Fact Check Columns These arguments have been around for some time, but they have gained new popularity with the rise of Donald Trump as a way for the media to appear hostile to a politician whose rhetoric is completely detached from reality, without making any effort.
But nine years into his run for office, fact-checking experts still have no idea how to deal with Trump’s threats and his tendency to change his positions at a moment’s notice. Throughout his coverage of the Democratic National Conventions, fact-checking columns were in desperate need of critical thinking.
in New York TimesIndeed, the puzzling fact-checking of President Joe Biden misses some basic math. They cite Biden’s remarks about Trump: “He created the largest debt of any president in four years with his $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy.”
the Times They decided this was “misleading.” One analyst wrote that the Trump administration “has accumulated more debt than any other administration in raw dollars—about $7.9 trillion.” However, they wrote, “the debt rose more during President Barack Obama’s eight years than during Mr. Trump’s four years.” In other words, Biden was right, and eight is bigger than four.
The Poynter Politifact Institute reviewed Biden’s statement about Trump’s desire to cut Medicare and found it to be “mostly false.” They noted that Trump said Republicans should not cut Medicare, even though Trump has proposed cutting Medicare four times during his presidency. New York Times This claim is also called “misleading.”
It is worth noting that when Trump was asked in March how he could cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, he replied: “There is a lot you can do with regard to entitlements, with regard to cuts, with regard to the theft and mismanagement of entitlements.”
Perhaps it would have been helpful to include this context. But given Trump’s ever-changing position on protecting so-called entitlements, is this a topic “actually” worth trying?
Politifact reporters also examined a Democratic National Committee video for inclusion of a clip of Trump saying “there should be some form of punishment” for people who have abortions, and rated it as Mostly False. They acknowledged that Trump said exactly this at an MSNBC town hall in 2016. However, the same day, he issued a statement: “The doctor or anyone else who does this illegal act on a woman will be held legally responsible, not the woman.” Here on Earth, it’s not a false claim to include a real clip in a campaign video.
Even the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, got a note from the community: “It is incorrect to say that showing an unedited video of Trump’s own words is ‘false.’”
Ironically, Washington Post The New York Times issued a fact-check at the top of its Tuesday report. The paper incorrectly reported that the contents of Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were unknown. In fact, the paper now acknowledges that portions of the letters were published by its associate editor Bob Woodward.
When they first looked at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claim that Harris “would not send love letters to dictators,” they wrote: “There is no evidence that Trump sent such letters. Clinton is making a small leap to suggest that Trump wrote ‘love letters’ to dictators.” Now, they have carefully changed their position: “That’s in the eye of the beholder.”
the mail The newspaper also decided to fact-check Biden’s claim that “Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again.” The newspaper determined that this was not true: “Trump has not said he will accept. He has previously said the only way he will lose is if Democrats cheat.”
To be sure, Trump tried so hard to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he was criminally charged at the federal level and in Georgia, and he continues to claim that Democrats will cheat him out of a win this year as well. But he may handle a loss differently in the future.
There's only one way to find out.
