CLAIM: A page on the World Economic Forum’s website is evidence that the organization has “appointed” Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the next speaker of the House.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. House members elect the speaker. The page on the WEF website identifies McCarthy as “Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives,” a position he held from 2013 to 2019 and which is different from the speaker role. Such pages are created for people who have attended a WEF event or written a blog published on the WEF website, a spokesperson for the organization told The Associated Press.
THE FACTS: While the House was embroiled in its third day of voting Thursday to elect a new speaker, some social media users were spreading false claims alleging that the WEF had already “appointed” McCarthy to the position.
“It seems the World Economic Forum has appointed McCarthy as speaker already…no need for pesky things like winning elections!” one tweet stated, along with a link to McCarthy’s page on the WEF website. As of Thursday, it had received more than 3,000 likes and more than 1,000 shares.
Other widespread posts claimed more broadly that the WEF had picked McCarthy to be the “leader” of the House or “endorsed” him.
“The unelected World Economic Forum, a trade organization representing the interests of the thousand largest companies in the world, has already chosen and announced the next leader of the US House of Representatives,” another tweet linking to McCarthy’s page stated. It had received...
For the past several months, a coordinated digital campaign has targeted community archivists in Bangladesh who document and preserve audiovisual material related to the July 2024 Student-People’s...