{"count":18450,"next":"http://www.politifact.com/api/factchecks/?page=2","previous":null,"results":[{"id":19307,"slug":"facebook-post-wrong-four-gop-senators-are-already-","speaker":{"slug":"facebook-posts","full_name":"Facebook posts","first_name":"","last_name":"Facebook posts"},"targets":[],"statement":"“4 republican senators now on board...no vote until January on (Supreme Court): Murkowski, Romney, Collins, Grassley.”","ruling_slug":"false","publication_date":"2020-09-20T16:40:39-04:00","ruling_comments":"

Tensions are high with control of the Supreme Court hanging in the balance, and a Facebook post is offering misleading information about how a Republican nominee to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg might be considered in the Senate.

The post was dated Sept. 18, the same day as Ginsburg’s death. It says, "4 republican senators now on board...no vote until January on (Supreme Court): Murkowski, Romney, Collins, Grassley."

The post is referring to four Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Charles Grassley of Iowa. Under the Senate’s current rules, the Democrats would need to win over four Republican senators to block action on a nominee from President Trump.

While these four senators have in the past stated their unease with filling a hypothetical vacancy this late in an election cycle, their past declarations don’t necessarily carry any weight for the decision over the actual Supreme Court vacancy they are now confronted with.

The Senate, currently under Republican control, would be able to proceed to consideration of Trump’s nominee with simple majority support. Until 2017, the Senate required 60 votes to proceed to a Supreme Court nomination, but that year the Republicans voted to reduce the number to a simple majority. The lower threshold was used for the first time with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch and was then used again for Brett Kavanaugh.

The current partisan breakdown in the Senate is 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats or Democratic-aliged independents. This means that the Democrats could only block the nomination if they can convince four Republicans to oppose it. (Three Republicans wouldn’t be enough, because Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, would be able to cast a tie-breaking vote for Trump’s nominee.)

The Facebook post makes it sound like the four Republicans have already committed to doing so. But their past comments on the topic have addressed a theoretical court vacancy this late in the process, not the actual vacancy we have now. And their past comments are not binding; they could switch their view at any time and vote accordingly.

Two of the four senators named in the Facebook post have reiterated their opposition to taking up the expected Trump nomination, but they’ve phrased their words carefully.

On Sept. 19, one day after the Facebook post was published, Collins said in a statement, "Given the proximity of the presidential election ... I do not believe that the Senate should vote on the nominee prior to the election."

On Sept. 20, two days after the post was published, Murkowski said, "For weeks, I have stated that I would not support taking up a potential Supreme Court vacancy this close to the election. Sadly, what was then a hypothetical is now our reality, but my position has not changed."

However, even these statements do not back up the Facebook post, since they did not explicitly rule out the option of voting on Trump’s nomination after the election, during the lame duck period before the next Congress is sworn in. That would be allowable under the Senate’s rules, though it would be highly controversial if the Democrats have already won back the presidency and enough seats to control the Senate.

As of the afternoon of Sept. 20, neither Romney nor Grassley had taken an official position on consideration of a Trump nominee.

In 2016, Grassley, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, "A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice."

He reiterated this in October 2018, saying the committee, then under his chairmanship, wouldn’t consider a Supreme Court nominee in 2020. "If I’m chairman they won’t take it up," he told Fox News.

The current chairman is Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has said he’ll take up Trump’s nomination in committee. (This is a reversal from a position Graham stated as recently as 2018.)

Romney, who was the lone Republican to break from his party on the Trump impeachment vote, has not formally commented on how to fill the Ginsburg vacancy.

Our ruling

The Facebook post says, "4 republican senators now on board...no vote until January on (Supreme Court): Murkowski, Romney, Collins, Grassley."

Prior to Ginsburg’s death, three of the four named senators had expressed concerns about a theoretical appointment being filled close to an election.

Two of the senators, Murkowski and Collins, have stated their position since Ginsburg’s death. They both said they opposed a vote before the election, but they did not explicitly rule out a vote after the election during the lame-duck period before a new Congress is sworn in. The other two senators, Romney and Grassley, have not commented about how to proceed with the current vacancy.

We rate the statement False.

Facebook post, Sept. 18, 2020

U.S. Senate, partisan breakdown, accessed Sept. 20, 2020

USA Today, "Post declaring 4 GOP senators' views on filling Supreme Court opening is partly false," Sept. 19, 2020

Forbes, "All Eyes On These Senators—Collins, Graham, Grassley, Murkowski, Romney—As Trump, GOP Plot Supreme Court After Ginsburg," Sept. 19, 2020

Mother Jones, "A Long List of GOP Senators Who Promised Not to Confirm a Supreme Court Nominee During an Election Year," Sept. 18, 2020

Fox News, "Susan Collins says she opposes voting on SCOTUS nominee before election," Sept. 19, 2020

CNN, "Key GOP senator says she opposes taking up a Supreme Court nomination before Election Day," Sept. 20, 2020

PolitiFact, "How Republicans could fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat, explained," Sept. 20, 2020

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not run a personal Twitter account. Keep that in mind when you see online posts of an alarming tweet from "RBGOfficial" preceding her death. There’s nothing official about it.

One fake post shared the day after Ginsburg died evoked a well-worn conspiracy linking former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to various deaths of former staffers and associates.

The Instagram post included a screenshot of a tweet from @RBGOfficial on 8 p.m. on Sept. 18 — the same evening she died. "I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton," the tweet says.

The person who posted this added touches of flair to make the post look legitimate, adding a photo of Ginsburg as the avatar and a blue checkmark to indicate a verified Twitter account. But the claim is easily debunked. Whoever created @RBGOfficial in 2013 has zero followers and tweets.

Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer in her Washington home. She was 87.

We rate this post Pants on Fire.

Instagram post, Sept. 19, 2020

U.S. Supreme Court press release regarding Ginsburg’s death, Sept. 18, 2020

Speaking about the coronavirus during a CNN town hall less than two months away from Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden said every one of the nearly 200,000 COVID-19 deaths recorded in the U.S. can be laid at President Donald Trump’s feet.

"If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive," Biden said at the CNN town hall in Moosic, Pa. "All the people. I'm not making this up. Just look at the data. Look at the data."

The Democratic presidential nominee’s remark came as Trump faces criticism for downplaying the threat of the coronavirus early on and admitting on tape that he did so. The U.S. leads the world in confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, and experts say a fall surge in cases could put fatalities at more than double their current number by the year’s end.

A more robust handling of the pandemic would likely have seen the country’s death count significantly reduced, experts said. But Biden’s claim that a different response from Trump would have prevented every coronavirus death goes too far.

"I think it’s impossible to say every life could have been saved," said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

Keeping COVID-19 at zero deaths would have been a difficult achievement "regardless of who is in charge," said Brooke Nichols, an assistant professor of global health at Boston University.

"If we had developed testing capacity as soon as we knew of the pathogen, and could rapidly test every one arriving from abroad, then I suppose it’s theoretically possible, but unlikely," Nichols said.

Even countries that have found relative success managing the coronavirus — such as South Korea and New Zealand — have seen some deaths.

Experts said that faster, more robust measures taken by the federal government could have put the U.S. on par with those countries and others that responded similarly.

The right actions in January, February and March would likely have prevented "a substantial number" of deaths, Adalja said, and could have put the U.S. on "a trajectory more like Taiwan," which has recorded just 503 confirmed cases and seven deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Those actions might have included a national coordinated strategy across state lines, rapidly scaled up testing, the ramped up production and mobilization of resources, and more clear communications of what was known about the virus and how to prevent it, experts said.

"Obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN in April. "Obviously, no one is going to deny that."

RELATED: Timeline: How Donald Trump responded to the coronavirus pandemic

One May study from Columbia University estimated that the U.S. could have averted roughly 36,000 COVID-19 deaths before May if sweeping mitigation measures imposed on March 15 had instead gone into effect a week earlier.

Almost 54,000 deaths would have been avoided in that timeframe had the same interventions started two weeks earlier, the study said.

"Had we mustered the political and public will to act as we did two weeks earlier, 90% of deaths through the beginning of May would have been averted," said study author Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences.

But the study "doesn’t blame Trump," Shaman said, although he added that "the country has witnessed a complete lack of federal leadership."

Other experts have also made estimates. A pair of epidemiologists wrote in an April op-ed for the New York Times that "an estimated 90% of deaths" from the first wave of U.S. cases "might have been prevented by putting social distancing policies into effect two weeks earlier."

Op-ed co-author Nicholas Jewell, a professor of biostatistics at the University of California, Berkeley, said it would be "magical thinking" to suggest 100% of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented. "I haven’t seen any country really succeed to that extent," Jewell said.

In a June op-ed for Stat, researchers compared the U.S. response to similar nations. Accounting for differences in population and the different timings of the outbreaks in each country, they concluded that the U.S. could have prevented many deaths.

If, for example, the U.S. "had acted as effectively as Germany, 70% of U.S. coronavirus deaths might have been prevented" in the four months after the U.S. recorded its first 15 cases of the coronavirus, the researchers wrote. More lives would have been saved had the U.S. mirrored the responses of other countries such as South Korea, they said.

The picture hasn’t been much rosier of late. "If you look at May and June 1, since then, we’ve done dreadfully in the U.S.," Jewell said.

Still, Biden’s claim that "all the people would still be alive" had Trump responded differently is an overstatement. "I don’t see how there is any truth to that," Nichols said.

The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Our ruling

Biden said, "If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive. All the people. I'm not making this up. Just look at the data."

Experts disagreed with that assessment. A stronger U.S. response could have saved many lives, experts said, but not every one.

We rate this statement False.

World Health Organization, "WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard," Sept. 18, 2020

Politico, "'Talk about losers': The top moments from CNN’s kid-gloves town hall with Biden," Sept. 18, 2020

CNN Replay on Facebook, "Health expert: Lives could have been saved if US acted earlier," Sept. 18, 2020

The Washington Post, "Joe Biden’s CNN town hall: An occasional whopper," Sept. 17, 2020

Vox News, "If the US had Canada’s Covid-19 death rate, 100,000 more Americans would likely be alive today," Sept. 9, 2020

The Washington Post, "Experts warn U.S. covid-19 deaths could more than double by year’s end," Sept. 4, 2020

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "COVID-19 Nursing Home Data," Sept. 6, 2020

The Federation of State PIRGs, ""Shut Down, Start Over, Do It Right," Sept. 1, 2020

The Atlantic, "How the Pandemic Defeated America," Aug. 4, 2020

Stat, "How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? Most of them," June 19, 2020

Columbia University, "Differential Effects of Intervention Timing on COVID-19 Spread in the United States," May 20, 2020

The New York Times, "The Huge Cost of Waiting to Contain the Pandemic," April 14, 2020

State of the Union on Twitter, April 12, 2020

PolitiFact, "Fact-checking Mike Pence, night 3 of the 2020 RNC," Aug. 26, 2020

PolitiFact, "‘We don’t want that,’ Trump says of New Zealand after country reported nine new COVID-19 cases," Aug. 18, 2020

PolitiFact, "Are COVID-19 travel restrictions ‘more critical in saving lives’ than testing? Not really," April 3, 2020

PolitiFact, "Timeline: How Donald Trump responded to the coronavirus pandemic," March 20, 2020

PolitiFact, "Was the novel coronavirus really sneaky in its spread to the U.S.? Experts say no," March 19, 2020

Email interview with Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Sept. 18, 2020

Email interview with Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, Sept. 18, 2020

Email interview with Brooke Nichols, assistant professor of global health at Boston University, Sept. 18, 2020

Phone interview with Nicholas Jewell, professor of biostatistics at the University of California, Berkeley, Sept. 18, 2020

The World Health Organization has published a global tuberculosis report every year since 1997. But in 2020, the global TB report isn’t just being used for educational purposes; it’s also being used to mislead social media users about the severity of COVID-19.

One Facebook post employs accurate global tuberculosis numbers in an attempt to play down the need for coronavirus safety precautions like mask wearing.

"Almost 4500 people lose their lives to tuberculosis EVERY SINGLE DAY. 30,000 people fall ill with tuberculosis EVERY SINGLE DAY. Last year alone, 10 million fell ill from TB and 1.5 million died," the post reads, pointing to the World Health Organization as a source. "Why don’t we wear masks for TB? Because CNN hasn’t instructed you to."

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Are the numbers right? Yes, for the most part. But the post’s conclusions are misleading. TB isn’t prevalent in the United States, but in countries where it is prevalent, mask wearing actually is recommended.

Tuberculosis facts

The post correctly references data provided on the World Health Organization’s tuberculosis webpage for some of its facts.

"Every year, 10 million people fall ill with tuberculosis (TB). Despite being a preventable and curable disease, 1.5 million people die from TB each year – making it the world’s top infectious killer," the website reads, providing the same numbers as the post.

As for the number of people who die each day of TB, the post again pulls numbers directly from the WHO.

"Each day, nearly 4500 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease," reads a WHO press release about World Tuberculosis Day 2019.

However, the post misleads when it suggests that people don’t wear masks to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. They do.

COVID-19 vs. TB in the U.S.

Tuberculosis and COVID-19 "are both infectious diseases that attack primarily the lungs," reads a WHO site that examines the two diseases. Both the coronavirus and TB bacteria can spread through the air from one person to another, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It’s possible the coronavirus can also be spread by touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching your mouth or nose. The CDC explains on its website that we are still learning about how the virus spreads.

The WHO guidelines on preventing and controlling TB infections recommend wearing masks as a type of respiratory hygiene measure that can help prevent the spread of the disease. But because TB is less prominent in the U.S. and TB has been around far longer, the suggestion has not been given much media attention.

The Union, an international organization that aims to help countries develop, implement and assess "anti-tuberculosis, lung health and non-communicable disease programmes," created a frequently asked questions document about COVID-19 and TB.

In response to the question, "Should I wear a mask?" the document says: "Wearing a mask presents a barrier for the spread of both TB and COVID-19 as masks stop them from being distributed into the air if being worn by someone who has symptoms or being inhaled by or touched by others in the immediate environment."

If the diseases’ transmission is similar and masks help slow the spread, why has the response to COVID-19 in the U.S. looked so different from the response to TB each year? Because COVID-19 is much more prevalent in the U.S. than tuberculosis.

The WHO reports that most of the people who contract TB live in "low- and middle-income countries," and about half of all people with the disease can be found in the following eight countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and South Africa.

Since Jan. 21, 2020, the CDC has reported more than 6.6 million total cases of COVID-19. The last daily update increased the total by 41,464 cases — meaning that in one day, the U.S. alone reported more COVID-19 cases than the average global increase of TB cases (close to 30,000) each day.

According to the CDC’s most recent available data, there were 9,025 cases of TB in the U.S. in 2018 and 9,088 in 2017. Provisional data for 2019 suggests there were 8,920 TB cases last year.

With fewer than 10,000 cases of TB in the U.S. in every year since 2012, TB is not the same as COVID-19, in terms of its threat to Americans. What’s more, there’s a vaccine to protect against TB that the CDC website says is not widely used in the U.S., but is "often given to infants and small children in other countries where TB is common."

A vaccine for COVID-19 does not exist yet. The CDC, WHO, doctors and public health officials all across the country now urge people to wear masks while the coronavirus pandemic continues.

The spread of COVID-19 remains a large, ongoing problem in the U.S. This has resulted in American news organizations emphasizing experts’ calls for people to wear masks and reporting on mask mandates. (Examples of this seen here, here and here).

Nearly 200,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. The most recent CDC data indicates that in 2017, 515 people died of TB.

COVID-19 has not existed for a full year, but even comparing current numbers to yearly totals of TB cases and deaths, it is clear that COVID-19 is a more serious threat to Americans.

Our rating

A Facebook post claims, "Last year alone, 10 million fell ill from TB and 1.5 million died. … Why don’t we wear masks for TB? Because CNN hasn’t instructed you to."

The numbers in the claim are based on global data from the WHO. However, the post leaves out important context when it fails to mention that COVID-19 is far more prevalent in the U.S. than TB. As a result, experts recommend wearing masks to slow the spread of COVID-19. Mask wearing is also recommended to prevent the spread of TB in places where it is common.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

Lead Stories, "Fact Check: Not Wearing Masks For Tuberculosis In The U.S. Does Not Mean Masks Are Not Needed For COVID-19," May 1, 2020

USA Today, "Fact check: Tuberculosis is more dangerous than COVID-19, but context matters," Aug. 30, 2020

World Health Organization, "Global tuberculosis report 2019," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

World Health Organization, "Tuberculosis," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

World Health Organization, "World Tuberculosis Day 2019," March 24, 2019

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Tuberculosis (TB) - How TB Spreads," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

World Health Organization, "Tuberculosis and COVID-19," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CDC, "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) - How It Spreads," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CDC, "Tuberculosis (TB) - TB Incidence in the United States," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CDC, "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) - United States COVID-19 Cases and Deaths by State," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CDC, "CDC Fact Sheet - TB in the United States, 2019*" accessed Sept. 18, 2020

The Union, "Mission, Vision and Values," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

The Union, "COVID-19 and lung health: Frequently Asked Questions," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

World Health Organization, "WHO guidelines on tuberculosis infection prevention and control - 2019 update," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CDC, "Considerations for Wearing Masks," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

World Health Organization, "Q&A: Masks and COVID-19," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

CNBC, "CDC director says face masks may provide more protection than coronavirus vaccine," Sept. 16, 2020

CNN, "CDC recommends Americans wear face masks voluntarily in public but some officials say they felt 'pressured' to draft new guidelines," April 3, 2020

Detroit Free Press, "Whitmer issues new executive order seeking to clarify Michigan's face mask mandate," July 17, 2020

CDC, "Tuberculosis (TB) Vaccination," accessed Sept. 18, 2020

A TV ad attacking U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., uses images, a narrator’s voice and words on the screen to invoke the coronavirus pandemic.

Then it shows Garcia saying: "Everyone should have to figure out how to fend for themselves."

Garcia’s remark was about food stamps, and it was made half a year before the outbreak hit California, though he has expressed opposition generally to federal safety nets.

The race

The ad is from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House. Democrat Christy Smith, a California assemblywoman elected in 2018, is running against Garcia on Nov. 3 for the 25th District congressional seat, north of Los Angeles.

The race is one of 18 pivotal House and Senate contests up for election on Nov. 3 that PolitiFact is tracking. It is rated a tossup by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Garcia, a former military pilot, defeated Smith in a special election for the seat in May. That election was held to replace Democrat Katie Hill after she resigned.

The ad

The committee’s 30-second spot opens with the narrator saying: "Thousands of Californians dead." What appears to be a headline pops on the screen and says: "Los Angeles Death Toll is High." Those words are from an Aug. 22 news story about COVID-19.

The narrator continues: "Schools and businesses closed. How do we help people in need?" A woman and child are shown wearing disposable face masks commonly worn to protect against the virus.

Then the narrator says: "Well, according to millionaire Congressman Mike Garcia ..." — at that point, Garcia is shown in a video clip saying: "Everyone should have to figure out how to fend for themselves."

Small print on the screen indicates Garcia’s comment is from an interview he did on "The Talk of Santa Clarita" podcast in August 2019, months before COVID-19 struck California.

The ad then attacks Garcia claiming he supported tax breaks for millionaires while working families got higher taxes. It closes returning to its original theme, with the narrator saying: "Millionaire Mike Garcia — leaving us to fend for ourselves."

The interview

Here was the exchange with host Stephen Daniels in which Garcia made the remark used in the ad:

Host: "Should there be a social safety net? Do you believe in that?"

Garcia: "I believe in Social Security, for sure."

Host: "What about food stamps?"

Garcia: "Food stamps at a low level I think is — as a purist, I would say no, everyone should have to figure out how to fend for themselves."

He added: "I do understand that people will get on hard times. Here’s where I land on all the programs: There should be safety nets, but I don’t want the federal government to be the safety net. I want the churches, I want the local community nonprofits, I want our neighbors to be the safety nets."

One of the rotating headlines on the homepage of Garcia’s campaign website says: "I believe in the Constitution, Capitalism, Competition and Charity."

Garcia has expressed support for providing federal aid to small businesses and their workers affected by COVID-19.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Cole Leiter told PolitiFact that "Garcia was crystal clear when he was asked whether he supported the social safety net." Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps "are the very same social safety net programs that have proved essential to families in California who have been severely impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic."

Garcia’s campaign did not reply to our requests for information.

Our ruling

An ad using strong imagery on COVID-19 said Garcia said: "Everyone should have to figure out how to fend for themselves."

Garcia made the remark about food stamps and other government programs, though the ad gives no indication of that, and that was months before the outbreak. Garcia has expressed opposition to federal safety net programs generally, saying he prefers private sector assistance.

We rate the statement Mostly False.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more.

YouTube, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "CA-25: Fend" ad, Sept. 8, 2020

Yahoo News, "LA's Coronavirus Death Toll Is High, But The Spread Is Slowing" Aug. 22, 2020

YouTube, "The Talk of Santa Clarita" Mike Garcia interview (22:55), Aug. 8, 2019

Interview, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Cole Leiter, Sept. 16, 2020

Antelope Valley Times, "Op-ed: Statement from Congressman Mike Garcia on California shutdown," July 14, 2020

The Signal, "Mike Garcia: Getting to Work in Washington," May 23, 2020

Associated Press, "Timeline of events during California’s coronavirus outbreak," July 1, 2020

ABCNews7.com, "Coronavirus Timeline: Tracking major moments of COVID-19 pandemic in San Francisco Bay Area," Sept. 15, 2020

KHTS-AM, "What You Should Know About Mike Garcia," Sept. 9, 2019

ElectMikeGarcia.com, "KHTS: What You Should Know About Mike Garcia," accessed Sept. 16, 2020

ElectMikeGarcia.com, home page, accessed Sept. 17, 2020

You already know the AARP lobbies for the interests of Americans over age 50. But does it also send money to the Democratic Party?

That’s what a popular (and previously debunked) Facebook post claims:

"Are you aware that a portion of everything you pay A.A.R.P Goes directly to the Democratic Party," a Facebook post asks.

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The post’s claim is untrue. AARP as an organization does not support the Democratic Party, and the claim has been debunked by fact-checkers before.

An AARP spokesperson, Jason Young, confirmed that AARP is strictly nonpartisan.

Young said AARP is a tax-exempt social welfare organization in good standing with the IRS, and pointed PolitiFact to the IRS’ description of social welfare organizations.

On its website, the IRS says that a tax-exempt social welfare organization is "an organization must not be organized for profit and must be operated exclusively to promote social welfare."

The website further explains: "The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office."

Chief operating officer Scott Frisch signed AARP’s most recent tax filing, confirming that "AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization empowering people to choose how they live as they age."

AARP has a policy "against endorsing — or giving the appearance of endorsing — political parties, government officials or candidates for office," Young said. (The full policy can be found here.)

He also said much of AARP’s leadership doesn’t donate to political candidates or campaigns.

"Most of our board doesn’t give to candidates or campaigns," Young said. "Our CEO doesn’t give to candidates or campaigns. And most of our executive team does not give. Rank-and-file employees have the right to give, of course, but they don’t direct the organization or its policies."

PolitiFact used Federal Election Commission data to confirm that the majority of AARP board members and the majority of AARP executive team members haven’t made recent political campaign contributions.

Individual donors associated with AARP have donated primarily to Democratic candidates in most election cycles including 2016, 2018 and 2020, according to an Open Secrets campaign contribution database.

But when surveyed, about a third of AARP members report that their political leanings are conservative, a third report their leanings are liberal and a third consider themselves independent or in between, according to Young.

So what does AARP do with the money it receives from donations or from its $16 per year membership fee?

The AARP lobbies for policies such as protecting Medicare, fighting high drug prices, protecting Social Security, combating fraud targeted at older people and addressing senior poverty.

Our ruling

A Facebook post asks, "Are you aware that a portion of everything you pay A.A.R.P Goes directly to the Democratic Party."

AARP is a tax-exempt social welfare nonprofit that is not permitted to participate in political campaigns. People who work for AARP can make individual political contributions, but those donations do not come from the organization as a whole.

We rate this post False.

Lead Stories, "Fact Check: A Portion Of What You Pay A.A.R.P. Does NOT Go Directly To The Democratic Party," Aug. 18, 2020

Snopes.com, "Does AARP Support the Democratic Party?" Aug. 19, 2020

USA Today, "Fact check: AARP maintains nonpartisan stance, makes no political donations," Aug. 29, 2020

Email interview with AARP spokesperson Jason Young, Aug. 16, 2020

IRS, "Social Welfare Organizations," accessed Sept. 17, 2020

AARP, "AARP’s Policy on Political or Partisan Activity," Sept. 14, 2016

AARP, "How Much Does AARP Membership Cost?" accessed Sept. 17, 2016

OpenSecrets.org, "AARP Summary," accessed Sept. 17, 2020

OpenSecrets.org, "AARP Totals," accessed Sept. 17, 2020

Federal Election Commission Database, "Individual contributions," accessed Sept. 17, 2020

Conspiracy theories about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and sex offender who officials say killed himself in jail, have spilled into into the world he orbited.

"Epstein dies while in custody, his private banker is found dead, a judge had a trial regarding Epstein and the Deutsche Bank," reads a recent Facebook post. "Her son has been killed now and her husband has been shot. The shooter who shot the son and shot the judge’s husband has now also been found dead. Why is this not news?!"

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Epstein’s "private banker" who was found dead seems to be a reference to Thomas Bowers, who committed suicide in November 2019, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

Bowers was a former Deutsche Bank executive who "reportedly signed off on some of the institution’s unorthodox loans to Donald Trump," Los Angeles Magazine reported. Bowers was once the head of the bank’s American wealth-management division, where he oversaw Trump’s private banker. The article doesn’t mention Epstein.

But Epstein, a financier, has close ties to Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank recently agreed to pay a $150 million fine for its dealings with Epstein, the New York Times reported in a July article titled: "These are the Deutsche Bank executives responsible for serving Jeffrey Epstein."

The bank itself hasn’t publicly identified the individuals who worked with Epstein but based on descriptions of the employees in a consent order with the New York Department of Financial Services, and interviews with current and former bank officials, the Times identified nearly everyone in the legal document, according to the story.

Paul Morris, who had previously helped Epstein manage an account at JPMorgan, brought Epstein to Deutsche Bank, the Times reported. Because Morris needed approval for a client who carried a reputational risk — Epstein had been convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor — he sent a memo to Charles Packard, then the head of the bank’s American wealth-management division that detailed Epstein’s past.

Other bank officials are mentioned in the article but not Bowers.

We found no credible sources corroborating the Facebook post’s claim that Bowers was Epstein’s "private banker."

Deutsche Bank also connects Epstein to Judge Esther Salas, a federal judge whose son was killed and her husband injured in a shooting at their New Jersey home in July.

Salas has presided over a class action lawsuit brought against the bank by investors who claim it made false and misleading statements about its anti-money laundering policies, according to the Associated Press, and because it failed to monitor "high-risk" customers like Epstein.

The lawyer suspected in the shooting at Salas’ home was Roy Den Hollander, a self-described "anti-feminist" who had compiled a dossier on her and her family and arrived at their home that morning carrying a FedEx package.

"He was apparently angry at Judge Salas for not moving quickly enough on a lawsuit he had brought challenging the constitutionality of the male-only draft," according to the Times.

Days before the shooting at Salas’ residence, Hollander had traveled to San Bernardino County, Calif., where authorities say he shot and killed a rival men’s rights lawyer at his home. Hollander later killed himself.

We rate this Facebook post False.

Facebook post, Sept. 3, 2020

The Hayride, Jeffrey Epstein’s private banker dead by ‘suicide,’ model scout MIA, Dec. 4, 2019

Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, Thomas Bowers, visited Sept. 18, 2020

Los Angeles Magazine, Former Deutsche Bank exec connected to Trump loans dies by suicide in Malibu, Nov. 27, 2019

The New York Times, These are the Deutsche Bank executives responsible for serving Jeffrey Epstein, July 13, 2020

The New York Times, Judge whose son was killed by misogynistic lawyer speaks out, Aug. 3, 2020

The Associated Press, Son of US District Judge Esther Salas killed, husband shot, July 19, 2020

Rolling Stone, Gunman shoots son, husband of federal judge Esther Salas in New Jersey, July 20, 2020

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris has taken a strong stance on gun control and she’s often misquoted on the subject.

Now, another false Harris quote about guns — this one about taking firearms from individuals first and having due process come second — is circulating on Facebook.

The post features a photo of Harris and quotes her as saying: "Take the guns first. Go through due process second, I like taking the guns early."

But she’s not the candidate who said those words. It was President Donald Trump.

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Weeks after the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Trump met with lawmakers at the White House to discuss gun control measures.

At one point during the meeting, Trump said:

"It takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man's case that just took place in Florida ... to go to court would’ve taken a long time ... so you can do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second."

See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Harris, the former attorney general of California, supports stronger gun legislation, including stricter regulations for manufacturers and closing gun purchasing loopholes, but we’ve seen no evidence that she has suggested that due process should be bypassed in an effort to confiscate people’s guns.

Our ruling

A Facebook post claims Harris said "take the guns first. Go through due process second, I like taking the guns early."

There’s no record of Harris ever saying this.

In fact, the comments were made by President Trump during a meeting at the White House in 2018.

This is Pants on Fire!

Facebook post, Aug. 31, 2020

PolitiFact, No, Kamala Harris didn’t say this about guns, Aug. 17, 2020

YouTube, Trump: Take the guns first, go through due process second, Feb. 28, 2018

USA Today, Fact check: False meme attributes Trump quote about taking guns and due process to Kamala Harris, Sept. 17, 2020

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had many criticisms of President Donald Trump during a CNN town hall near Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa. One of them revived an attack shared on social media earlier in the summer.

Biden referenced Trump’s walk from the White House to the historic St. John’s Church on Lafayette Square. It came on June 1, when downtown Washington, D.C., was full of protesters following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police days earlier.

Critics mostly blasted Trump for using tear gas to clear nonviolent protesters just before his walk to the church for a photo-op. But some on social media took aim at how Trump held the Bible.

For instance, novelist Stephen King tweeted, "Dear fundamentalist Christian Trump supporters: If Obama had held the Bible backwards and upside down, you would immediately have called him the Antichrist." The tweet attracted more than 164,000 likes.

See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

At the CNN town hall, Biden said that forces physically moved people out of Trump’s way "so he can walk across to a Protestant church and hold a Bible upside down."

Biden has made the claim about the upside-down Bible before, even though fact-checkers had debunked it. The claim has also appeared in various news accounts about the church photo-op and social media posts.

Trump himself has previously denied that he held the Bible upside down.

See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com

What does the evidence show?

We scrutinized a series of images from the Associated Press as well as raw video from NBC News, and the truth is clear: Trump held the Bible right-side up.

The Bible he held up had no writing on the front cover, so to viewers who couldn’t see the spine, it may have looked like he was holding it upside down and backwards. But here are several AP images that clearly show the spine right-side up.

In the following images, perhaps the most iconic ones taken of the event, it is a little harder to read the spine, but the free end of the ribbon bookmark clearly dangles below the Bible, which is how it was when the Bible was oriented correctly in the other images.

We also reviewed the video of the event and confirmed that Trump consistently held the Bible right-side up. In fact, at several points he appears to look down on it to make sure that he’s holding it correctly.

The Biden campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

Our ruling

Biden said that after Trump walked across Lafayette Square to a church, he held a Bible upside down.

This false claim spread on social media earlier this summer, without evidence, and made it into several news reports and opinion pieces. But fact-checkers debunked it as early as June, and a review of still images and video from that day show clearly that it is inaccurate. Trump held the Bible right-side up throughout the event.

We rate the statement Pants on Fire!

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more.

Joe Biden, remarks in a CNN town hall, Sept. 17, 2020

Associated Press photographs

NBC News, "Trump Stands In Front of Church Holding Bible After Threatening Military Action Against Protesters" (video), June 1, 2020

Donald Trump, tweet, June 25, 2020

Stephen King, tweet, June 2, 2020

Snopes.com, "Did Trump Hold the Bible Upside Down?" June 25, 2020

PolitiFact, "White House says officers didn’t fire tear gas, rubber bullets on protesters. Why that’s misleading," June 4, 2020

According to the internet, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates thinks you don’t have a choice about being vaccinated. A YouTube video even shows him saying so in his very own words.

Here’s why you shouldn’t believe this claim: The video, titled "Bill Gates says you don't have a choice to be vaccinated or not," takes Gates’ comments during an interview with the Financial Times out of context by eliminating the question he was answering and the first part of his response.

"You don’t have a choice," Gates says in the clip, which has been viewed almost 100,000 times. "People act like you have a choice. People don't feel like going to the stadium when they might get infected. You know, it's not the government who's saying OK, just ignore this disease, and people are deeply affected by seeing these deaths, by knowing they could be part of the transmission chain, and old people, their parents, their grandparents could be affected by this. And so you don't get to say, ignore what's going on here. There will be the ability, particularly in rich countries, to open up if things are done well over the next few months. But for the world at large, normalcy only returns when we've largely vaccinated the entire global population."

The video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

That's because the video ignores the fact that Gates was responding to a question about how he would weigh the economic costs of lockdown with the public health risks of reopening businesses during the early months of the pandemic.

Here’s a transcript of the relevant passage from the Financial Times interview, complete with the question that Gates was answering when he made his "you won’t have a choice" comment.

Interviewer: "And what about that trade-off? You just mentioned, obviously, the economic pain. What do you think the right balance is between the trade-off of protecting people's lives and the economic hit? Do you see a situation where the global economy could be virtually at a standstill for a year or even more?"

Gates: "Well, it won't go to zero, but it will shrink. Global GDP is going to take probably the biggest hit ever. Maybe the Depression was worse or 1873, I don't know. But in my lifetime this will be the greatest economic hit. But you don't have a choice. People act like you have a choice. People don't feel like going to the stadium when they might get infected. You know, it's not the government who's saying OK, just ignore this disease, and people are deeply affected by seeing these deaths, by knowing they could be part of the transmission chain, and old people, their parents, their grandparents could be affected by this. And so you don't get to say, ignore what's going on here. There will be the ability, particularly in rich countries, to open up if things are done well over the next few months. But for the world at large, normalcy only returns when we've largely vaccinated the entire global population. And so although there's a lot of work on testing, a lot of work on drugs that we’re involved with, trying to achieve that ambitious goal, which has never been done for the vaccine, that rises to the top of the list."

In context, Gates is saying that governments won’t be able to avoid taking an economic hit from the pandemic, because he believes that people won’t want to frequent businesses when there’s a chance that they’ll become "part of the transmission chain."

Gates does say that he believes that normalcy will only return after the entire global population is vaccinated from the coronavirus. But at no point does he say that people "won’t have a choice" about whether or not they’ll be vaccinated.

We reached out to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asking whether Gates believes that coronavirus vaccinations should be mandatory. In reply, spokespeople from the foundation wrote that "national governments will make the ultimate decision about how vaccines will be distributed in their own borders."

We should note that Gates has become a frequent target for disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Conspiracy theorists have falsely claimed he is planning to use coronavirus vaccines to implant tracking devices in people, that he and Dr. Anthony Fauci are colluding to ruin the economy, and that he stands to reap enormous profits from the virus.

Our ruling

A YouTube video appears to show Bill Gates saying that people "don’t have a choice" about whether they’ll receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

The video takes Gates out of context. He was actually saying that governments won’t be able to escape the economic impacts of the pandemic, even if they decide to reopen businesses before a vaccine is available.

We rate this video False. ​

CNBC, "Bill Gates denies conspiracy theories that say he wants to use coronavirus vaccines to implant tracking devices," Jul. 22, 2020

Financial Times, "Transcript: Bill Gates speaks to the FT about the global fight against coronavirus," Apr. 9, 2020

PolitiFact, "Fact-checking a Facebook conspiracy about Bill Gates, Dr. Fauci and COVID-19," Apr. 14, 2020

PolitiFact, "The Gates Foundation does not have a patent for the coronavirus," Apr. 23, 2020

YouTube video, "Bill Gates says you don't have a choice to be vaccinated or not," Jul. 2, 2020