the bill.” 

Claim: Saudi Arabia is spending big on Trump Hotels (mostly true)

The attorney general for the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, said at a recent press conference that “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whose government has important business and policy before the president of the United States, has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Trump International Hotel.”

Smitha Rajan reported for PolitiFact, “The Foreign Agent Registration Act report mentions at least one filing which clearly shows that the Saudi government spent $270,000 at the Trump International Hotel for lodging and boarding expenses between October 2016 and March 2017. It’s not clear whether the entire expenses were paid before or after Trump became president. Our research showed it was some of  both.”

Claim: there are 6 million job openings but workers don’t have the skills needed (true)

During a recent interview on Fox & Friends, Ivanka Trump, assistant to the president and daughter of the president, said “There are 6 million available American jobs, so we’re constantly hearing from CEO’s that they have job openings, but they don’t have workers with the skill set they need to fill those jobs.”

For PolitiFact, Louis Jacobson rated her claim “true,” reporting “The number she cites is correct, and she’s right to say that the skills gap plays a role. Economists warn against overestimating the role played by the skills gap in all 6 million job openings, both because other factors play a role (such as the image gap) and because the skills barriers posed are often more modest than having to earn an academic degree or to obtain specialized training.”

TV news fact-checked: Donald and Ivanka Trump

By Katie Dahl

Our fact-checking partners spent time on the Trumps this week, covering Ivanka Trump’s claim about women in STEM occupations and the President’s claims about James Comey and Michael Flynn, record-setting nominations delays, how long it actually took to build the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge, and his involvement in a new coal mine opening.

Claim: Trump said “let this go” referencing the FBI investigation of Michael Flynn (contradicted by Trump)

In his written testimony submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 7, former FBI director James Comey wrote that President Trump said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

In a PolitiFact article reporting on conflicting claims between Comey and the White House, Lauren Carroll wrote that when asked about this allegation in a May 18 press conference, the President said, “No. No. Next question.”

Claim: Trump nominees faced ‘record-setting long’ delays (true)

In a comment at a cabinet meeting on June 12, President Trump said, “This is our first Cabinet meeting with the entire Cabinet present. The confirmation process has been record-setting long — and I mean record-setting long — with some of the finest people in our country being delayed and delayed and delayed.”

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker Glenn Kessler reported that Trump “faced unusually sustained opposition for a new president, including cloture votes demanded for 14 of his choices,” and gave the President their “Geppetto Checkmark” for correct statements.

Claim: women make up 47% of workforce and just 23% of STEM occupations (mostly true)

In an interview this week, Ivanka Trump said, “Women… represent 47 percent of the overall work force, we only make up 23 percent of STEM-related [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] occupations.”

That is “not far off the mark,” according to PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson. He went on to report, “Trump was correct about the percentage of the overall workforce that is female,” and “The report [2016 National Science Board and the National Science Foundation] found that in 2013, women represented 29 percent of individuals in science and engineering occupations. That’s higher than Trump’s 23 percent, although it supports her broader point — that women are underrepresented in STEM fields.”

Claim: Americans ‘built the Golden Gate Bridge in four years and the Hoover Dam in five’ (misleading)

In his weekly address on June 9, President Trump said, “we are the nation that built the Golden Gate Bridge in four years and the Hoover Dam in five. Now, it takes as much as a decade just to plan a major permit or a major infrastructure or anything even remotely major in our country, and that’s ridiculous and it’s going to change.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee gave Trump “three Pinocchios” for this claim. She reported for the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, “Trump describes the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam as projects that were constructed over four or five years, unbound by the years of permitting and regulatory restrictions that current-day projects face. But Trump only focuses on the literal construction of the projects, and overlooks the many years of bureaucratic negotiating and regulating that took place leading up to the construction.”

Claim: Trump is putting miners back to work with the opening of a new coal mine (hard to believe)

In a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 7, President Trump said, “Next week we’re opening a big coal mine. You know about that. One in Pennsylvania. It’s actually a new mine. That hadn’t happened in a long time, folks. But we’re putting the people and we’re putting the miners back to work.”

“Trump did not name the Pennsylvania mine,” reported Robert Farley for FactCheck.org, “and the White House did not respond to us. But these kinds of events are rare enough that it is clear he is referring to the June 8 grand opening of the Corsa Coal Company’s Acosta Deep Mine more than 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

What did Trump’s presidency have to do with its opening? Nothing. Development of the Acosta mine began in September, two months before the presidential election.”

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TV news fact-checked: Trump, Pruitt, Gore, and Handel

By Katie Dahl

In this week’s roundup of fact-checked TV news, the term “travel ban” gets a final word from the president, new coal mining jobs numbers are questioned, Gore and Pruitt give competing claims about Paris Agreement target requirements, Trump supporters are polled for their approval of the Paris Agreement, two elements of the Iran Deal are clarified, and one of Trump’s arguments for privatizing the FAA gets a context check.

Claim: executive order is a “travel ban” (the president says it is)

In a tweet on June 5, President Donald Trump wrote: “People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!”

According to Miriam Valverde at PolitiFact, this statement ran counter to what “his spokesman, administration officials, lawyers, courts and others call it.” Among many examples collected by Valverde are three instances (1, 2, 3) of Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly calling it a “travel pause” and twice saying the executive order “is not a travel ban.” The most recent interview was May 28. PolitiFact’s conclusion: “It’s a travel ban.”

Claim: we’ve added 50,000 coal mining jobs since last quarter, 7,000 since May (misleading spin)

In three TV interviews (1, 2, 3) with major networks on Sunday, June 4, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt made this claim: “We’ve had over 50,000 jobs since last quarter, coal jobs, mining jobs, created in this country. We had almost 7,000 mining and coal jobs created in the month of May alone.”

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, gave Pruitt a “four Pinocchio” rating for this claim, writing “the biggest problem with Pruitt’s statistic is that most of the gain in ‘mining’ jobs has nothing to do with coal. Most of the new jobs were in a subcategory called ‘support activities for mining,’ which accounted for more than 40,000 of the new jobs since October and more than 30,000 of the jobs since January.” For FactCheck.org, Eugene Kiely reported the same information and further that “BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] could not tell us how many of those jobs were related to coal mining, as opposed to gas, oil, metal ores and nonmetallic minerals. We do know, however, that most of those jobs support the gas and oil industries.”

Claim: US could change emissions targets under Paris Agreement without pulling out of it (Gore was right)

In dueling Sunday political talk show interviews, former Vice President Al Gore said of the Paris Agreement, “the requirements were voluntary. He [Trump] could have changed the requirements,” while EPA Administrator Pruitt, on another show, said “No, no, no. No, not under the agreement. Not under the agreement… You’re wrong” to Jake Tapper of CNN’s statement: “You can change those targets.” Pruitt went on to claim that the targets “can only be ratcheted up.”

For their SciCheck project, FactCheck.org’s Vanessa Schipani reported, “The Paris Agreement is voluntary. Countries aren’t penalized for failing to adhere to their proposed emissions cuts. So President Donald Trump could have ignored or changed the U.S. pledged emissions targets without withdrawing from the agreement.”

Claim: most Trump supporters wanted the US to stay in the Paris Agreement (mostly false)

In another interview on Sunday, Gore said, “A majority of President Trump’s supporters and voters wanted to stay in” the Paris Agreement.

For PolitiFact, John Kruzel reported that on “Gore’s central point, the poll [Yale-George Mason poll] found that among Trump voters, 47 percent wanted to participate in the Paris Agreement, compared to 28 percent who supported opting out, with a quarter expressing no opinion.

So, 47 percent support among Trump voters amounts to a plurality — not a majority, as Gore said.”

Claim: US flew $2 billion to Iran and Obama administration said it was used for terrorism (half true)

In a debate between Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel leading up to a special election for Georgia’s sixth congressional district later this month — the election resulted from Tom Price being tapped by the Trump administration to lead the Department of Health and Human Services — Handel made this claim. “Nearly $2 billion in cash was flown over to Iran, money that the Obama administration has admitted is being used for terrorists and to support further activities there.”

According to Jon Greenberg of PolitiFact, “The Iran deal focused on reducing Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear-grade material, but a key provision unlocked Iranian assets that had been frozen for decades. How much money was there is a matter of debate.” He went on to report that John Kerry, then Secretary of State in the Obama administration, appeared on TV and said “‘I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) or of other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,’ Kerry said. ‘To some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented.'”

Claim: the Obama administration spent over $7 billion on the aviation system and failed (two Pinocchios)

In comments announcing a plan to privatize part of the federal air traffic control apparatus, President Trump said “the previous administration spent over $7 billion trying to upgrade the system and totally failed. Honestly, they didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee reported for the Washington Post’s Fact Checker that “Trump characterizes this program as an Obama-era error, but the planning for the massive overhaul began in 2000. Congress authorized the FAA to tackle these changes in 2003, and the Department of Transportation launched the NextGen program in January 2004… There have been delays and changes in the project, but high-priority projects have made progress.” She gave this claim “two Pinocchios.”

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TV news fact-checked: climate change edition

by Katie Dahl & Nancy Watzman

With President Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday that the U.S. would pull out of the international Paris climate agreement dominating TV news screens, we devote this round up to the issue of climate change.

Global climate agreement news trending

As of Friday morning, reports on Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement was trending across TV news channels, driving out reports on investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and possible Trump campaign involvement. The one exception was MSNBC, where “Russia” was a top trending topic, while “Paris” was at the top of the list for other cable stations, according to the Television Explorer tool created by Kalev Leetaru, which draws on closed captioning from the TV News Archive to allow users to search news coverage. (The tool now incorporates recent TV news broadcasts, so general trends can be seen as the data rolls in, although for definitive results it is best to wait 24 hours to search.)

“Paris” was trending everywhere but MSNBC, where “Russia” was leading. Source: Television Explorer, TV News Archive

Claim: Paris Agreement would cause $3 trillion drop in US GDP (flawed study) 

Fact-checkers quickly analyzed Trump’s Rose Garden speech (full video available here) where he laid out his reasons for withdrawing from the agreement.  Among them: he said the “cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP.”

A team of reporters at FactCheck.org provided context. “That figure is for the year 2040 and for one scenario in a report that found a smaller impact under a different scenario. Another analysis estimated the potential economic impact of meeting the Paris Agreement emissions targets would be ‘modest’ and the cost of delaying action would be ‘high.'”

Similarly, PolitiFact’s Jon Greenberg wrote: “Take these statistics with a grain of salt… Yale professor Kenneth Gillingham said the NERA model tends to result in higher costs than other economic models. The study assumes certain hypothetical regulations, but ‘one could easily model other actions with much lower costs.'”

The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers, Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, reported his statistics are from a “study that was funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Council for Capital Formation, foes of the Paris Accord. So the figures must be viewed with a jaundiced eye.”

Of course Trump and his surrogates have made many claims in the past on TV news shows, which were fact-checked. Also worth a look: this compilation Mother Jones created last December of Trump’s statements over the years on different media (including TV news) about global warming.

Claim: the Paris Agreement is one-sided (needs context)

In April 2017, President Donald Trump decried the Paris agreement on climate as “one-sided… where the United States pays billions of dollars while China, Russia and India have contributed and will contribute nothing.”

Reporter Vanessa Schipan from FactCheck.org wrote that the “U.S. has promised to contribute $3 billion to this fund [Green Climate Fund]” and “China and India haven’t contributed to the Green Climate Fund… Russia hasn’t contributed any funds either, but it also hasn’t ratified the Paris Agreement or submitted an outline of what actions it will take…” She also reported “that, per capita, the U.S. emitted more greenhouse gases than China and India combined in 2015.”

Claim: China and India have no obligations under agreement until 2030 (four Pinocchios)

In a related statement on April 13, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said “China and India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030.”

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, reported “China, in its submission, said that, compared to 2005 levels, it would seek to cut its carbon emissions by 60 to 65 percent per unit of GDP by 2030. India said it would reduce its emissions per unit of economic output by 33 to 35 percent below 2005 by 2030… Note that both countries pledge to reach these goals by 2030, meaning they are taking steps now to meet their commitments.”

Claim: human activity, or carbon dioxide emissions, is not the primary contributor to global warming (science says, wrong)

In an interview on CNBC in March, EPA administrator Pruitt said “I would not agree that it’s [human activity or CO2] a primary contributor to the, to the global warming that we see.”

For FactCheck.org, Vanessa Schipani reported that “[S]cience says he’s wrong.” She wrote that “[a]ccording to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment report, it is ‘extremely likely’ (at least 95 percent probable) that more than half of the observed temperature increase since the mid-2oth century is due to human, or anthropogenic, activities.”

Claim: scientists cannot precisely measure climate change (they can with different levels of certainty)

In a lengthy article for their SciCheck project, FactCheck.org’s Vanessa Schipani reviewed statements by several Trump administration officials on this question of whether we can measure climate change with precision and whether we can measure the human impact. Among those who have made this claim are EPA’s Scott Pruitt, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Schipani reported “scientists can measure that impact with varying levels of certainty and precision” by going through the science for the greenhouse effect, global warming to climate change, and measuring and predicting extreme weather.

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TV news fact-checked: Gianforte, Gingrich, Pelosi & more

By Nancy Watzman and Katie Dahl

In this week’s round-up from the TV News Archive,  our fact-checking partners declare that Greg Gianforte, now Montana’s U.S. House representative-elect, was the aggressor in a conflict with a reporter; Newt Gingrich spread a conspiracy theory; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stretched claims about how veterans could be hurt under the House GOP health care bill; and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney double-counted money.

Claim: Guardian reporter’s aggression, not Gianforte’s, caused altercation (flip that)

On May 24 a campaign spokesperson for Greg Gianforte, who has since won the Montana U.S. House race, said, “Tonight, as Greg was giving a separate interview in a private office, The Guardian‘s Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions. Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.”

As reported by John Kruzel and Smitha Rajan for PolitiFact, a Fox News reporter was in the room at the time and gave this account. “…Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter.” Gianforte has since apologized.

Claim: DNC staffer assassinated after giving emails to WikiLeaks (unsupported)

Newt Gingrich, a former Republican House Speaker, said in a TV interview, “we have this very strange story now of this young man who worked for the Democratic National Committee, who apparently was assassinated at 4 in the morning, having given WikiLeaks something like 23,000. I’m sorry, 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments.”

“Gingrich Spreads Conspiracy Theory,” read a headline from FactCheck.org. Eugene Kiely reported “there’s no evidence for his claim.” PunditFact, a project of PolitiFact, gave Gingrich its worst fact-check rating, Pants on Fire.  Lauren Carroll reported, “Hours after Fox published its report, (Rod) Wheeler recanted. He told CNN that he hadn’t seen the evidence himself, and his knowledge of Rich’s alleged email contact with WikiLeaks came from the national Fox News reporter, not his own investigative work.”

(Note: Kiely also made use of the Wayback Machine in his piece, linking to a now-deleted Fox News story now saved at the Internet Archive. Washington Post reporters Kristine Phillips and Peter Holley published similar links in their story on how Fox News retracted its story on Seth Rich.)

Claim: seven million veterans will lose tax credit for their families in health care bill (three Pinocchios)

During a speech at a conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., said of the House-passed GOP health care reform bill, “Seven million veterans will lose their tax credit for their families in this bill.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee reported for The Washington Post’s Fact Checker that “veterans ‘could’ — not ‘will,’ as Pelosi says — lose tax credits if the current protections don’t carry over under a new health law… Would it affect 7 million veterans and their families? Not necessarily.”

Claim: economic growth will pay for both eliminating the deficit and tax cuts (wait a minute)

In a press conference about President Trump’s proposed 2018 fiscal budget, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said “we get to an actual balance on this budget within the 10-year window,” because “we will bring back 3% economic growth to this country and those numbers are assumed in this budget. By the way if we don’t the budget will never balance. You will never see a balanced budget again. We refuse to accept that the new normal in this country. Three percent was the old normal. Three percent will be the new normal again under the Trump administration and that is part and parcel with the foundation of this budget.” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin also claimed economic growth would pay for the proposed revenue-neutral tax plan, “This will pay for itself with growth and with reduced — reduction of different deductions and closing loopholes.”

“Wait a minute, say tax and budget experts, that’s double-counting the same money,” reported Robert Farley of FactCheck.org. Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center told FactCheck.org that you can’t assume growth will balance the budget and offset tax cuts, “Both of those are not plausible,” he said

Claim: Manafort and others visited Moscow during the campaign (mostly false)

In a TV interview, Rep. Maxine Waters, D., Calif., said “I really do believe that much of what you saw coming out of Trump’s mouth was a play from Putin’s playbook… I think you can see visits, you know, to Moscow made during the campaign by (Paul) Manafort and others.”

“From what’s on the public record, Manafort didn’t go at all, and (Carter) Page went once… Waters made it sound like this was a regular occurrence. We rate this claim Mostly False.” Jon Greenberg reported for PolitiFact.

Claim: Wisconsin high-risk pool had 8 or 9 plans, people could go to any doctor, and premiums and copays were cheaper than Obamacare (half true)

In response to criticism from Democrats for the House-passed health care proposal, Rep. Paul Ryan, R., Wis., said “In Wisconsin, we had a really successful high-risk pool. Ten percent of the people in the individual market in Wisconsin were in the state high-risk pool. They had eight or nine plans to choose from. They could go to any doctor or any hospital they wanted. And their premiums and copays were cheaper than they are under Obamacare today.”

For PolitiFact, Tom Kertscher reported “He’s essentially on target on the first two parts, but not on the third… it can’t be flatly stated that the high-risk pool plans were cheaper than Obamacare plans for comparable coverage.”

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TV news fact-checked: Comey, Schumer, McMaster, Mueller

It was a yet another extraordinary week in U.S. politics, with a series of explosive news reports centering on President Donald Trump. The TV News Archive is saving history as it happens, as well as linking relevant fact-checks by FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker to statements by public officials.

On Sunday shows, Schumer demands release of tapes–if they exist

Senate Majority Leader Charles “Chuck” Schumer, D., N.Y., made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows, appearing on “Meet the Press” and “State of the Union,” calling for a special prosecutor to investigate possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia among other matters. In this clip, Schumer says Trump should turn over tapes–the possibility of which were raised by Trump in a tweet on May 12–if they exist, of the president’s conversations with now former FBI director James Comey.

In this piece titled “Trump vs. Comey,” FactCheck.org reporters Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley trace the history of statements by the president and Comey about their discussions. They note, “White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly refused to answer whether Trump has such recordings. In his interview with Jeanine Pirro, Trump said, “Well, that I can’t talk about. I won’t talk about that.”

McMaster reacts to report that Trump shared intelligence with Russians

After The Washington Post reported, on May 15, that Trump had revealed “highly classified information” to Russian envoys visiting the White House last week, national security adviser H.R. McMaster defended the president that day and at a press conference the following day. Among his assertions: “The story that came out tonight as reported is false.”

“The key phrase is “as reported,” wrote Glenn Kessler, for The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, in a piece that dissects McMaster’s statements before the press. “With this language, McMaster in theory could dispute any element, no matter how small, as false. He notably did not say the story was false.” John Kruzel, writing for PolitiFact, traced the “shifting” explanations from the White House on what happened at the meeting with the Russians, including McMaster’s statements.

Former FBI director Robert Mueller appointed special counsel

Wednesday, May 17 brought the news that the U.S. Department of Justice appointed Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate possible connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Here PolitiFact reporter Lauren Carroll gives the basics on Mueller’s background and experience.

The TV News Archive contains numerous historical clips of Mueller, who served as FBI director under  Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including this brief farewell interview he gave to ABC in 2013, where he talks about terrorism.

Mueller and Comey have an earlier association at a high-drama moment in U.S. history. In 2014, Comey told “60 Minutes” about the day that he and Mueller visited a bedridden John Ashcroft, then attorney general, to tell him they would resign rather than reauthorize a controversial domestic surveillance program under pressure from the White House. Ashcroft deferred to Comey, and, as recounted by The Los Angeles Times, “It was only when President George W. Bush agreed to listen to Comey and Mueller and restructure the program did resignation plans go away.”

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