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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke September 14, 2021

No, Biden isn’t withholding benefits from unvaccinated veterans

If Your Time is short

  • This headline originated on a self-described satire site. 
 

Many social media users are sharing a screenshot of what looks like a controversial news headline that says President Joe Biden ordered the Veterans Affairs Department to "withhold health benefits from unvaccinated veterans." 

"Say how anti-American you are without saying it," one person sharing the screenshot said. 

"He is evil and hates our military and veterans," someone else wrote

"The kind of piece of s--- you have to be to do this," a third said

But this headline isn’t authentic news. It’s the title of a blog post from a website that describes all of its stories as "parodies (satire, fiction, fake, not real)." 

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These social media posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The headline comes from DelawareOhioNews.com, which says on its site that "everything on this website is made up" and advises readers to "not rely on anything said here." 

Which means the claim in the blog post that Biden signed an executive order requiring veterans to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 1 or lose their health care benefits isn’t rooted in reality. 

Biden gave a speech and issued an executive order on Sept. 9 detailing his plan to require more Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Neither the speech nor the order mentioned vaccine requirements for veterans.

We rate claims that this is a real news headline Pants on Fire!

 

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No, Biden isn’t withholding benefits from unvaccinated veterans

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