The Media Research Center just can’t stop ranting about fact-checkers. Not because they’re wrong in any way, of course — it’s just nitpicking to create the false illusion of being somehow incorrect. Alex Christy insisted in a Feb. 22 post that PolitiFact “engaged in plenty of hyperliteralism and bad faith arguments” to claim that Elon Musk lied when he called President Biden’s immigration policy “a giant voter importation scam”:
The idea behind Musk’s claim is old and revolves around the idea that Democrats would be less tolerant of illegal immigration and “comprehensive immigration reform” where such illegal immigrants are granted citizenship if it was likely that they would vote Republican.
The authors first sought to rebut Musk by arguing Biden did not literally import them, “There were historically high levels of illegal immigration during the Biden administration, but there is no evidence that Biden ‘imported’ those people to become voters. Factors such as natural disasters and economic or political turmoil in a persons’ home country lead people to migrate.”
Of course, Musk just meant that Biden was unwilling to do anything about the border in the early days of his administration and instead was incentivizing it.
However, Uribe and Sherman continue, “Additionally, Musk’s statement ignored that the Biden administration removed and deported immigrants in the U.S. illegally, and it stepped up efforts in 2024 as he ran for reelection. (He dropped out in July.)”
Yes, at some point the bad polling became too much for Biden in an election year, but that doesn’t discredit Musk’s point.
[…]Uribe and Sherman also tried to argue Musk is wrong because the Republican share of the Latino vote was higher in 2024 than in previous election cycles. While that is true, it does not follow that Musk deserves a pants-on-fire rating. Democrats are surely aware that is a problem for them, so PolitiFact should consider the possibility that Democrats’ less dovish stance on the border in recent months is because their perception of the political benefits has changed since the early days of the Biden presidency.
Finally, people ascribe negative motives to politicians all the time. People accuse Musk of attaching himself to Trump to enrich himself and his fellow “oligarchs.” There’s not any more evidence for that than there is of the most literal interpretation of Musk’s Biden claim, but PolitiFact doesn’t give them a pants-on-fire rating.
Christy served up more PolitiFact nitpicking in a Feb. 26 post:
PolitiFact finally found time to fact-check a Democrat on Tuesday. Unfortunately, writer Louis Jacobson refused to give Washington Sen. Patty Murray’s false claim a false rating when she declared that, since 2001, GOP tax cuts have done more than anything else to add to the deficit, instead giving the claim a “half true rating.”
The specific claim from Murray came from a speech she gave on the Senate floor on February 20, claiming the Senate GOP’s budget is “not about balancing the budget. We all know that. Because they don’t plan to reverse one of the biggest drivers of the debt: Republican tax cuts. Despite all the boogeymen the Republicans like to point to as driving the national debt, the reality is that the single biggest driver of our national debt since 2001 has been Republican tax cuts.”
The reason why Jacobson gave Murray a half true rating wasn’t because of the “tax cuts” part, but the “GOP” part. He wrote, “the tax cuts were enacted not only by Republicans; when the laws were extended, much of the debt they spurred was also ratified by congressional Democrats, President Barack Obama, or both. In fact, of five tax cut bills enacted since 2001, Murray ended up voting for two, the first directly and the second by not objecting to the unanimous consent motion.”
However, in the preceding paragraph Jacobson defended the attack on tax cuts, “A 2024 analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscally hawkish group, found that tax cuts were the biggest of four types of legislation that have added to the federal debt since 2001. Two other types of legislation trailed close behind tax cuts in fiscal impact: large stimulus bills and annual spending increases.”
Sounds convincing, but there’s just one problem. Normally, when this debate is had, tax cuts are one category and spending is another, but RFB and Jacobson split spending into three separate categories. Meanwhile, every tax cut or tax cut extension was thrown into the same category.
Tim Graham spent a March 5 post playing Biden whataboutism in complaining that President Trump’s State of the Union speech was fact-checked:
Since the State of the Union speech is one of the most highly visible speeches of any year, it’s an obvious occasion for the “independent fact-checkers” to assess the claims of the president (and theoretically, the official rebuttal from the other party). But how tilted can it be when you compare presidents?
PolitiFact quickly posted its list of Trump checks on Wednesday, and they put their rulings in bold type. Six claims were “False,” and three were “Mostly False,” and another two were “Half True.”
Let’s not question every ruling, but just count them. Trump has a habit of exaggerating something like say, inflation under Biden into “fact check” territory, saying “we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.”
A year ago, PolitiFact performed the same checking exercise for President Biden’s last speech. It was remarkably softer. Here’s the only way the word “false” came up, backing up a Biden quote:
Graham won’t “question every ruling” because he knows that that PolitiFact is correct, and he’s effectively demanding that Trump get a pass because he “has a habit of exaggerating.”
Graham played press secretary whataboutism in a March 16 post:
PolitiFact, the Poynter Institute’s liberal-tilting “independent fact-checking” website, has given White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt a third fact-check within her first two months at the podium — two False ratings and one Half True. On March 13, Lou Jacobson threw a False flag for Leavitt fighting with AP reporter Josh Boak, where she claimed “Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.”
The first two fact checks came on January 28.
Biden’s first press secretary Jen Psaki has two — one False and one True. Psaki drew her first fact check on November 18, 2021 — almost ten months into her tenure. She was never tagged while she was State Department Press Secretary under John Kerry in the Obama years, and hasn’t been tagged for anything she’s said as an MSNBC host.
Christy returned to defend Musk from PolitiFact again in a March 20 post:
PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson slapped a “false” label on Elon Musk on Wednesday for his claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Jacobson’s big argument against Musk was not convincing, as he insisted that because Social Security is legal, it can’t be accurately described as a Ponzi scheme.
The exact quote from Musk is almost a month old and came from a February 28 appearance on The Joe Rogan Expierence, “Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
Of course, Musk is not the first person to make that argument, as Jacobson notes, “In 2011, PolitiFact evaluated a similar statement from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. At the time, we noted that a half-dozen left-of-center columnists also called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. However, the statement is inaccurate, as we concluded about Perry’s comment and other times.”
Christy went on to pretend that there isn’t an objective definition of what a Ponzi scheme is:
However, instead of simply saying Musk was correct or that it was a legitimate opinion akin to saying a politician is acting corruptly or unethically even if he technically hasn’t violated any laws, Jacobson presented six reasons why he felt justified in giving Musk a false rating.
[…]Some of those can be debated. The fact that the system is on pace to not pay 100 percent of benefits might lead some to say it is fraudulent or doesn’t offer realistic returns.
Because “some” criticize Social Security doesn’t mean it fits the objective definition of a Ponzi scheme.