Facts v. fiction at the Michael Cohen hearingMichael Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee posed an existential question: What if a convicted liar says he's...
| |  | | Democracy Dies in Darkness | | | | | | | | | | The truth behind the rhetoric | | | | | | Facts v. fiction at the Michael Cohen hearing Michael Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee posed an existential question: What if a convicted liar says he's telling the truth about a person he says is a liar? For better or worse, that existential crisis is outside our purview here at the Fact Checker. But that doesn't mean the many hours long hearing left us with nothing to do. Rather, it was the opposite. Lawmakers and Cohen made plenty of questionable statements that caught our attention: Was it he first time someone convicted of lying to Congress testified to Congress? Nope. Nor was it illegal for Cohen to record a conversation with Trump. The Russia investigation wasn't started because of the now infamous Russia dossier. And it's unclear whether or not Cohen did indeed want a White House job. No Pinocchios here, but nevertheless, here's our round up of statements made that were wrong or subject to dispute. |  | | Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here, for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Ivanka Trump, job creator? President Trump gave credit to his daughter-slash-White House aide Ivanka Trump for having "created millions of jobs." This will come as a surprise to anyone who pulls up the numbers showing the U.S. economy has added almost 4.9 million jobs since Trump took office. "We're up to 6.3 million new jobs," Ivanka Trump said at a White House event Oct. 31. "That represents 5 percent of the current workforce. So it's really remarkable." Or it would be. But it's wrong. Through the White House's "Pledge to America's Workers," a workforce policy advisory board co-chaired by the first daughter, nearly 200 companies have pledged to offer more than 6.5 million training opportunities to workers over the next five years. That's a real achievement on an important issue. But training opportunities are not jobs; these opportunities are over a five-year time frame, not in the past; and some of the companies involved were already planning to offer these programs. So there are some real numbers here, but also real misinformation. We gave Three Pinocchios to the elder Trump. | | | Where health misinformation spreads A new article from Poynter points out — "on Facebook, health misinformation is king." Two recent examples — a meme about Medicare and a rumor about how to save a life during a stroke — passed half a million engagements on Facebook. The fact checks aiming to correct their falsehoods earned less than 10,000 impressions. Technology companies have faced pressure to curb the spread of these hoaxes, but so far, they are still spreading rapidly. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter. | | Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. — Meg Kelly & Salvador Rizzo | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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