Biden Has Earned 11 Pinocchios From Fact-Checkers During Coronavirus Crisis
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has been dinged several times by fact-checkers over claims he has made during the coronavirus crisis, including a total of 11 "Pinocchios" from the Washington Post.
Over the course of three weeks between March 13 and April 3, Biden was fact-checked five separate times for making false or misleading claims concerning the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic.
A Washington Post fact check on March 13 awarded Biden four Pinocchios, the fact-checker's most severe rating, for two manipulated videos the Biden campaign circulated.
The first video claimed to show Trump at a Feb. 28 rally saying Democrats were turning the coronavirus into "their new hoax" after they failed to bring Trump down through impeachment. Biden's video was edited to make it appear that Trump was calling the coronavirus a hoax. Trump, however, was referring to the Democrats' attempts to blame him for the virus, not the virus itself.
The second Biden campaign video showed Trump saying the phrase "the American Dream is dead," which the Post found was taken out of context and missing the second part of Trump's statement where he promised to "bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before."
Another Post fact check on March 24 gave the campaign four Pinocchios after adviser Ron Klain accused Trump of silencing Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government—there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up," he said in a campaign video released on March 21.
Messonnier continued to hold routine phone briefings with reporters in the weeks after she raised the alarm about the virus at a press conference with Trump.
Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote that Klain's framing was "simply wrong." Messonnier's alarming rhetoric did irritate Trump, but the idea that she was silenced was a "false narrative," Kessler added.
At a CNN town hall on March 27, Biden repeated an earlier claim that Trump had eliminated the White House pandemic office. He also claimed Trump made "no effort" to put any pressure on Chinese president Xi Jinping and reduced the CDC's staff in China prior to the outbreak. Biden added he called for China to admit medical experts from the United States when the outbreak in China was still in its early stages.
The Post‘s fact check gave Biden three Pinocchios due to his imprecise language. The Trump administration sought access for CDC experts, and the administration told the Post that Trump offered to send experts to China to help with the outbreak. Biden also did not specifically call for experts to be sent until late February.
Those weren't the only times Biden has been fact-checked for rhetoric during the crisis.
On March 15, during the Democratic presidential debate, Biden falsely claimed that Trump refused coronavirus testing kits from the World Health Organization. The kits were never offered in the first place. PolitiFact rated his statement "Mostly False." CNN, after initially deeming his statement factual, retracted its rating after a report by the Washington Free Beacon.
On March 19, Biden first tweeted that Trump "eliminated" the pandemic response team. The Washington Post fact check found this claim "overstated" due to the fact that the global health directorate was folded into another office under the guidance of former national security adviser John Bolton. Citing "dueling narratives," however, it didn't give a rating to Biden's claim.
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Chris Hedges: How Republicans, Democrats, and the Media Have Weakened US Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jyzp09_g8
Schweizer: ‘It’s Going to Be Business as Usual’ for Hunter’s Dealings
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On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer said he reads President Biden’s statements about his son Hunter’s deals as a declaration that “it’s going to be business as usual in the Biden administration as far as these deals are concerned.”
BIDEN’S VIETNAM: 60K Americans Dead from COVID-19 in First Three Weeks of Presidency
Fewer Americans died in Vietnam War from 1964 to 1975
More Americans have died from COVID-19 in the first three weeks of Joe Biden's presidency than during the entire Vietnam War, a grim milestone for a leader who vowed to make ending the pandemic "the first priority, the second priority, and the third priority" of his administration.
The COVID-19 death count since Biden took office on Jan. 20 surpassed 60,000 over the weekend. That is more than the 58,220 American soldiers who died in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1975.
Numerous media outlets marked the occasion when COVID-19 deaths surpassed Vietnam War deaths under former president Donald Trump. NPR, among others, reported at the time:
In not even three months since the first known U.S. deaths from COVID-19, more lives have now been lost to the coronavirus pandemic on U.S. soil than the 58,220 Americans who died over nearly two decades in Vietnam.
New York magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi noted the milestone during a press conference in April 2020. "If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?" she asked Trump.
Because the Washington Free Beacon appears to be one of the only media outlets whose dedication to the truth compels us to diligently track COVID-19 deaths under Biden, the milestone has received far less coverage this time around.
To put that number into greater context: The COVID-19 death toll on Biden's watch is the equivalent of 25 Pearl Harbors and 20 9/11s.
Hunter Biden Cashes In with Book Deal as Career Prospects Dwindle, Child Support Payments Mount
Hunter Biden is cashing in on his father's presidency with a juicy memoir due out this spring, the Associated Press reports:
NEW YORK (AP) — Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden and an ongoing target for conservatives, has a memoir coming out April 6.
The book is called "Beautiful Things" and will center on the younger Biden's well publicized struggles with substance abuse, according to Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Acquired in the fall of 2019, "Beautiful Things" was kept under wraps even as Biden's business dealings became a fixation of then-President Donald Trump and others during the election and his finances a matter of investigation by the Justice Department.
"Beautiful Things" was circulated among several authors and includes advance praise from Stephen King, Dave Eggers and Anne Lamott.
The terms of the book deal were "not disclosed," but the presumed influx of cash could not have come at a better time for the renegade scion, who has been forced to sit idly by as Kamala Harris's niece and stepdaughter, as well as his uncle, Frank Biden, rake in the dough.
Hunter's new career as a Los Angeles-based artist has yet to take off, and the ongoing federal investigation into his sketchy business ventures in Ukraine and China has limited his professional opportunities. Hunter, 51, is also on the hook for monthly child support payments after a court-ordered paternity test identified him as the father of the child born to former stripper Lunden Alexis Roberts in 2018.
Though President Joe Biden and his doctor wife have refused to acknowledge the existence of the child, identified in Arkansas court documents as "NJR," it would seem that Roberts has been putting Hunter's money to good use and is building a better life for herself. Roberts, 29, is reportedly engaged to 26-year-old roofer and MMA fighter Princeton Foster.
In the meantime, fans of literature will be eager to learn how Hunter will discuss some of the key moments in his eventful life, such as the time he smoked crack in the VIP room of a prominent D.C. strip club, or the time he started dating his dead brother's widow after narrowly avoiding arrest on drug possession charges.
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