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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

FactCheck.orgPolitics & government

"Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t release 8.5 billion for Coronavirus without abortion funding, so Trump went around her to declare a National Emergency and got 50 billion."

Publisher’s rating: False

The post combines events involving two separate coronavirus bills and presents the $8.5 billion as money Pelosi withheld. FactCheck.org reports that the figure refers instead to the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act. The House passed it on March 4, the Senate approved it the next day, and Trump signed it on March 6. The measure provided $8.3 billion for federal agencies responding to the outbreak, exceeding the White House’s original $2.5 billion request. It was already law before the post appeared, so Pelosi had not withheld those funds. The abortion-funding dispute concerned a different proposal: the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The review says the dispute arose over how $1 billion for laboratory testing would be provided and whether the initial bill language was subject to Hyde Amendment restrictions. A House Democratic aide and a deputy chief of staff for Republican Rep. Kevin Brady described the funding-language issue differently, but both accounts concerned that bill, not the previously enacted $8.3 billion measure. The final version included language making additional appropriations subject to the conditions applicable to their fiscal-year 2020 accounts; Brady’s aide said the funding was routed through an HHS office covered by Hyde protections. The review also distinguishes the emergency declaration from the earlier appropriations. Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, after the $8.3 billion bill had been signed. The declaration provided access to more than $42 billion for states and localities, in addition to the appropriated $8.3 billion. Thus, the post’s account merges a resolved funding measure, a separate legislative dispute, and a later emergency action.

PolitiFactPolitics & government

Rep. Ruben Gallego is “controlled by the cartels. His own father was a Colombian drug trafficker, and so he’s got links to the cartel.”

Publisher’s rating: Pants on Fire

Related reporting identifies the accusation as one Kari Lake made about Ruben Gallego during the 2024 U.S. Senate race. In June 2026, Senator Tim Kaine raised it at Lake’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing, quoting her claim that Gallego was “controlled by the cartels” because his father was a Colombian drug trafficker. The report says Kaine cited a PolitiFact article that rated the claim, but the supplied excerpts do not include that original fact-check or its investigation.