Fact-checking site crashes during Trump State of the Union

PolitiFact’s website went down briefly during President Trump’s first State of the Union address.

The fact-checking website tweeted at 9:49 p.m., about halfway through Trump’s speech, that the website had crashed.

“Welp … our website just crashed,” PolitiFact tweeted. “Thanks for reading ?!!? We’ll keep things up here on Twitter while we see what happened.”

Welp … our website just crashed.

Thanks for reading ?!!? We’ll keep things up here on Twitter while we see what happened.

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 30, 2018

The crash lasted about five minutes, according to a second tweet from the website’s account.

We’re back up. #SOTU

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 30, 2018

{mosads}PolitiFact fact-checked the president’s speech, writing that “several of his points were factually flawed.” They rated many of his claims about tax cuts as “mostly false” or “false.”

The organization had fact-checked nearly 500 of Trump’s statements before the State of the Union, rating 21 percent as “mostly false,” 33 percent as “false” and 15 percent as “pants on fire.”

.@realDonaldTrump has been fact-checked by PolitiFact 498 times (before tonight)

True → 4 percent
Mostly True → 12 percent
Half True → 15 percent
Mostly False → 21 percent
False → 33 percent
Pants on Fire → 15 percent

See the https://t.co/KrciaOw29Q

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 30, 2018