politifact

Fact-checking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statements on autism

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact

Medical experts, along with people on the autism spectrum, told PolitiFact that Kennedy’s portrayal was skewed.

What is the bond market, and why does it matter for the economy?

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact

Even more than the stock market, experts say, the bond market may have forced President Donald Trump into pausing his country-by-country tariffs. Here's why.

Did Trump engage in insider trading? Experts say he’s unlikely to have legal troubles

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact

A social media post on April 9, followed by a market-moving tariff announcement, led President Donald Trump’s critics to speculate that he might have profited from inside information. Legal and financial experts downplayed the idea that Trump’s message ran afoul…

Trump claims countries are ‘cheating’ the U.S. on trade. What does that mean?

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact

While cheating on trade does happen — genuine accusations of it can be adjudicated at the World Trade Organization — the White House’s formula for calculating the tariff rates leaned on how much of a trade imbalance a country has…

Fact-checking Trump’s previous claim he wasn’t looking at pausing tariffs

By Amy Sherman, PolitiFact

For two days, Trump and the White House denied that he was considering changing his tariff plan, before doing just that on April 9.

Fact-checking misleading claims by Trump and his allies about Judge James Boasberg

By Amy Sherman, PolitiFact

Displeased with the check on Trump’s power, the president and his allies have lashed out at federal judges — and against one judge in particular: James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Fact check: Can you ‘erase’ your student debt because DOGE accessed federal loan databases?

By Claire Cranford, PolitiFact

Don’t trust videos saying you can erase your student loans by filing a student privacy law complaint.

Fact-checking Trump’s claim that Biden pardons are ‘void’ because he used an autopen

By Louis Jacobson, Amy Sherman, PolitiFact

Legal scholars say that the Constitution doesn’t require a pardon’s direct human signing, and subsequent judicial decisions and legal memoranda support an autopen’s use for similar purposes.

Fact-checking Trump’s 2025 address to Congress

By PolitiFact staff

President Donald Trump recapped six weeks of aggressive efforts to cut the federal workforce, reorganize the economy and reorient foreign policy in his first address to a joint session of Congress.

Fact-checking Trump and Vance’s attacks on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy

By Jeff Cercone, Amy Sherman, Sara Swann, PolitiFact

During Friday's televised Oval Office fight, Trump and Vance made several misleading claims about Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Here are the facts about three of them.