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NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” highlights a claim from NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints, a proprietary database of provably false claims and their debunks. The claim that U.S. Senate candidate for Texas James Talarico is a vegan is NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” due to its widespread appearance across social media platforms and websites, its high engagement levels, and the high-profile nature of the sources promoting it. Those three factors, as well as its significant subject matter and potential for harm, make it our False Claim of the Week.
By Charlene Lin
What’s happening: Citing a comment from President Donald Trump, conservative news outlets and social media users are falsely claiming that James Talarico, the Democratic candidate in the Texas 2026 U.S. Senate race, is a vegan, to position him as out of touch with his cattle-producing, barbeque-loving state.
Context: On May 19, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary runoff for the U.S. Senate over incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. The next day, while expressing his confidence in Paxton to reporters before...
New York announced a $4.5 million settlement on Friday with a travel booking company and three of its affiliates following a tax fraud investigation initiated by a whistleblower under the state’s ...