Polygraph

I Am In Texas Right Now…The Battle For The Future of America is RAGING …Here is How We Win

The Benny Show, Checked

Polygraph score
75Holds up24 claims checked
Details
What it claims
3 false6 mixed10 can’t tell18 true
How it argues
Nothing found
How it persuades
Nothing found
What it’s built on
Nothing found
Sources
1 rated low
The Benny ShowOct 28, 2026
View on Podcast ↗
The Benny Show cover art
The Benny ShowI Am In Texas Right Now…The Battle For The Future of America is RAGING …Here is How We WinWhole episode, 45:34
37 claims

What it claims

Claims

  1. 1Can’t tellA thousand people attended the Life Center event in Midland, Texas, on October 27, 2026.The sources confirm that The Life Center's Fall Fundraiser was scheduled for October 27, 2026, in Midland, Texas, but none reports attendance. The 1,000 figure comes only from the claimant's own post, which cannot corroborate it.3 sources →

    ▶ 0:11

  2. 2TrueDonald Trump held a campaign rally in Lubbock, Texas, on October 27, 2026.Multiple independent reliable sources (AP, Washington Post, Texas Tribune, KCBD, Everything Lubbock) report that President Trump held a campaign rally at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday, October 27, 2026. The claim matches the passage's referent (Trump speaking in Lubbock on the day before the post) and no source contradicts it.9 sources →

    ▶ 1:22

  3. 3TrueMarco Rubio appeared at a campaign event with Donald Trump in Lubbock, Texas.Multiple independent reliable sources (AP, Lubbock Online, USA Today, Yahoo/Politico-based coverage) confirm that Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center on October 27, 2026, where Trump invited him up and he gave brief remarks. The claim matches the record; the post's 'surprise' and 'rare' framing is consistent with reporting that Rubio rarely campaigns, and the post's 'Lubbock' detail is correct.7 sources →

    ▶ 1:39

  4. 4Can’t tellDonald Trump endorsed Brandon Gill as the future of the Republican Party.The post says Trump 'called' Brandon Gill the future of the Republican Party, but the extracted claim says Trump 'endorsed' Gill as that future, which the passage never states, so the claim departs from the passage. The only source quoting Trump (an unrated Mario Nawfal X post) has him saying Gill 'could very well be the future' of the party, and the 2024 Trump endorsement on Gill's campaign site concerns his House race, not the party's future. Nothing in the sources shows Trump endorsing Gill for that role as of 2026-10-28.4 sources →

    ▶ 3:27

  5. 5TrueThe price of gold has dipped in 2026.Gold's price dipped in 2026: it peaked at a record near $5,595 to $5,600 in January and fell to around $3,900 by early November, down roughly 13% year to date. The claim's wording matches the post's 'this year' and the extraction faithfully reflects the passage.7 sources →

    ▶ 4:49

  6. 6TrueChina has increased its gold purchases in 2026.Multiple reliable sources report that China's central bank kept buying gold through 2026, with a 23rd straight month of purchases in September and a 21-tonne increase that month. The claim's direction (increased purchases in 2026) is supported; the post's 'bought even more' is read as this increase, and the post's own framing does not add a figure.5 sources →

    ▶ 4:54

  7. 7TrueBrandon Gill is a Congressman.Multiple primary and tier1 sources (congress.gov member page, the House member's official About page, AP race call, PolitiFact profile) confirm Brandon Gill is a Republican U.S. Representative for Texas's 26th District, serving since January 2025. The claim faithfully reflects the passage's 'Congressman Brandon Gill' reference, and the sources confirm the status as of 2026-10-28.5 sources →

    ▶ 6:15

  8. 8Can’t tellJasmine Crockett defended a person who stabbed a child to death at a high school track meet.The post's passage says Crockett is 'defending this thug who just went and stabbed a kid to death' but never mentions a high school track meet, so the extracted claim departs from the passage. On substance, the sources consistently report that Crockett publicly defended Karmelo Anthony, who was convicted of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a Frisco, Texas high school track meet, so the core of the claim would hold if the added detail were treated as the post's own.6 sources →

    ▶ 7:56

  9. 9TrueCarmelo Anthony was convicted of murdering a child.Karmelo Anthony, whom the post calls Carmelo Anthony, was convicted of murder on June 10, 2026 for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, and the conviction stands after a denied new-trial motion. The claim's word "child" paraphrases the post's "kid" for a 17-year-old, and the spelling difference is the same person.3 sources →

    ▶ 10:04

  10. 10Mixed90% of the country supports legislation to stop illegal aliens from voting.Sources show majority support for the principle of barring noncitizens from voting (Rasmussen 2025: 75% say it is important to prevent illegal immigrant voting), but none independently finds 90% support for legislation. A CBS News-YouGov poll cited by CNN found only 28% support and 31% opposition for the SAVE Act itself, and Rasmussen found 64% favor the SAVE Act. The 90% figure appears only in a senator's press release, which is not independent evidence, so the claim holds or fails depending on whether the measure is the general principle or the specific bill.4 sources →

    ▶ 13:40

  11. 11TrueThe U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to stop illegal aliens from voting twice.Multiple primary and tier1 sources confirm the House has repeatedly passed bills (the SAVE Act in April 2025 and the SAVE America Act on Feb. 11, 2026) to bar noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, from voting, and Reuters notes a similar measure passed the House twice before dying in the Senate. The claim's "voting twice" wording is best read as "passed the House twice" (the post's meaning), not as double voting; the bills remain stalled in the Senate, which the claim does not dispute.5 sources →

    ▶ 13:44

  12. 12TrueSenator John Cornyn was booed at a Texas Republican convention.Multiple independent reports from AP, The Hill, NBC News and CNN say Sen. John Cornyn was booed while speaking at the Texas GOP convention in Houston on June 17, 2022, so the core claim is supported. The post's 'couple years ago' is a loose timeframe the claim omits, and the claim does not depart from the passage.4 sources →

    ▶ 14:04

  13. 13TrueKen Paxton won his election by 30 percentage points.In context, the claim refers to Paxton's May 2026 Republican runoff win over John Cornyn, not the November general election, which has not yet occurred as of the check date. Courthouse News reports a 27-point margin, while the NYT-sourced Yahoo piece says 'nearly 30 percentage points,' so the claimed 30 points is close to the reported figures and the direction is correct.2 sources →

    ▶ 14:40

  14. 14MixedTexas leads all states in the number of people moving to it from other states.The claim's support depends on the year and measure. In 2024, Texas had the highest net domestic migration gain (USAFacts) and about 556,000 people moved in from other states, but the sources don't explicitly rank Texas first on gross in-movers. For 2025, the Texas Tribune reports Texas took 67,299 domestic newcomers, behind North Carolina's 84,064, so the claim is contradicted for the most recent data available as of the 2026-10-28 posting. Texas did lead in total population growth from all sources in 2025, which is a different measure.5 sources →

    ▶ 18:30

  15. 15MixedCalifornia is the number one destination for people moving away from Texas.The only source that directly reports Texas's outbound destinations for 2024 (Texas Relocation Report) lists California and Florida as tied at roughly 45,000 movers each, with Oklahoma third at 28,000, so California is at most co-leader rather than clearly the number one destination. The extraction faithfully reflects the post, and the data is for 2024 rather than the posting date of 2026-10-28, which the summary should note.8 sources →

    ▶ 18:37

  16. 16Can’t tellLate ballots in the Los Angeles mayoral race were one-sided in favor of the candidate Ramit.The claim concerns late ballots in the November 2026 Los Angeles mayoral runoff, and the sources show that count had not yet begun (AP's page on Nov 1 shows 0% counted). The only relevant evidence is from the June primary, where NYT reported late ballots were more favorable to Democrats and helped Nithya Raman overtake Spencer Pratt, but nothing describes them as one-sided. The name 'Ramit' does not match any 2026 candidate in the sources, so the claim likely means Raman, which is an inference the sources do not confirm.7 sources →

    ▶ 19:20

  17. 17FalseHarris County, Texas has a population of 8 million people.The claim's 8 million figure is contradicted by authoritative sources: the U.S. Census Bureau estimates Harris County's July 1, 2025 population at 5,045,026, and Harris County's own FY2026 budget says it is home to about 5 million people. The extraction is faithful to the post, which said 'there's 8 million people' in Harris County, and the claim is graded as of 2026-10-28, so later changes would not affect it.6 sources →

    ▶ 20:10

  18. 18TrueThe State of Texas passed a law banning homeless encampments and withholding funding from cities that fail to comply.Texas enacted a statewide ban on public camping (HB 1925, signed in 2021 and enforced from September 2025), and state officials say local failure to enforce can bring a loss of state grant funds, so the core claim is supported. The sources are thinner on the funding penalty: the Tribune reports a 2025 bill to withhold city tax dollars was spiked, and the SB 241 text is a separate proposal, so the withholding mechanism rests mainly on the governor's letter and a 2022 article.6 sources →

    ▶ 20:26

  19. 19MixedThe City of Houston voted to stop complying with ICE requests approximately two months prior to the recording.The record supports that Houston's council passed an ordinance limiting police cooperation with ICE, but the vote was on April 8, 2026, roughly six months before the October 28 post, not about two months earlier. The council also amended the ordinance on April 22 after the governor's funding threat, so the claim that the city voted to stop complying overstates the outcome.6 sources →

    ▶ 20:39

  20. 20MixedThe State of Texas threatened to force the City of Houston to repay $132 million for failing to comply with ICE requests.Sources support that Gov. Abbott's office threatened to cut state public safety funding to Houston over its ICE policy, but they report withdrawal of about $110 million to $114 million in grants, not a $132 million repayment. The post itself is the speaker's hypothetical ('I was going to force them to repay'), and the extraction's 'threatened' and 'for failing to comply with ICE requests' framing is a reasonable reading of it.8 sources →

    ▶ 20:57

  21. 21TrueThe Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed Texas's SB4 immigration law to remain in effect.On 2026-04-24 the full Fifth Circuit voted 10-7 to vacate the injunction against SB4 on standing grounds, as reported by Reuters and AP, so the law was in effect when the claim was made on 2026-10-28. A Nov. 1 CNN report says a three-judge panel later put the law back on hold, which is a later development and does not change the October 28 assessment; the claim's phrasing matches the post.5 sources →

    ▶ 21:47

  22. 22MixedTexas reduced illegal immigration into the state by 85% before Donald Trump was elected.The sources do not confirm an 85% figure. They attribute a 87% reduction in border crossings to Operation Lone Star (Governor Abbott's claim, repeated in the Congressional Record) and a 74% decrease to a later Texas government release, both covering the period before Trump's 2025 return. The 85% figure in the Congressional Record refers to apprehensions falling after Trump took office, a different measure, so the claim's figure falls within a range of competing estimates and is not independently verified.3 sources →

    ▶ 25:50

  23. 23TrueJasmine Crockett lost her primary election.Multiple tier-1 sources (Reuters and AP) report that Jasmine Crockett lost the March 3, 2026 Democratic U.S. Senate primary to James Talarico, which is the race the post's 'Telerica' remark refers to. The claim drops the 'Senate' qualifier, but that is a faithful, resolved referent rather than an addition.6 sources →

    ▶ 28:03

  24. 24FalseThe Texas Senate candidate referred to as Tellerico voted for transgender surgery.The claim that the candidate (named 'Tellerico' in the post, which the sources identify as James Talarico) voted for transgender surgery is contradicted. Sources show he voted against SB 14, which banned such procedures for minors, and voted for failed amendments that would have banned surgeries while keeping hormone therapy available; PolitiFact rated the related claim that he backed taxpayer-funded surgeries False. The sources address minors specifically, not adult surgery, but the claim's core is contradicted.6 sources →

    ▶ 29:25

  25. 25FalseThe Texas Senate candidate referred to as Tellerico voted for defunding the police.The claim concerns James Talarico (the post's 'Tellerico'). No source reports Talarico voting to defund the police; CNN's investigation found he avoided endorsing defunding and points to votes for appropriations that increased law enforcement funding, and he has said he never supported defunding. The post's claim is an attack characterization that the available coverage does not substantiate.7 sources →

    ▶ 29:37

  26. 26Can’t tellGavin Newsom has had more residents flee his state under his administration than any other governor in the history of the United States.The sources show California's population declined in 2020 and that residents continued leaving during Newsom's tenure, but none compares his outflow with any other governor's in U.S. history, so the superlative central claim is not addressed. The extraction matches the passage, which makes the same comparative claim.5 sources →

    ▶ 30:47

  27. 27FalseEvery cabinet member in Donald Trump's administration ran against him for president.The claim that every member of Trump's cabinet ran against him for president is contradicted by the sources. Politico reports that only four of the people Trump picked for his Cabinet had previously run for president, and GZERO names only a handful of incumbent members who had run, so the overwhelming majority never ran against him.4 sources →

    ▶ 34:16

  28. 28MixedDonald Trump stated that James Talarico is the single worst person to run in the entire country for any office right now.Trump has repeatedly called Talarico one of the worst candidates he has ever seen (CBS, Sept. 4, 2026; Texas Politics, March 23, 2026), so the disparagement is documented. However, no source has him calling Talarico the single worst person to run for any office in the entire country right now; the claim's superlative wording comes from the podcast's paraphrase, not from Trump's recorded remarks, and 'one of the worst' is not 'the single worst.'5 sources →

    ▶ 34:42

  29. 29TrueJames Talarico voted against the bill to ban transition surgeries on children in Texas.Multiple tier-1 sources confirm Talarico voted against Texas's 2023 SB 14, which banned gender-transition surgeries for minors (and other care), so the claim's core assertion holds. The bill was broader than surgery alone, and Talarico voted for narrower amendments limited to surgeries, but the claim itself is accurate on the core vote.7 sources →

    ▶ 36:41

  30. 30TrueJames Talarico previously stated that the American flag was a complicated symbol.Multiple outlets quote Talarico's 2019 remark that the American flag is "such a complicated symbol for most of us," and the claim concerns that statement, so the claim holds. The post's "he came out and said" matches this 2019 remark, and the campaign's response defends the flag rather than denying the remark.11 sources →

    ▶ 37:42

  31. 31MixedJames Talarico previously described being white as a virus.Talarico did use virus metaphors about white people in a May 2020 post, writing that 'White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus' and that white Americans 'spread it.' However, the sources consistently say the virus he described was racism, not being white itself, so the claim's literal characterization departs from his quoted words.6 sources →

    ▶ 37:55

  32. 32TrueTexas has been a state since 1845.Multiple primary sources (Senate.gov timeline, Texas Legislative Reference Library, State Department Office of the Historian) date Texas's admission as a state to December 29, 1845, and the claim's wording matches the post's "Since 1845, we've been a state." The sources also note Texas's 1861-1870 secession and Confederate period, a caveat that does not overturn the core statehood date.5 sources →

    ▶ 39:57

  33. 33TrueThe jury convicted the defendant of killing a person named Austin.A Collin County jury convicted Karmelo Anthony of murder in June 2026 for the April 2025 stabbing death of Austin Metcalf, so the claim holds as of the 2026-10-28 post date. The conviction was later upheld against a new-trial motion, which does not change the status on the posting date.4 sources →

    ▶ 41:02

  34. 34TrueKen Paxton is the Attorney General of Texas.The claim that Ken Paxton is Attorney General of Texas is supported as of the 2026-10-27 posting date. An AP Decision Notes piece from 2026-10-30 describes him as the state's Texas Attorney General, and the official Texas AG office page confirms he was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018 and 2022. The extracted claim matches the post's own wording, so it is graded normally.2 sources →

    ▶ 42:45

  35. 35TrueTexas passed SB4, which allows law enforcement officers to arrest, detain, and deport illegal immigrants.Texas enacted SB4 (signed by Gov. Abbott in December 2023), and the enrolled bill and multiple tier-1 reports confirm it lets state officers arrest and detain people suspected of illegal entry and lets judges order removal. The claim's wording that officers themselves 'deport' is loose, since the removal orders come from state judges, but the core assertion holds. Later developments (the Fifth Circuit putting the law back on hold on Nov 1, 2026) do not make the claim false as of the Oct 28 posting.6 sources →

    ▶ 21:21

  36. 36FalseTexas deployed hundreds of DPS officers on horseback and the National Guard to prevent protests on a campus in Boston.The claim places a Texas DPS and National Guard deployment against a campus protest in Boston, but the sources show the Texas horseback-police response was at the University of Texas in Austin in April 2024, and Boston's campus arrests at Emerson College were handled by Boston police. Reuters also reports the Texas National Guard was not sent to UT, so the National Guard element is contradicted as well. The claim's location and its National Guard detail do not match the record.6 sources →

    ▶ 23:28

  37. 37Can’t tellThe speaker is currently in Texas.No source addresses the speaker's own whereabouts. The only support is the post itself, which says the speaker was rallying in Midland, Texas, on October 27 and was at an airport there before flying back, so it cannot corroborate the claim. Sources published after 2026-10-28 (the AP and Reuters items) concern other candidates and events and do not contradict the claim, so the claim is faithful to the passage and is not graded false.1 source →

Sources

Fact-checkers 32Primary records 29Most reliable outlets 2Reliable outlets 18Less reliable outlets 1Unrated 110Rated low 1

  • caixinglobal.comRated low for factual reporting by Iffy.news · cited in checking claim 6

Related posts

How Polygraph reads a postHow often are we wrong?

Our Weekly Newsletter

The Readout

The week's most-shared posts, checked. What they claimed, how they argued, and what held up.

Unsubscribe any time. See our privacy policy.