T0161.002.md

Technique T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution

Summary: A statement has incorrectly been presented as having been made by an individual or institution.

Misattributed statements come in many forms. For example, entirely falsified videos or articles can include misattributed statements, an image of a person can be posted alongside a statement which they didn’t actually make, or it can be something as simple as a post claiming a statement was made by an individual or institution.

To make this assertion, analysts may search for reports from official sources supporting the claim that that the individual or institution has made the statement attributed to them. They may check the veracity of the attribution with the individual or institution themselves, or entities associated with them. If the statement was claimed to have been made online (e.g. in a post to social media), they may check for posts published on the date it was claimed the statement was made (including online tools which archive since-deleted posts).

Tactic: TA06 Develop Content

Parent Technique: T0161 Falsified Content

Associated Technique

Description

T0161.001 Impersonated Content

T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution is differentiated from T0161.001: Impersonated Content in that the former applies to claims that an individual or institution made a claim (e.g. a post which stated “The AFP made the following claim!”) where the latter applies to content intentionally produced to look like another individual or institution made it (e.g. a fake screenshot of an article published by the AFP).

Incident	Descriptions given for this incident
I00144 Viral Kamala Harris-attributed ‘vengeance’ quote is from 2019 satirical news article	A quote about Trump supporters feeling “the vengeance of a nation” if the Democrats are re-elected is circulating on social media and being falsely attributed to Kamala Harris. Posts sharing the quote have appeared on X (formerly Twitter), and also Facebook, with claims it was said by the now-Democratic presidential candidate in June 2020 (T0162.011: Content Originally Produced as Satire Presented as Not Satire). It reads: “Once Trump’s gone and we have regained our rightful place in the White House, look out if you supported him and endorsed his actions because we’ll be coming for you next. “You will feel the vengeance of a nation. No stone will be left unturned as we seek you out in this great nation. For it is you that betrayed us.” But this is not a genuine quote from the Vice President (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). The text originates from a satire website called ‘bustatroll’, which published it in an article in 2019. Its about page says: “Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real.” While the website is no longer active, an archived version of the story can be found online, which is apparently authored by ‘Colon Crusher’. It is marked as “Satire and/or Conservative Fan Fiction” (T0160.005: Content Produced as Satire) underneath the headline: “Kamala Harris: ‘After We Impeach, We Round Up The Trump Supporters’”. In the same satirical article, Ms Harris is claimed to have also said “the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men”—a quote from the film Pulp Fiction and is accompanied by a photo of Samuel L Jackson, whose character in the movie said that line. The same quote being shared online was also previously debunked by US fact checkers in 2020 (T0160.006: Content Previously Fact Checked).
I00145 Elon Musk has not agreed to buy CNN for $3 billion	Social media posts claiming Elon Musk has agreed to buy the US news channel CNN for $3 billion are not true and originate from a satirical article (T0160.005: Content Produced as Satire). A number of posts on Facebook and Threads have been shared with the caption: "Elon Musk Agrees to $3 Billion to Buy CNN. Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing CNN Acquisition: ‘I’ll Fix the Media, One Network at a Time’” (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0162.011: Content Originally Produced as Satire Presented as Not Satire). The claim has also spread to X, which Mr Musk owns. But the claim actually stems from a satirical article (T0160.005: Content Produced as Satire) published by a parody news website called SpaceXMania, dated 18 October 2024 (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona, T0143.004: Parody Persona). The headline “Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing CNN Acquisition: ‘I’ll Fix the Media, One Network at a Time’” is similar to many of the social media posts. However the article is clearly labelled as satire, and the website’s ‘about page’ also says it provides the “freshest fake news, some sassy analysis, and a good dose of satire” focused on Mr Musk. CNN also told Full Fact: “There is no truth in rumours of a sale or change in ownership of CNN whatsoever. Any statements to the contrary are completely false.” Likewise Mr Musk has not issued any statement about purchasing CNN and there is no evidence from credible news outlets that any such arrangement is on the cards. Full Fact has also contacted Mr Musk about the claim, and will update this article if we receive a response. Although some claims may seem obviously false, we may still fact check them because it may not be clear to everyone, particularly more casual internet users, that they are untrue.
I00160 Did Ruth Bader Ginsburg Say that Pedophilia Was Good for Children?	The language in a 1974 report that was co-authored by Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has been analyzed and criticized for more than four decades. The piece tackled sex bias in the United States penal code. As these critics have devolved from scholars, to senators, to pundits, to conspiracy-minded web sites, to the lowly meme maker, the accusations against Ginsburg have grown more crude and distorted. In February 2018, for instance, we came across a meme featuring an image of the Supreme Court Justice and a quote ostensibly uttered by her about pedophilia being good for children: This is not a genuine quote from Ruth Bader Ginsburg (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). This claim is based upon a gross misinterpretation of another misinterpretation, which was itself based upon a simple misreading of a 1974 report entitled "The Legal Status of Women Under Federal Law" that was co-authored by Ginsburg, who at the time was a professor of law at the Columbia Law School. The other co-author was Brenda Feigen-Fasteau, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union's women's rights project. In 1974 Ginsburg and Feigen-Fasteau published a report examining how federal law frequently employed gendered language. This report was used as the basis for the "Sex Bias in the U.S. Code," a report published in 1977, which included a passage explaining the purpose of the study: The Constitution, which provides the framework for the American legal system, was drafted using the generic term "man." While the United States Supreme Court, the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution, might have determined that "man" also means "woman" in terms of rights, duties, privileges, and obligations under the Constitution, the Court instead has chosen on numerous occasions to deny to women certain rights and privileges not denied to men. While explaining the "equality principle" and arguing that pronouns should be altered in the existing penal code so that both men and women were equally accountable for crimes against both boys and girls, Ginsburg quoted a proposed 1973 Senate bill as an example of legislation which used gender neutral language: A person is guilty of an offense if he engages in a sexual act with another person, not his spouse, and (1) compels the other person to participate: (A) by force or (B) by threatening or placing the other person in fear that any person will imminently be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping; (2) has substantially impaired the other person's power to appraise or control the conduct by administering or employing a drug or intoxicant without the knowledge or against the will of such other person, or by other means; or (3) the other person is, in fact, less than 12 years old. It is the highlighted line that has been repeatedly misinterpreted and distorted over the ensuing decades. It appears that Ginsburg was first accused of wanting to lower the age of consent to 12 shortly before she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1993. This accusation reemerged in 2005 after John Roberts was nominated. Both Senator Lindsey Graham and Fox News host Sean Hannity, for instance, used this line to argue that Ginsburg was "very left-wing" and immoral: HANNITY: I guess where I am on this, if you look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I mean, she -- the Ginsburg rule, she doesn't have to answer specific questions, clearly pro-choice going in, thinks there may even be a constitutional right to polygamy, has a controversial view we should lower the age of consent to 12, supports legalized prostitution, very left-wing. GRAHAM: Well, there are all kind of hearts. There are bleeding hearts and there are hard hearts. And if I wanted to judge Justice Ginsburg on her heart, I might take a hard-hearted view of her and say she's a bleeding heart. She represents the ACLU. She wants the age of consent to be 12. She believes there's a constitutional right to prostitution. What kind of heart is that? However, Ginsburg never actually said that the age of consent should be lowered to 12 (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). Ginsburg's report was about changing gendered language, not the age of consent, in our existing laws. In the quoted passage, she was not arguing for or against lowering the age of consent; rather, she was quoting a proposed Senate bill as an example of how appropriate gender-neutral pronouns should be used. Ginsburg wrote that she used this bill because it "conform(ed) to the equality principle," not because she agreed with the presented age of consent. Furthermore, Ginsburg mentioned another section of the penal code a few paragraphs earlier which referenced a different age of consent: 16. In both cases, Ginsburg's focus was on the gender of the victim, rather than the age, as her report was specifically concerned with gendered-language in U.S. law: 18 U.S.C. § §1154 and 2032 make it a crime for a person to have carnal knowledge of a female, not his wife, who has not attained the age of sixteen years. [...] The "statutory rape" offense defined in these sections follows the traditional pattern: the victim must be a female and the offender, a male. Protection of the girl's virtue as an asset to be traded by her family at marriage time can no longer survive as a justification for such provisions. The immaturity and vulnerability of young people of both sexes can be protected through appropriately drawn, sex-neutral proscriptions. The claim that Ginsburg said that "pedophilia was good for children" appears to be the result of a decades-long game of telephone that started with a misreading of a 1974 report. It started in 1993, after Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court, when this report was quoted out of context as evidence that Ginsburg wanted to lower the age of consent to 12 (T0162.009: Statement Reframed by Removal from Context). As this errant argument was reiterated by pundits such as Sean Hannity it morphed from a single out of context quote to an alleged personal belief at the core of Ginsburg's political views. When the "Pizzagate" controversy exploded during the 2016 presidential election, this rumor underwent another devolution as conspiracy theorists claimed that Ginsburg once wrote that she wanted to legalize child rape.
I00190 Chris Christie Said Teachers Should Only Make Minimum Wage?	On 24 August 2015, the web site Business Standard News published a fake news article reporting that New Jersey governor (and Republican presidential hopeful) Chris Christie said that teachers were overpaid and should make minimum wage plus a bonus based on the number of students who pass standardized tests (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution): “"Teachers are paid too much, that’s what’s bankrupting the system,” Christie said. “Some teachers make six-figure salaries and that’s not including retirement benefits.” “Christie suggested a new teacher pay structure. He proposed teachers get paid minimum wage and a bonus for every student that passes standardized tests. ““Teacher pay should be determined by how well their students are doing,” Christie said. “They need to be held accountable. If students are failing, teachers are nothing more than glorified baby sitters.”” The above-quoted story is a work of fiction from a satirical (i.e., fake news) site (T0160.005: Content Produced as Satire). A disclaimer on the Business Standard News (aka "B.S. News") site states that it was designed to "parody" real news (T0143.004: Parody Persona, T0097.202: News Outlet Persona): “The Business Standard News is a satirical site designed to parody the 24-hour news cycle. The stories are outlandish, but reality is so strange nowadays they could be true.” The Business Standard News has previously published fake stories about Fox News' hiring Stacey Dash to "attract old white dudes" and George Zimmerman's being engaged as a Fox News contributor.
I00191 Fact Check: False posts say AP reported on Trump ‘child molestation charges’	The Associated Press did not say prosecutors were “reconsidering” bringing child rape and molestation charges against former U.S. President Donald Trump, contrary to baseless posts on social media (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). Facebook posts say, “BREAKING NEWS. Prosecutors Are Reconsidering Bringing Charges Against Former President Donald J. Trump On Child Rape And Molestation Charges. - AP News.” Lauren Easton, a representative for the AP, said in an email that the agency did not report any such story. No such article or alert exists on the AP website. The posts surfaced days following the July 1 release of transcripts from the prosecution of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2006 (T0068: Respond to Breaking News Event or Active Crisis). The transcripts, ordered by Florida Judge Luis Delgado, contain almost 200 pages of details about Epstein including first-hand reports from victims and settlements with the victims, the BBC reported. While Trump has been mentioned in previous Epstein-related documents, he has not been accused of wrongdoing, the BBC reported. There are no credible news reports about any child molestation charges against Trump (T0160.002: Information is False).
I00193 Fact Check: CNN did not report that Harris made 17 false claims during the debate	CNN did not report that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris made 17 false claims in the first ten minutes of the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Republican rival Donald Trump (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). The misleading online narrative was originally shared as satire (T0162.011: Content Originally Produced as Satire Presented as Not Satire). A day after the debate, Facebook accounts posted: “CNN's official fact-checker says Kamala lied 17 times in the first ten minutes.” A CNN spokesperson declined to comment but the news outlet’s reporting makes no mention that Harris lied 17 times in the first 10 minutes, or across the duration of the debate, as the viral posts suggest. A Sept. 11 CNN report analyzing several statements made by both candidates said Trump delivered more than 30 false claims during the debate while Harris made one. The report identified Harris’ claim that Trump left office “with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression,” as false. According to CNN, Harris also made two misleading statements and three others that lacked context. A video report featuring CNN fact-check reporter Daniel Dale echoes the same findings. The viral narrative could be traced to a Sept. 10 post, on the Facebook page “America - Love It Or Leave It.” The page describes itself as a subsidiary of “America's Last Line of Defense network” that posts satire (T0160.005: Content Produced as Satire) and parody content (T0143.004: Parody Persona). “Nothing on this page is real,” the bio reads.
I00195 Fact check: False quote attributed to Michael Kors about African Americans	Social media users have been sharing images online with a quote attributed to designer Michael Kors that says, “I’m tired of pretending that I like blacks.” This claim is false (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). [...] Some versions of the post show a screenshot from a 2015 article on now-deleted website, nahadaily.com [...] The website discloses at the bottom of the page that it is satire (T0143.004: Parody Persona). Another version shows a screenshot of a tweet from an account called “TMZ Breaking News”, featuring the same wording from the satirical article (T0162.011: Content Originally Produced as Satire Presented as Not Satire). The account uses TMZ’s name and logo but discloses in its bio that it is not actually affiliated TMZ. (T0143.003: Impersonated Persona). [...] Although the claim stems from a satirical article, it has since been taken seriously. A quote of this nature from well-known designer Michael Kors would have been reported on widely by major news organizations. Reuters found no evidence Kors made this statement. Michael Kors released several statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on social media.
I00197 Fact check: False Theodore Roosevelt quote about liberals and conservatives	Posts circulated on social media attribute a quote on liberals and conservatives to the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The quote, however, is falsely attributed to him (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). The posts show a photograph of Roosevelt alongside text which reads: “To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." The posts do not point to a source for the quotation, nor a possible date. [...] On social media, users have responded with conflicting reactions. Some have concurred with the sentiment (one posted: “Gosh…that’s dead on”), while others have disputed the authenticity of the quotation. Reuters found no mention of this quote among those compiled by the Theodore Roosevelt Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to perpetuating his memory and ideals. The quote did not appear among the list of notable quotations listed by the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University, another organization working to preserve Roosevelt’s legacy. In the past, the quotation has been attributed to other statesmen like Winston Churchill. On other social media sites, the quotation has circulated with attribution to Roosevelt, as anonymous, or attributed to an “unknown” source since 2009. In 2013, Barry Popik, a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Yale Book of Quotations and the Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, found that the quote had been in print since about 2007, as first reported by Politifact. “Well after Roosevelt’s lifetime,” Popik noted in a blog entry. Throughout the years, other fact-checkers have debunked this claim (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked).
I00198 Fact check: False Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote on age of consent	An image on social media makes the claim that Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said “the age of consent for sexual acts must be lowered to age (sic) 12 years old.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg never said this (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). The alleged quote has its origin in 1993 hearings on Bader Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. Susan Hirschmann presented this claim as fact at a July 1993 judiciary hearing. “The age of consent must be lowered to 12 years old” is Hirschmann’s interpretation of a recommendation put forth by Bader Ginsburg in the report “Sex Bias in the U.S. Code”, published by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR). In August 1993, Thomas L. Jipping similarly presented a series of arguments against Bader Ginsburg’s nomination, among them referencing the same USCCR report co-authored by Bader Ginsburg. He argued that, in this report, Bader Ginsburg’s recommendations included drafting women into the military, legalizing prostitution, constitutionally protecting bigamy, and “lowering the age of consent for sexual acts to 12 years.” Sex Bias in the U.S. Code, the USCCR report, is visible online. It was published in 1977, a date also referenced in some of the Facebook claims. A section beginning on page 95 described how the law stood at the time (“Under 18 U.S.C. 1153 and 2032, it is a crime for a person to have carnal knowledge of a female not his wife who has not reached 16 years of age”) and noted that the legal definition of rape assumed the offender was a man and the victim was a woman. The report argued: “These provisions clearly fail to comply with the equal rights principle. They fail to recognize that women of all ages are not the only targets of sexual assault; men and boys can also be the victims of rape.” On page 102, the report recommended removing the phrase “carnal knowledge of any female, not his wife who has not attained the age of sixteen years” and replacing it with “a Federal, sex-neutral definition of the offense patterned after S. 1400 section 1633”. The report goes on to quote directly from S. 1400, which was a proposed Senate bill under which a person would be guilty of an offense if they compelled someone else to take part in sex by force or threats, by drugging or intoxicating them, or if “the other person is, in fact, less than 12 years old”. Bader Ginsburg was arguing in the report for a broader, gender-neutral definition of rape. The passage that her critics cite as evidence she favored lowering the age of consent is actually a quote from a proposed Senate bill (T0162: Reframe Context), not from Bader Ginsburg (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). The focus of Bader Ginsburg’s argument was not on the age of consent, but on removing an antiquated definition that assumed only women could be targets of sexual assault. Bader Ginsburg had put forward the same argument in an earlier report, “The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law”, co-authored with Brenda Feigen Fasteau in 1974 (see Title 18 section, page 78 of PDF). Once again, the paper quotes directly from the 1973 Senate bill, S. 1400, as providing “a definition of rape that, in substance, conforms to the equality principle”. Over time, the misinterpretations of Bader Ginsburg’s arguments in these reports have led to the type of claims seen in the Facebook posts where direct quotes are falsely attributed to her. Slate tackled this misinformation when Senator Lindsey Graham repeated the claim in 2005, as has the Washington Post and Snopes (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked). Other iterations of this claim include the attribution of the false quote “pedophilia is good for the children” to Bader Ginsburg (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). False. This is not a direct quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It stems from a false interpretation by third parties of legal recommendations presented by Bader Ginsburg in the 1970s.
I00199 Fact check: False Donald Trump quote on Africans	Social media users have been sharing images of a newspaper clipping of an article with an offensive quote about African people, falsely attributed to Donald Trump, in the headline (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). [...] The newspaper article is dated October 27, 2015 and consists mostly of alleged quotes from Trump. The first two paragraphs read: “ONCE AGAIN, US business magnate Donald Trump has expressed his deep disgust for Africans by referring to them as lazy fools only good at eating, lovemaking and thuggery. Speaking in Indianapolis, Trump who is also the republican Presidential torch bearer, reiterated his promise to deport Africans especially those of Kenyan origin including their son Barrack (sic) Obama.” The newspaper article cites “newzimbabwe“at the end. A now-deleted online article on newzimbabwe.com (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona) ( archive.vn/PcNDE ) stems from a similarly deleted article published by a website called Politica on October 25, 2015 ( archive.vn/VXjGj ). Politica appears to be a now-defunct blog-style website (T0152.002: Blog Asset). [...] Reuters could not find any record of Trump making such remarks or of him speaking in Indiana in October 2015. At the time, he was the Republican front-runner for the 2016 election and any comments of the kind attributed to him in the article would have gained worldwide media attention. VERDICT False. This article was fabricated in 2015 on a now-deleted website.
I00200 Fact check: False Jimmy Carter quote on taxes, helping the poor and Christian values	Tens of thousands of users on social media are sharing a quote purportedly said by Jimmy Carter, regarding taxes helping the poor and Christian values. The quote has been wrongly attributed to the 39th president of the U.S. It was said by comedian John Fugelsang (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). Most iterations of the claim feature a photograph of Carter and read: “If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't!" [...] Earlier iterations of the quote on social media dating back to 2013 do not refer to Jimmy Carter but to the actor and comedian John Fugelsang. Fugelsang confirmed to Reuters via Twitter direct message that the quote is indeed his and not Carter's. He made this remark on the talk show Viewpoint, featured on Current TV. Reuters was unable to find the segment, which is no longer available on Current TV’s website. Snopes, who debunked the claim back in 2014 (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked), reported that the segment aired on May 29, 2013 and provides a transcript of Fugelsang’s full quote . During the segment, Fugelsang made this remark to criticize Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher, who had recently quoted a Bible passage to allegedly justify billions of dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (cs.pn/2Z3AGOP ).
I00201 Fact check: False quotes attributed to Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	Social media users have been sharing images online that attribute various quotes to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Reuters could not find evidence that these any of these quotes are accurate (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). [...] The image reads: “’You need to vote for the Democrats, otherwise the illegal aliens will lose their rights.’ – Nancy Pelosi (2019), ‘No ordinary American cares about Constitutional rights.’ – Joe Biden, And my personal favorite: ‘Owning guns is not a right. If it were a right, it would be in the Constitution.’ – Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (2018)” The image doesn’t say where or when any of the alleged comments were made. [...] Reuters could not find any records of Speaker Pelosi saying “’You need to vote for the Democrats, otherwise the illegal aliens will lose their rights. (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution)” A Google search brings up pages using this quote with no attribution to a source. In a press conference in June 2018, Pelosi told a reporter that using terminology like “illegal alien” is not constructive. The video is available on C-SPAN. Her exact words can be heard around the 15:30 mark. It is therefore unlikely that Pelosi would have used the terminology in the alleged quote. [...] Reuters found no evidence former Vice President Biden ever said the words “No ordinary American cares about Constitutional rights. (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution)” Some forums and posts featuring the article link to a Breitbart article that reads, “Biden: No Ordinary American Cares About Their Constitutional Rights, Facebook Questions are Plants”. The article mentions a February 21, 2013 forum at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury where then Vice President Biden spoke about gun control. A video on the New York Times website shows Biden’s speech at the university. The closest to the quote in the claim can be seen round the 11:10 mark: “No law-abiding citizen in the United States of America has any fear that their constitutional rights will be infringed in any way. None, zero.” The actual quote is significantly different to the quote in this claim. Biden did not say “No ordinary American cares about their constitutional rights”. (T0162: Reframe Context, T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution) [...] “Owning guns is not a right. If it were a right, it would be in the constitution.” Reuters could not find any record of Ocasio-Cortez saying this. The social media posts do not provide any context or other information about the purported quote (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). Ocasio-Cortez clarified her stance on the second amendment on the right to keep and bear arms while answering questions on a Reddit thread when she was running as a candidate for Congress in 2017: “Combating domestic terrorism? Keep the severely mentally ill and people with a history of domestic abuse from purchasing guns. I am a believer in the second amendment, but this is where I draw the line.” On her website, she calls for “common sense gun reform with the goal of eliminating gun violence and saving lives” It is unlikely that, as a Congresswoman, Ocasio-Cortez would not be aware of the existence and meaning of the second amendment. Reuters previously debunked the Biden and Ocasio-Cortez quotes (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked), along with other false quotes attributed to prominent Democrats.
I00202 Fact check: False Mel Gibson quote on Hollywood	Social media users have been sharing content online that attributes a quote exposing Hollywood elites as pedophiles to actor Mel Gibson. This claim is false; the quote is fabricated (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution, T0160.002: Information is False). [...] Some posts use this quote: “Hollywood is an institutionalized pedophile ring. It is a den of parasites who feast on the blood of children. Every studio in Hollywood is bought and paid for with the blood of innocent children.” The comment seems to stem from an article originally published on NewsPunch.com (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona), previously “Your News Wire”. It has since been deleted, but archived versions can be found archive.vn/FyeKl ; and archive.is/SuTTt ; . The article claims that Gibson explained to guests in a green room after appearing on the Graham Norton Show about the “real nature of Hollywood elites”. A well-known actor speaking to a crowd of people about this topic would have gathered a lot of attention and been reported by major news organizations. However, a Google search of the quote only brings up social media posts, blogs and meme pages. The original article including the quote was written by Baxter Dmitry, a possible pseudonym (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) for an author who has been criticized for writing fake news articles. The website YourNewsWire has also been criticized for producing inaccurate content. Dmitry  is still a frequent contributor to NewsPunch. The article has been copied or slightly altered (T0165: Edited Content) and published to other websites and blogs, which has led to the wide circulation of the quote. [...] A spokesperson for Mel Gibson told Reuters via email that the claims are “100% fake”. VERDICT False. This quote attributed to Mel Gibson originated from a fabricated article.
I00203 Fact check: Viral post backing Trump came from imposter Hallie Biden account	Nearly two years after the 2020 presidential election, former President Donald Trump and his supporters continue to claim the election was rigged. On Aug. 29, Trump demanded to either be instated as the rightful president of the U.S. or have the country perform "a new election, immediately!" A recent social media post claims President Joe Biden's daughter-in-law is backing the debunked claim that Trump won in 2020 (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). An Aug. 30 Facebook post claims Hallie Biden tweeted support for Trump and his performance in the 2020 presidential election. "President Trump won that election and my entire family knows it," the supposed tweet reads. The post garnered more than 90 likes in two weeks. A previous version garnered more than 100 likes in its first four days before it was deleted. Screenshots of other tweets purportedly shared by Hallie Biden have been published on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. USA TODAY and other fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked false and misleading claims that Trump won the 2020 election, as an array of recounts and audits by election officials from both parties have confirmed the legitimacy of Biden's win. The purported Hallie Biden tweet is also false – in both its content and attribution. A spokesperson for Hallie Biden said the Twitter account was run by an imposter (T0143.003: Impersonated Persona), not Hallie Biden. It has since been suspended. [...] The tweet in question did not come from Hallie Biden, as she doesn't use the platform. "Mrs. Hallie Biden does not have a Twitter account," a spokesperson for the Beau Biden Foundation, a charity organization for which Hallie Biden is a board chair, told USA TODAY in an emailed statement. "Any account bearing her name is fraudulent." The account was suspended sometime between Aug. 31 and Sept. 2, according to online archives.
I00204 Fact check: Statement on migrants at the southern border falsely attributed to Ted Cruz	A viral screenshot claims to show a purported quote from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about the condition of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border. The April 2 Facebook post says Cruz questioned why "illegals arrive at the Border clean and refreshed after traveling 1,500 miles on foot." "Why don't they ever carry food or blankets? How do they charge their cell phones?" the post continues. "Almost makes one think the Alien Invasion is orchestrated." Above the text is an image of Cruz. The post has over 25,000 shares and over 900 reactions. Similar versions of the claim with hundreds of shares have been shared by users across Facebook. USA TODAY reached out to the users for comment. Steve Guest, a spokesperson for Cruz, confirmed to USA TODAY via email that Cruz never made that statement and that it is a "categorically false quote that is being wrongly attributed to him on social media." (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution) The quote does not appear on Cruz's personal Twitter account, @tedcruz, or his official Twitter page, @SenTedCruz. There is also no record of the statement on ProPublica's Politwoops database, which tracks deleted tweets by elected officials. On Facebook, users shared an image with the same text coming from the Twitter account @jonmichaelolse1, revealing where the quote first originated. The Twitter user shared the tweet on March 27 and someone likely took a screenshot of the quote, cropping out the Twitter username (T0165.004: Source Edited Out of Content, T0165.002: Cropped Content) and adding the false attribution to Cruz (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). The image of Cruz included in the posts was taken by pool photographer Jonathan Newton on June 24, 2020, during an oversight hearing held by the Senate Committee for Commerce, Science and Transportation.
I00205 Fact check: Image claiming to show 2016 Ted Cruz tweet on climate change and Texas is fabricated	After Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's trip to Cancun, Mexico, as his home state dealt with an unprecedented winter storm, an image went viral purporting to show a tweet on climate change made by the Republican in 2016. The post, shared on Facebook by many users across the platform, claims Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted, "I'll believe in climate change when Texas freezes over." (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution) The post claims the tweet was sent at 5:44 p.m. on Sept. 8, 2016, and the profile picture and blue checkmark seen in the image matches the one displayed on Cruz's official Twitter profile. "There's always a tweet," one Facebook user wrote in a post that has more than 400 shares. "This 2016 Ted Cruz Tweet did not age well, and it has also frozen solid," another user wrote Feb. 19 in a post with more than 800 shares. USA TODAY was unable to reach the Facebook users who shared the image for comment. A search for the purported climate change tweet on Cruz's personal account, @tedcruz, and his official Twitter page, @SenTedCruz, results in no matches. There is no record of the tweet on ProPublica's Politwoops database that tracks deleted tweets by elected officials. The tweet does not appear in archived versions of Cruz's Twitter page from September 2016 using the Internet Wayback Machine. Steve Guest, a communication adviser for Cruz, confirmed to Factcheck.org in an email that the tweet is fabricated. USA TODAY was unable to reach Cruz's office for comment.
I00207 Fact check: Claim comparing cost of border wall to HealthCare.gov misattributed to actor Tim Allen	Actor Tim Allen is once again the subject of a misattributed quote that makes a false comparison between the cost of the Affordable Care Act website and the cost of former President Donald Trump's border wall (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). A meme that contains the misattributed quote and an image of Allen stems from another false post that USA TODAY debunked in May (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked). “President Trump’s Wall Costs Less Than The Obamacare Website. Let that sink in, America,” reads the meme, which a Trump fan page posted to Facebook on March 20. Eric Trump, the former president's son, also shared the meme, which has circulated on social media for several years, to Instagram in September 2019. Neither the attribution nor the claim is true. The Facebook page that posted the meme did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment. In May, USA TODAY debunked a similar claim that criticized Democrats and was falsely attributed to Allen. The recently shared meme features a partial quote from that longer false claim (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked, T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). USA TODAY found that the post was authored by another man named Tim Allen in August 2019. Social media users confused the author, who has the same name as the actor, with Tim Allen from “Last Man Standing” and “Home Improvement.” "This statement was not written by my client, the actor Tim Allen," Allen’s publicist, Marleah Leslie, told USA TODAY. Leslie confirmed in an email to USA TODAY that the actor did not author the shorter quote, either. Aside from the misattribution, the claim itself is false. While exact costs for Healthcare.gov, the Obamacare website, and Trump’s border wall, are unknown, estimates put the cost of the wall much higher than the Obamacare website. An August 2014 report by the HHS Office of Inspector General estimated contracts for HealthCare.gov totaled $1.7 billion. Bloomberg put the cost slightly higher at $2.1 billion in a September 2014 article. These estimates are dwarfed by the proposed costs of the border wall. According to a Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Reuters in February 2017, the border wall could cost up to $21.6 billion if completed. This number is much higher than the $12 billion dollar estimate Trump pushed on the campaign trail. In January 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that the “border wall system” had cost $11 billion so far, according to NPR. By the end of 2020, the Trump administration had spent an estimated $16 billion on the wall, none of it paid for by Mexico, as Trump had promised, according to The Arizona Republic.
I00208 Fact check: Actor and comedian Tim Allen did not write viral conservative statement	A statement arguing a list of conservative views attributed to “Tim Allen” has recently resurfaced on Facebook. “Tim Allen is credited with writing this ... Here are some interesting points to think about prior to 2020, especially to my friends on the fence,” the post begins. “We are one election away from open borders, socialism, gun confiscation, and full-term abortion nationally. We are fighting evil,” it also says. The statement, which argues conservative stances on immigration, voter ID laws and criticizes Democratic leaders, accompanies the actor's photo and encourages others to copy, paste and share. The post also makes several false claims about the “Obamacare” website, Chelsea Clinton’s NBC salary and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal.” A jewelry technician from Virginia also named Tim Allen posted an identical statement Aug. 25, 2019. Allen from Virginia did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. "This statement was not written by my client, the actor Tim Allen," Marleah Leslie, publicist for the "Last Man Standing" and "Home Improvement" actor, told USA TODAY Wednesday (T0161.002: Statement Incorrectly Presented as Made by Individual or Institution). The viral statement also expresses adamant disapproval for 2016 presidential candidate Hilary Clinton that the actor has not shared in the past. “I wake up every day and I am grateful that Hillary Clinton is not the president of the United States of America,” the post reads. “I’ve met the Clintons and I think she’s a capable and wonderful choice,” Allen told Fox Business at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. “I was more concerned about the people she brought with her.” Allen is known for his personal and on-screen conservative politics. He's famously called his “Last Man Standing” character “Archie Bunker but college educated.” In the sitcom, Allen plays a conservative husband and father to three daughters. Many interviewers have asked Allen whether he shared his politically incorrect character’s views. “My politics are really irrelevant,” Allen told Entertainment Weekly in 2018. Allen has commented on Hollywood’s dominant liberal and politically correct nature. “If you don’t believe what everybody believes, this is like '30s Germany,” Allen joked on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in March 2017. “I’m not ignorant, but sometimes I play it.” Allen endorsed and voiced a campaign ad for Republican presidential candidate John Kasich in 2016. Allen was one of the few Hollywood stars to attend Trump’s inauguration. “At one point, Trump said things that made sense to me,” Allen told Fox Business. “At some points, the Democrats didn’t, and that’s it.” Allen has described his fiscally conservative values in several interviews, but has not publicly endorsed Trump. “I’m just watching the theater of it and trying to keep my personal opinions out of it,” Allen told Entertainment Weekly when asked whether he supported Trump. “My political party is that I’ve never liked taxes, period, so whatever that means.” We rate the claim that actor and comedian Tim Allen wrote a viral conservative statement FALSE (T0160.002: Information is False) because it is not supported by our research. The statement was posted by another man named Tim Allen and misattributed to the well-known actor. The same misattributed statement was posted and debunked by FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Truth or Fiction and Snopes in September (T0160.007: Claim Previously Fact Checked).

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