19 September 2025

POLITIFACT WEEKLY: Looming ACA plan hikes?, A Kirk book conspiracy theory., What online posts got wrong about Kirk shooting suspect's politics, Trump and wars: Did he ‘solve’ everything but the big ones?, Research doesn’t show using Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism. Here’s what else you should know. 18SEP25

This week: Research doesn’t support autism link to Tylenol use in pregnancy … AI-generated book not proof Kirk shooting was staged … Democratic leaders warn about ACA premium hikes … Trump signs 4th TikTok extension … Some conservatives push back on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “hate speech” definition

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After Kirk’s killing, confusion spreads about 2012 law and ‘propaganda’

Three days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, President Donald Trump shared a supporter’s video pleading with him to reinstate a Cold War-era law she said punished media organizations for spreading falsehoods.

"I am hoping and praying that you will revisit what Barack Obama and Joe Biden got rid of back in 2013, which is the Smith-Mundt Act," the narrator said in a TikTok video that Trump reposted Sept. 13 on Truth Social. The supporter described the law as one that "held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth."

The narrator urged Trump to reinstate the law and rename it the "Charlie Kirk Act." Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, seemed up to the task; on X, he posted, "In the coming days, I’ll be filing my previously drafted legislation to restore Smith-Mundt, and renaming it the Charlie Kirk Act. Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now."

The Smith-Mundt Act was amended, not repealed. And it didn’t punish news corporations for their content. PolitiFact previously rated False the claim that Obama allowed the media to "purposely lie" when he signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. That bill folded in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which was introduced in 2012.

Claims that the Smith-Mundt Act held media "accountable for lying" mischaracterize that law, which did not apply to news content by private corporations. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act amended the law to remove a ban on government-funded broadcasters disseminating their programming to American audiences upon request from media entities and others.

The Smith-Mundt Act, or the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, was enacted during the Cold War to enable the government to distribute information about the U.S., its people and policies to foreign audiences. The law led to the creation of the international broadcasting station Voice of America and its surrogates.

It also allowed U.S. media organization representatives to physically examine government-sponsored content at the State Department. But it prohibited the dissemination of that content to the American public.

In 2012, Democrat and Republican lawmakers co-sponsored the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which aimed to modify the existing law they called "outdated." "Eliminating the ban updates the law to reflect technology advances, removes a barrier to more effective and efficient public diplomacy programs, provides transparency of these programs to U.S. citizens, and allows the material to be available to inform domestic audiences," the lawmakers said in a press release.

We rated the social media post False.

— Loreben Tuquero

Forward

Fact-checks of the week

A Kirk book conspiracy theory. Internet users found a book on Amazon that detailed Kirk's assassination — with a publication date preceding the shooting. "Can someone honestly explain to me how a book titled ‘The Shooting of Charlie Kirk: A Comprehensive Account of the Utah Valley University Attack, the Aftermath, and America’s Response’ was published on Amazon.com on SEPTEMBER 9TH, when the event took place on SEPTEMBER 10TH??" one user wrote Sept. 11 on X. A book with that title by an author listed as Anastasia J. Casey was briefly available on Amazon, and the site showed the book was published Sept. 9. But that was a technical error, Amazon told PolitiFact. The book, which was created using artificial intelligence, was published Sept. 10 after the fatal shooting. The erroneous publication date is not evidence that Kirk’s shooting was planned or staged. The e-book has since been removed from Amazon’s website.
Looming ACA plan hikes? With Congress grappling with ways to avoid a government shutdown, House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., said, "Republicans are spiking health insurance premiums by 75% for everyday Americans.” If the Republican-controlled Congress does not extend Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies before they expire at the end of this year, enrollees would have to pay more. KFF analysis of federal data found that the average increase in out-of-pocket coverage cost would be 79%, with state-by-state average increases ranging from 49% to 195%. This cost increase would come from a combination of insurance premium increases and the disappearance of subsidies. Clark’s statement is Mostly True.

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Social media users are questioning if authorities have the right person in the Charlie Kirk shooting. This is based on an FBI photo that was altered by AI. (Maria Briceño/PolitiFact)

What online posts got wrong about Kirk shooting suspect's politics

As soon as officials announced the name of Kirk's alleged assassin, internet theories about the suspect’s background and motives quickly outpaced confirmed facts.

Authorities said Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, shot and killed Kirk Sept. 10 on the Utah Valley University campus. Announcing the arrest Sept. 12, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox shared four phrases etched on bullet casings found with a gun investigators believe was Robinson’s.

When the news became public, Americans began searching for information on Robinson and sharing theories about him and his family. Much of that information, especially in the early hours after the news broke, was inaccurate. Some online users chased wrong leads and implicated innocent people in the process.

Here’s a look:

One X post identified a $225 donation to Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign from a Tyler Robinson in St. George, Utah. But that’s a different Tyler Robinson than the suspect, according to records.
An X post said Robinson was a registered Republican in Utah, "according to state records." That’s not what records show. The website voterrecords.com shows a person with identifying information that matches the suspect reflects he was an unaffiliated, inactive voter.
Social media users said Robinson was a member of the Salt Lake City Democratic Socialists of America. The organization said he is not a member of any of its chapters, and the photos and videos users have pointed to as evidence of his affiliation do not show Robinson.

— Amy Sherman, Maria Ramirez Uribe and Louis Jacobson

Further reading: 'Rough road ahead': Kirk’s assassination highlights the rise in US political violence. On Instagram: Check out our collaboration with PBS News Hour.

Trump and wars: Did he ‘solve’ everything but the big ones?

In a Sept. 12 Fox News interview, Trump said the Russia-Ukraine war “is the only war that I haven't solved." He brought up the Israel-Hamas war moments later.

We have previously rated Mostly False his statement that he "stopped six wars" since taking office. Trump has cited his work on conflicts between Israel and Iran; the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda; Cambodia and Thailand; India and Pakistan; Serbia and Kosovo; Egypt and Ethiopia; and sometimes Armenia-Azerbaijan. In some cases, our reporting found that Trump’s diplomacy helped resolve conflicts, but in others, his role was exaggerated, or the conflicts he cited weren’t “wars.”

As for Trump’s new statement about his war-ending record, it is not the case that he’s stopped all wars other than Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas.

The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, an academic research organization based in Switzerland, periodically tracks wars going on around the world. Beyond the ones Trump said he had stopped, we found at least one example of a continuing conflict between two countries that the group classifies as a war: Eritrea and Ethiopia, with civilians in the Amhara, Oromia and Tigray regions hit by fighting.

More common are wars internal to one country. In at least a dozen countries — Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen — the government is fighting internally against one or more non-state armed groups, the group says. And technically, North and South Korea are still at war, even if it’s been decades since a direct military attack on either side.

— Louis Jacobson

Research doesn’t show using Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism. Here’s what else you should know.

For years, Tylenol has generally been considered safe for treating pain and fever — even during pregnancy, when doctors discourage patients from using many medications.

Doctors might even recommend taking Tylenol for pain or fever during pregnancy, because left untreated, they can pose their own health risks.

But recent news reports about the federal government connecting Tylenol to autism have drawn fresh questions about the drug, and concerns.

After years of research, no study has shown that acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol, causes autism. There’s no known single cause of autism, a neurological condition that influences how someone acts and communicates.

But some scientific terms, like "association," can confuse the issue. There’s some research that says there’s an association between taking acetaminophen during pregnancy and autism. There’s also some research that says there’s not an association.

Either way, there’s an important caveat: "Association" is not the same as causation. That means that research showing an association between the medication and autism doesn’t mean the medication caused autism.

— Madison Czopek