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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

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Trump holds India and USA needs Jesus Christ T-Shirt

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a social-media image appearing to show Donald Trump holding a shirt printed with “India & America Needs Jesus” alongside the Indian and US flags. The review says the image circulated on Facebook, including a post by the page “Christian Faith Videos” on February 26, 2020, and describes its investigation of whether the image was genuine. (“இந்த பதிவை, கிறித்தவ விசுவாச வீடியோக்கள் என்ற ஃபேஸ்புக் பக்கம் பிப்ரவரி 26, 2020 அன்று வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.”) Fact Crescendo reports that it searched the image using reverse-image search, then looked for media outlets that had published it. The review says it found the photograph in The Sun, which had taken it during an exclusive interview. It describes the shirt in that photograph as white, bearing the England football team’s emblem, and without the alleged religious wording. (“அந்த புகைப்படத்தைப் பார்த்தோம். அதில் வெள்ளை நிற டிஷர்ட்டில் இங்கிலாந்து கால்பந்து அணியின் சின்னம் பிரிண்ட் செய்யப்பட்டு இருந்தது. மற்றபடி அதில் எந்த வாசகமும் இடம் பெறவில்லை.”) The review also reports that The Sun’s caption said Trump posed for its photographer holding up a T-shirt, and credited the image to Paul Edwards of The Sun. This provides a specific source and description for the underlying photograph: the image showed a shirt, but not the claimed “India & America Needs Jesus” message. The review concludes that the circulated version was false. (“தி சன் இந்த புகைப்படம் தொடர்பான அடிக்குறிப்பில், “அதிபர் டிரம்ப் தன்னுடைய டிரேட் மார்க் புன்னகையோடு எங்களுடைய புகைப்பட கலைஞருக்கு டி ஷர்ட்டை தூக்கிப் பிடித்தபடி போஸ் கொடுத்தார். புகைப்படம்: பால் எட்வர்ட்ஸ், தி சன்” என்று குறிப்பிட்டிருந்தனர்.”)

NewtralPolitics & government

El ex alcalde de Almendralejo conduce un tractor en las protestas de los agricultores

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned a photograph of a man driving a tractor during farmers’ protests in Extremadura on 18 February. The tractor carried a sign criticizing the government, and some social-media posts identified the driver as José García Lobato, Almendralejo’s former mayor. The article says that identification was mistaken: García Lobato had shared the photograph on Facebook, and screenshots of his post helped fuel the confusion about who was pictured. [S1]

台灣事實查核中心Politics & government

【錯誤】網傳「我媽媽是高嘉瑜議員在台北一中的同學…...民進黨查收到好多口罩商 黨員都可以領口罩 嘉瑜議員還送了兩盒口罩給我們」？

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The review assessed a message claiming that the writer’s mother had attended “Taipei First High School” with 高嘉瑜, that 高嘉瑜 had described undetected infections around night markets, and that the Democratic Progressive Party distributed masks to members, including two boxes supposedly given by 高嘉瑜. The investigation contacted 高嘉瑜, who said she had not made the statements attributed to her. She also said she graduated from 北一女中, not the school named in the message, and denied giving away masks or receiving any herself. The school reference was inconsistent with the review’s historical and biographical checks. It reports that “台北一中” was renamed Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School on January 28, 1946, and that 高嘉瑜 was born in 1980, so she could not have attended the earlier school. The review also notes that she had been elected a legislator for Taipei’s fourth electoral district on January 7, 2020, and took office on February 1; the message’s description of her as a councilor was therefore inaccurate at the time. The review separately checked the mask-distribution claim by contacting 高嘉瑜 and a Central Epidemic Command Center official. 高嘉瑜 said the party did not distribute masks to its members and that members had to queue for them themselves. The official explained that masks allocated for official epidemic-response needs were requested by government agencies for personnel actually performing epidemic-control work, with distribution and use managed by recipient agencies. He said political parties could not apply for that allocation. These findings, along with the denial of the attributed statements, led the review to conclude that the message was fabricated.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Trump with the ‘Jai Sri Ram’ scarf around his neck and a pistol in his hand at the ‘Namaste Trump’ event

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined the claim that an image showed Trump wearing a “Jai Sri Ram” scarf and holding a pistol at the Namaste Trump event in Ahmedabad. It identifies the image as showing Trump at the event at Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad, and says the image circulating with the scarf and pistol was photoshopped. As its comparison, the review points to the original image in Getty Images’ photo library. It says that image shows Trump waving to the audience and that neither the scarf nor the pistol appears in it. On that basis, the review concludes that the circulated image was altered, rather than an authentic depiction of Trump at the event with those items.

FACTLYPolitics & government

A video of CPI leader, Kanhaiya Kumar being beaten up by a crowd

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video circulating on Facebook that purportedly shows CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar being beaten by a crowd. FACTLY’s investigation says the person being beaten was not Kumar, but Chandan Kumar. It reports that Chandan had thrown a chappal at Kumar while he was speaking at an event in Lakhisarai, Bihar, and was then beaten by people nearby. This changes the meaning of the footage: it shows a crowd attacking someone who had thrown an object at Kumar, not Kumar himself being attacked. To check the video’s provenance, the review notes that it carried the Kashish News logo and says it found the original video on that outlet’s YouTube channel by searching for the footage. The title, as described in the review, identified the incident as a person being beaten after trying to obstruct Kumar’s speech in Lakhisarai. The review also compares clothing in another video from the same event: Kumar is described as wearing a blue shirt, while the person who obstructed the speech and was beaten is described as wearing orange. The review further cites a Dainik Bhaskar article reporting that a person named Chandan Kumar threw a chappal onto the stage while Kumar was speaking in Lakhisarai, after which the crowd beat him. Together, the source-video trail, the visual comparison and the account of the incident support the review’s identification of the person in the video as Chandan Kumar rather than Kanhaiya Kumar.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: MK Stalin tweeted against vanniyar caste people

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a purported 2019 news card attributed to Puthiya Thalaimurai, which said Stalin had condemned attacks by Vanniyar people and called for the government to suppress them. The review says a Facebook page posted the card on February 17, 2020, and that the card itself was presented as having been published on April 19, 2019. That date suggested a possible connection to the caste clash in Ponparappi, Ariyalur district, but the card did not identify a specific incident.

NewtralPolitics & government

Pablo Iglesias ha dicho que “el odio es la base del comunismo”

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral investigated a circulating image attributing the statement “el odio es la base del comunismo” to Pablo Iglesias, along with a longer version about teaching children to hate countries that are not communist. The review says it found no written or audiovisual record of Iglesias making the statement. The post’s image paired a photograph of Iglesias with one of Lenin, but the investigation did not treat that image as proof that Iglesias had said the words. Instead, Newtral traced an early reference to the quotation to a US Senate debate on April 12, 1933. Its account says Senator Robinson of Indiana attributed similar words to Lenin, allegedly spoken in 1923 to Russia’s Department of Education. The review notes that Robinson did not cite a source for that attribution and that Newtral found no reference to the supposed speech in Lenin’s writings or in the work of Lenin scholars. It also reports that the US Library of Congress’s quotation dictionary records the saying as unverified. The review distinguishes that uncertain attribution from a documented passage in Lenin’s 1920 book *“La enfermedad infantil del ‘izquierdismo’ en el comunismo.”* There, Lenin describes the “noble hatred” of bourgeois class politicians as a foundation of socialist and communist movements. Newtral presents this as a possible origin of Robinson’s account, not evidence that Lenin delivered the alleged 1923 speech—or that Iglesias uttered the quotation.