As we’ve discussed before, all too often, fact checkers will run interference for Democrats regardless of the actual facts because they see themselves as an extension of the Democratic party apparatus.
But every once in a while a whopper comes along that is so egregious that not even the most apologetic of the Democrat apologists can stand by and let it slide, which is what happened this week when the White House Twitter account made a false claim Tuesday about Joe Biden’s supposed “leadership” leading to the cost of living adjustment (COLA) seniors are set to receive in their Social Security checks starting in 2023.
In a since-deleted tweet, here’s what the White House posted:
As the BidenLs Twitter account correctly pointed out, the increase is actually coming not because Joe Biden declared it so but because Biden’s disastrous policies have led to rising inflation rates, which is an automatic trigger for the COLAs.
Other Twitter users also pointed this out, which led to Twitter’s contributor-based “Birdwatch” fact-checking mechanism (which was put in place nearly two years ago but which is being used more in the Elon Musk era) adding a contextual note directly underneath the tweet:
At some point after the note was added, the White House deleted the tweet and didn’t replace it with a different one:
On the same day, Joe Biden gave a speech in Florida on the issue of protecting Social Security and Medicare, where he made a similar claim:
“And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks. So, checks are going to be up and Medicare payments are going to be down.”
Watch:
The combination of both the Tweet and Biden’s statement during that speech proved to be too much to tolerate for the normally Democrat-compliant fact-checkers at PolitiFact, which gave him a “Pants on Fire” rating:
Biden said, “On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.”In reality, Social Security recipients have received an inflation adjustment for nine of the past 10 years. The adjustments are based on a key inflation measure, as mandated by a 1972 law.We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
FactCheck.org also dinged Biden for the lie, though they softened it by saying what they think he “meant” to say:
The president then immediately turned to Social Security. “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,” he said. “So, checks are going to be up and Medicare payments are going to be down.”It may not have been clear to the audience, but what Biden meant was that “for the first time in 10 years” Social Security payments would increase while Part B premiums would decrease. He has made that point before. On Oct. 13, for instance, he said of seniors: “For the first time in 10 years, their Social Security checks will go up while their Medicare premiums go down.”But Social Security payments have gone up every year except one over the past decade. And those increases had nothing to do with presidential actions.
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale got in on the action as well, though he also softened his a bit by suggesting Biden’s and the White House’s claims were simply missing “critical context”:
But his boasts leave out critical context: Biden doesn’t explain that the reason the 2023 increase will be unusually large is that the inflation rate has been unusually large. Nor was that context included in a misleading post from the White House’s Twitter account on Tuesday – a post the White House deleted on Wednesday after it was widely criticized and Twitter affixed a fact-check to it.In addition, during a speech in Florida on Tuesday, Biden falsely claimed that the 2023 increase in Social Security payments will be the first increase in 10 years. In fact, there was an increase in every year of the Trump administration and the first two years of the Biden administration.
And the New York Times wrote:
The tweet, which had been posted on Tuesday, was removed without explanation a day later after it had been skewered by critics and contradicted by a new Twitter feature that allows users to fact-check erroneous assertions. The automatic 8.7 percent cost of living increase that Social Security beneficiaries are receiving is a result of inflation running at a four-decade high, not a policy achievement enacted by Mr. Biden.
What would have made the White House’s tweet correct? Adding one word: Failed.
Instead of “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” it should have read, “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s failed leadership.”
And Biden’s remarks to the attendees of his Florida speech would have been more on the mark if he’d said something like, “Under my failed leadership, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting a large increase in their Social Security checks.”
Failed. A word that perfectly sums up Joe Biden’s presidency.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY