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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about politics & government. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

12,754 published reviews in this topic

USA TODAYPolitics & government

Kamala Harris failed the bar exam on her first attempt, while Amy Coney Barrett graduated at the top of her law school class

Publisher’s rating: True

The post compared Kamala Harris and Amy Coney Barrett after their exchanges during Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. It said Harris failed the bar exam on her first attempt and Barrett finished first in her class. USA TODAY checked both parts of that comparison, rather than treating one woman’s record as evidence of the other’s. The review says Harris’s first-attempt failure was reported by The New York Times and that she later passed; it attributes Barrett’s class standing to Politico. For Harris, the review identifies her 1989 graduation from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and describes the California bar as difficult. It cites historical and more recent pass-rate information, including a State Bar of California report showing that 40% of first-time takers passed in February 2020 and another report showing about 60% passed in July 2019. Those figures provide context for the exam, but the review’s stated evidence about Harris’s own attempt comes from The New York Times—not from those overall pass rates. The review also sets a limit on what could be established: USA TODAY said it could not locate Harris’s class rank or information about whether Barrett passed the bar on her first attempt. It therefore supports the two claims actually made in the post, while not establishing a broader comparison of the women’s qualifications or bar-exam histories. The review notes that law-school performance and bar-exam performance are related, but quotes legal educators cautioning that class rank and exam results do not measure a person’s worth or all the skills needed to practice law.

USA TODAYPolitics & government

The media misquoted Trump's 'very fine people on both sides' statement about Charlottesville

Publisher’s rating: Partly false

The review examines a viral Facebook meme alleging that debate moderator Chris Wallace and Joe Biden misrepresented Trump’s Charlottesville remarks by implying he called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” It compares the meme’s wording with the White House transcript of Trump’s press conference and with what Wallace and Biden actually said during the debate. The review finds that the meme combines separate statements: Trump first said there were “very fine people” on both sides, and later, after further questioning, said neo-Nazis and white nationalists “should be condemned totally.” The setting was the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, held in response to the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The rally ended in violence; a car struck counter-demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Asked whether he was placing the “alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane,” Trump said there were “some very bad people in that group,” but also “people that were very fine people, on both sides.” He later specified that he was “not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists.” The review also checks the specific debate allegation against the exchange itself. Wallace referred to Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comment, and Biden said Trump had said there were “very fine people on both sides”; the review says neither directly stated that Trump applied the phrase to neo-Nazis. Its conclusion distinguishes that narrower point from the meme’s inaccurate presentation of Trump’s two remarks as one continuous statement: the debate references did not say he called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” but the meme misrepresented the timing and relationship of Trump’s remarks.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Video of BJP leader being thrashed by public in Bihar

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post’s claim was that a video showed a BJP leader being thrashed by the public in Bihar. FACTLY says the man was a BJP worker wearing a Modi mask, and that the incident happened in Indore, Madhya Pradesh—not Bihar. It also says the people who attacked him were Congress party workers, rather than members of the public as the post claimed. The review describes its checking method: a keyword search led to a news report about the incident. FACTLY says that report placed it at a Congress rally in Indore held on Gandhi Jayanthi, concerning the Hathras rape incident. The review adds that a second report dated October 2, 2020, also described the attackers as Congressmen and located the incident in Indore. These details contradict both the claimed location and the description of the attackers.

YouturnPolitics & government

மெக்சிகோ பாராளுமன்றத்தில் பாராளுமன்ற உறுப்பினர் ஒருவர் விவாதத்தின் போது தன்னுடைய உடைகளை ஒவ்வொன்றாக களைந்தார். “என்னை பார்க்க உங்களுக்கு வெட்கமாக, கேவலமாக இருக்கிறது, ஆனால் உங்களுக்கு நம் மக்களை தெருக்களில் நிர்வாணமாக, காலில் செருப்பில்லால், வேலையில்லாமல், பசியுடன் ஆற்றோணா நிலையில் பார்க்கும் போது வெட்கமாக இல்லை, அவர்களிடம் இருந்த எல்லா பணத்தையும் உடமைகளையும் பறித்து தெருவில் நிற்கவைத்த போது கேவலமாக இல்லை“ என்றார்.

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

BBC Reality CheckPolitics & government

"Hey MAGA, Trump is coming for your guns"

Publisher’s rating: The claim is misleading. The video includes President Trump saying "take the firearms first and then go to court" but he was referring to a policy of removing weapons from the hands of potentially dangerous people.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Rahul Gandhi ranked seventh in Forbes ‘World’s Most Educated Leaders’ list

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a social-media post asserting that Rahul Gandhi ranked seventh on a Forbes list called “World’s Most Educated Leaders.” FACTLY’s review says it searched Forbes’ website for that list and found no such list among the survey lists it checked. It also reports that Forbes had never conducted a survey on world leaders’ educational qualifications. The review further says it found no credible evidence establishing Gandhi as the world’s seventh most educated leader. Its conclusion is that Forbes did not rank him seventh on the claimed list. That conclusion addresses the specific attribution to Forbes; the excerpt does not establish a broader ranking of world leaders by education. As additional context, the review reports that Gandhi’s affidavit for the Amethi Parliamentary constituency listed a Bachelor of Arts from Rollins College in Florida and an M.Phil. in Development Studies from Trinity College, University of Cambridge. The review presents those stated qualifications but does not treat them as evidence for the claimed seventh-place ranking.