Tim Kennedy on the Joe Rogan Experience #1535, fact-checked

What the evidence shows: The speaker stated that Texas has 5 billion feral (wild) pigs. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the state agency responsible for wildlife management, estimates the Texas feral hog population at roughly 2.6 million, out of a U.S. national total estimated at about 6.9 million as of 2016 (up from 2.4 million nationally in 1982). The figure cited in the claim is roughly 1,900 times higher than the state agency's estimate. While feral hogs are widely described as extremely numerous and are found in nearly every Texas county, no reputable wildlife agency or study supports a population anywhere near the billions; population counts for wild pigs are generally in the low millions nationwide. The claim substantially overstates the actual documented population by several orders of magnitude.

What the evidence shows: The ~$17 billion single-day direct-damage figure is within the credible range of published estimates for physical/direct destruction from 9/11, so the magnitude is defensible even though no single authority fixes the number at exactly $17B. The Joint Economic Committee (U.S. Senate) report "The Economic Costs of Terrorism" (May 2002) reviews the direct-cost estimates: the Milken Institute put property damage at $10 billion to $13 billion; an IMF study identified the direct costs of the September 11 attacks at about $21.4 billion (including direct insurance); and another estimate placed the destruction of physical and human capital at $25 billion to $60 billion. A $17B figure sits between the property-damage estimates ($10-13B) and the broader direct-cost figure ($21.4B), consistent with early asset-loss tallies near $16B. The Congressional Research Service report "The Economic Effects of 9/11: A Retrospective Assessment" (RL31617, congress.gov) corroborates the surrounding scale, noting the largest property/casualty insurance claim in history at roughly $40 billion and nearly 18,000 businesses disrupted or destroyed. Verdict is mostly-supported rather than fully supported because the speaker states $17B as a precise fact while authoritative estimates span roughly $10B to $21B+ depending on methodology; the number is a reasonable point estimate, not an established figure. The companion claims (about 3,000 American lives; more than at Pearl Harbor) are separately well corroborated (9/11 toll ~2,977; Pearl Harbor ~2,400).

What the evidence shows: Claims that a state or county has a voter-registration rate exceeding 100% of its eligible or voting-age population have circulated repeatedly since at least 2017, most often traced to figures from Judicial Watch and the Public Interest Legal Foundation and later repeated by figures including Kayleigh McEnany. Election administration experts say these figures are misleading because they typically compare total registration rolls (which include "inactive" voters who have moved, died, or otherwise become ineligible) against population estimates, rather than counting only active, eligible voters. Federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) bars election officials from purging inactive registrations quickly; inactive voters can remain on the rolls for two federal election cycles even after officials suspect they have moved. Fact-checkers who examined this class of claim found no accompanying evidence that ineligible or inactive registrants actually cast ballots, and turnout data consistently shows actual votes cast fall well below total registration counts, undercutting the fraud implication. The specific claim as relayed here is misleading: outdated voter rolls that retain inactive registrants can produce registration counts that appear to exceed the eligible population, but this reflects list-maintenance timing required by federal law, not evidence of fraudulent voting.

What the evidence shows: Barack Obama was not a candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which was contested between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, so a figure describing "104% for Obama" in that election does not correspond to any real ballot or vote tally. No state or federal election authority, including the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, has published data showing any 2016 precinct recording turnout above 100% for any candidate. A related but distinct claim circulates periodically online: that some U.S. counties or states have more registered voters on their rolls than estimated eligible residents. A PolitiFact review of that related claim found it stems from comparisons of voter-registration rolls to population estimates, not from actual vote totals or turnout, and notes that federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) requires election officials to keep "inactive" voters on the rolls for years after they move, inflating raw registration counts without indicating fraudulent voting. Experts consulted in that review said outsized voter rolls are not evidence that ineligible people cast ballots. As stated, the claim about a 104% Obama turnout figure in Illinois in 2016 rests on a basic factual error, since Obama was not on the 2016 ballot, and no credible source substantiates the underlying statistic.

What the evidence shows: The claim is that hydroxychloroquine is highly effective against COVID-19 and stops disease progression if taken early. Large randomized controlled trials found no such benefit. The UK RECOVERY trial, one of the largest COVID-19 treatment trials (over 4,700 hospitalized patients), found hydroxychloroquine did not reduce 28-day mortality and was associated with a lower rate of hospital discharge and a higher rate of progression to mechanical ventilation or death compared with usual care. The World Health Organization halted its Solidarity trial's hydroxychloroquine arm in July 2020 after interim results showed no reduction in mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. For early, community-based treatment specifically, the UK PRINCIPLE trial randomized higher-risk patients with suspected (mostly unconfirmed) COVID-19 to hydroxychloroquine or usual care within days of symptom onset; the hydroxychloroquine arm was stopped early by UK regulators in May 2020, and the trial found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine reduced hospital admission or death, with more nausea reported in the treatment group. No large randomized trial has shown hydroxychloroquine stops or meaningfully slows COVID-19 disease progression when started early. The claim reflects an early-pandemic view based on small uncontrolled studies that was not confirmed by subsequent rigorous trials.