If statements broken

1

I’m having some problems with a if statement withing part of a function i have loading up some xml data.

	var runningstatus= xmlDoc_xml.firstChild.childNodes[1];
	trace(runningstatus);
	if (runningstatus = "<paused>True</paused>") {
		trace("HELLO");
	}
	if (runningstatus = "<paused>False</paused>") {
		trace("Goodbye");
	}

the problem is both if statements are firing off
so in the output i get

<paused>True</paused>
HELLO
Goodbye

why is it true for both statements?