It's nothing new that President Joe Biden manufactures reality to fit his needs, often spinning false yarns in speeches and issuing blanket denials to avoid accountability. What is new, or at least newer, is who is willing to call Biden out and check his claims against the real world in which crises are raging and Americans are struggling due to his policies.
Among Biden's favorite whopper topics is the economy. "Build Back Better" was a major focus of his 2020 basement campaign, a promise to build the country back from COVID to an even better version of itself. The president notably failed in that attempt, but rather than admitting his policies had failed to recoup pandemic losses, he simply rebranded ahead of his 2024 re-election bid. Now, his policies related to the economy are known as "Bidenomics," though his administration has already started to shy away from using the term as it too has languished up against the reality facing Americans.
It turns out that insisting Americans are doing fine when most say they're anything but, economically, doesn't work. That hasn't stopped Biden's disingenuous, misleading, and outright false statements about the economy, but now the New York Times — in a piece this week — called out Biden for his nonsense about the economy, jobs, and taxes.
"Misleading," is what the Gray Lady called Biden's claim that the "average tax rate" for American billionaires is "8.2 percent."
When speaking about the CHIPS and Science Act, Biden claimed the law "attracted $640 billion in private companies' investments that are building factories [and] creating jobs in America again."
The Times ruled that claim outright "false," noting "private investments spurred by the CHIPS and Science Act, which gave billions to the chip industry, do not come in at $640 billion" and "[b]y some measures, it is a fraction of that."
The Times also dinged Biden for his statement that "Trump talks about putting checks in pockets...But in 2021, as soon as I came to office, I was the guy who sent every one of you those $1,400 checks." As their fact-check reminds, both Trump and Biden "signed legislation providing stimulus payments to Americans" amid COVID.
Even some of Biden's favorite-to-harp-on claims were torn apart by the Times. "The only president other than Donald Trump that lost jobs during an administration was Herbert Hoover," Biden has claimed in various iterations. But, as the New York Times reminded, Biden's attack on Trump "omits that this occurred because of the coronavirus pandemic."
What's more, as the Times emphasized, Trump "had a positive jobs record" before COVID was unleashed. "Jobs had increased from 145.6 million jobs" when Trump took office in January 2017 to "152 million jobs in January 2020 — a rise of 6.4 million jobs, or 4.4 percent." Twisting the knife a bit further, the Times noted that roughly "half of the nearly 22 million jobs lost in early 2020 were recovered before Mr. Trump left office."
Will Biden ever stop telling whoppers — or even admit what he's said in the past was false, misleading, or needed some critical context? History has shown the answer to be an easy no. Instead, the White House is sure to try scolding reporters and outlets, even the ones that routinely cover for and excuse his actions, for being somehow "unfair" by comparing Biden's version of the truth to reality.