The Media Research Center’s utter disapproval of any take on President Trump’s state of the union speech that contained even a smidge of criticism continued with a post by Alex Christy raging at a fact-check of the speech:
The Associated Press’s Melissa Goldin and Calvin Woodward were given the task of fact-checking President Trump’s Tuesday State of the Union address and, in some of their checks, they were so pedantic it bordered on self-parody.
The worst example was the duo’s final entry. Every president tries to wax poetic about the legacy of the Revolution and how it lives on to today, and Trump was no different, “The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.”
The full context was that Trump was referring to the nation’s upcoming 250th birthday, but Goldin and Woodward wrote, “To be clear, the American Revolution started the previous year, on April 19, 1775. The colonies declared independence in 1776. It ended Sept. 3, 1783.”
Fact-checkers like to say that Trump is the best example of why their profession is necessary. Some like to justify the lopsided Republican versus Democrat totals by saying Republicans are checked more because they deserve it, but Woodward has been the kind of fact-checker who has been “fact”-checking Republicans’ opinions for at least 15 years, well before Trump decided to run for president.
[…]From overzealous nitpicking to double standards in how similar claims are adjudicated, AP’s post-State of the Union roundup unintentionally did a good job of showing why the fact-checking industry needs to be greatly reformed.
Um, haven’t right-wing fact-checkers been similarly checking the opinions of of liberals? christy is silent about that.
Nicholas Fondacaro served up similar nastiness in his daily hate-watch of “The View”:
The Cackling Coven of ABC’s The Viewspent the opening segment of Wednesday’s episode raging at President Trump’s State of the Union address the previous night. They decried how the prominent speaking position allowed for an “unfair dynamic” where Trump could be heard clearly, while Democrats only sounded… well, “crazy.” They also denounced the presence of the U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team and had a problem with all the clapping, and not just for Trump.
[…]Toward the end of the segment, moderator Whoopi Goldberg vented about the U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team attending the address. According to her, it was “insanely rude” for them to be there “because a lot of people won gold for the U.S., a lot of people won gold.”
Tim Graham had another fact-check meltdown:
The State of the Union is typically an eye-opening exhibit of how dramatically slanted our “independent fact-checkers” are. An overview of the most prominent traditional national media sites reveals a total of 123 “fact checks” on the president to four for Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.). One might say that Trump spoke much longer, but all four of Spanberger’s claims were ruled as solid. Here’s the rundown:
PolitiFact promised their usual checking in real time, and performed nine checks on Trump and three on Abigail Spanberger. While Trump’s claims drew words like “exaggeration,” “mathematical hyperbole,” “no evidence,” and a “wrong,” they avoided the usual “Truth-O-Meter” ruling words. Spanberger’s three claims were ruled as “”research supports this number,” “This is accurate,” and “Early data supports.” (9-3)
But Graham offered no evidence whatsoever that Spanberger lied as much as Trump did, or that Democrats must be fact-checked at that same or grater rate as Republicans.
Curtis Houck whined that CBS failed to be a right-wing shill for Trump:
Despite having been painted a picture by the liberal media that the new CBS News would become something akin to MAGA TV, it has been anything but. Wednesday’s CBS Mornings reacted with negative narratives about President Trump’s “contentious” 2026 State of the Union speech, “clash[ing] with Democrats” and painting a supposedly dour economy as strong.
The bias began in the tease with co-host and Democrat donor Gayle King saying Trump gave “a contentious State of the Union Address, claiming victory on the economy, and bashing Democrats.”
Filling in at a show she spent seven years co-hosting, Norah O’Donnell voiced skepticism at Trump “claim[ing] the nation’s economy is strong despite polls showing most Americans feel otherwise” and “clash[ing] with Democrats in the room on a range of issues, including the ICE tactics at the root of the partial government shutdown.”
Houck didn’t contradict any claim O’Donnell or any other CBS correspondent made.
Christy went into comedy-cop mode for a Feb. 26 post:
NBC’s Seth Meyers reacted on Late Night to President Trump’s State of the Union address on Wednesday by attacking him for condemning Democrats for not standing up and applauding and for allegedly trying to “co-opt” Team USA’s men’s hockey gold medal for himself. In both cases, Meyers left out some crucial context.
Meyers introduced a clip of Trump by lamenting, “And yet despite the fact that it strained everyone’s attention spans, Trump expected everyone—everyone—to leap to their feet and applaud for him, including the Democrats. And his feelings were very hurt when they didn’t.”
In the clip, Trump observed, “Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy.”
Meyers reacted by breaking out his Trump impression, “These people are crazy. They said electric boat batteries cause shark attacks. They called Hannibal Lecter a wonderful man. They sent a hospital boat to Greenland for no reason. Oh, I real—those are all things I did. I’m hearing myself now and realizing maybe I’m the crazy one. Let’s see, pull up a pic of my face and tell me if I look crazy. Oh, it’s me. I’m the crazy one.”
What Meyers didn’t mention is that the context for that clip was Trump calling for a ban on gender transitions for children.
Joseph Vazquez huffed:
It’s been proven that CNN will never give President Donald Trump an inch on a “strong” economy without taking logic and twisting it into such an amorphous pretzel to take nonsensical jabs at his record anyway.
CNN Business Executive Editor David Goldman, who’s become the poster child for harebrained contradictory hot takes on CNN.com, published another gem February 25 following Trump’s State of the Union speech that would make readers scratch their heads: “Trump is right: The economy is strong. But he’s missing the big problem.”
Reading Goldman actually doubling down on that like it made sense in the opening paragraphs was a sight to behold: “President Donald Trump made a passionate defense of the US economy during his State of the Union address Tuesday night … Hyperbole aside, he’s right: America’s economy is strong. But Trump is missing the point.” Uh, what!
Goldman chose to strain at gnats and swallow a camel, by editorializing that “Affordability, not economic strength, drives voters to the polls. Most Americans don’t care a lick about GDP, CPI, PCE or any of the other acronyms or data points that show the economy is on the right track.”
Talk about being “hyperbolic,” since GDP, CPI and PCE are direct indicators of the segments of the economy affecting consumer wallets and, er, “affordability.”
Vazquez huffed further that “64 percent of SOTU speech watchers believed ‘Trump’s policies will move the U.S. in the right direction,’ a whopping ten percent jump from where the figure was pre-speech,” as if that discredits anything CNN stated.