Obama doesn’t receive royalties from Obamacare
A recent social media post included some surprising news about former President Barack Obama.
“#BREAKING: DOGE halts yearly payment of $2.5 million to Barack Obama for ‘royalties linked to Obamacare.’ Obama has collected this payment since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars,” read the post, which included images of Obama and the Obamacare logo.
President Donald Trump reposted a screenshot of that post on Nov. 9, on Truth Social, with the comment, “WOW!”
Wow, indeed. However, that allegation is false, according to PolitiFact. The claim was created as satire.
The idea that Obama is receiving royalties from the Affordable Care Act goes back to at least 2017, before it was falsely linked to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. It originated on the satirical website America’s Last Line of Defense, and recently recirculated with the DOGE item.
In 2017, the claim said Obama has received, from the U.S. Treasury Department, $411 million for “royalty payments for Obamacare.” That one was also debunked by PolitiFact.
After Trump posted the screenshot to Truth Social, the Last Line of Defense wrote, in a Nov. 9 Facebook post, “The President has re-truthed one of our most popular stories ever.”
MSNBC didn’t fake broadcast
Between the news outlets and social media, there was plenty of coverage of last month’s “No Kings” rallies across the country. But an Oct. 19 post claimed one news broadcast wasn’t genuine.
“BREAKING: Analysts are calling this the biggest FRAUD in American history. MSNBC falsely aired a Video from 2017 claiming it was LIVE footage from yesterday's ‘No Kings’ rally in Boston,” the X post read. “MSNBC purposely wanted to portray a massive turnout for ‘No Kings.’ Which was a LIE.”
The post, which has been viewed more than four million times, is false, according to Reuters.
In the Oct. 18 segment in question, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi introduced footage of a large crowd in city park Boston Common. An MSNBC spokesperson told Reuters it was video of the protests from that day and any claims it was from 2017 are incorrect.
Reuters verified the clips aired by MSNBC by matching the video with other footage and photos taken at that scene.
Among the common images captured by multiple videos showed a group of protesters dressed in lobster costumes. One of those people posted a video of the event to Instagram, writing, “I went as a Lobstah and met 3 other people wearing the same thing! We formed a pod and spent the day dancing/protesting!”
Monkeys were not infectious
A recent Instagram post said “Aggressive virus-infected monkeys carrying COVID, Herpes & hepatitis C on the loose after truck carrying them crashed in Mississippi.”
A man in the video included in that post said, “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that if you’re going to try to convince me that there’s not a 40-pound hepatitis herpes monster on the loose.”
That man is partially correct.
A truck carrying monkeys from Tulane University was involved in a crash in Mississippi and some of the animals escaped, according to Snopes. However, officials have said that the monkeys are not infectious.
The Jasper County Sheriff's Department in Mississippi first posted a statement on Oct. 28, which said, “The monkeys are approximately 40lbs, they are aggressive to humans and they require PPE to handle. The monkeys carry hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID.”
That same day, Tulane University posted a statement on X that said, “The primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious.”
Hours after the sheriff’s initial post, the department updated it by including the University’s statement, and writing, “The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans. We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys.”
RFK Jr. ran to get help
A man recently fainted in the Oval Office and video clips went viral showing President Donald Trump standing, while looking away from the scene. But many people pointed out the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was seen leaving the room while others attended to the man.
“BREAKING: RFK Jr. flees the scene after Novo Nordisk Executive Gordon Findlay collapsed in the Oval Office,” read a Nov. 6 X post.
But there are a few incorrect points in that post, according to PolitiFact.
Gordon Findlay was not the man who fainted, nor was he at the White House event. It was a man who was there with the group from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
As for RFK Jr., White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai responded to an X user who criticized the secretary for fleeing the scene.
“The Secretary rushed to get medical assistance while others tended to the man, you ghoul,” Desai wrote.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.