President Joe Biden has received Washington Post‘s lowest fact check rating, a score called the Bottomless Pinocchio that was previously reserved for former President Donald Trump, for comments he made while stumping for political allies facing reelection in Tuesday’s upcoming midterms.
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler was reluctant to apply Pinocchio ratings to its summary of misleading statements made by President Biden over the course of the week as he made his final appearances to support his party’s ticket in the upcoming midterm election Tuesday. But, after some consideration, the paper decided it was not only necessary to rate Biden’s false statements, but to do so with a label that the publisher created and reserved for former President Trump.
Speaking to a crowd in San Diego last Thursday, the president once again reiterated an oft-repeated lie: that he has spent more time with Xi Jinping than any other head of state. “Folks, I spent a lot of time — more time with Xi Jinping than any other head of state. … I’ve traveled 17,000 miles with him,” he said.
The paper, which described Biden’s fondness for the claim as “odd” and previously disproven, noted that he made the claim for the 20th time during that engagement and for the 21st just hours later. “Biden is so fond of this bogus statistic that he even mentioned it during high-profile speeches such as a joint session of Congress and a commencement address,” Kessler wrote.
When WaPo first conceived the idea of a Bottomless Pinocchio rating, they promised to maintain a landing page that collected all instances where the ignominious title had been awarded. Unfortunately, this pledge fell by the wayside once President Biden took office. Bottomless Pinocchios, by design, are hard to achieve. The false statement must, by itself, qualify for one of WaPo’s two worst ratings. The false statement must then be repeated by the politician at least 20 times. According to the editorial team, this number was chosen because, after so many repetitions, “there can be no question the [sic] politician is aware that his or her facts are wrong.”
Ultimately, the new category in their fact-checking system is designed to signal that the politician has repeated the “false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.”
Biden made a number of other false statements while campaigning this week. He claimed to be personally responsible for the increase in Social Security payments next year, which Kessler rightly pointed out was the result of a 1972 reform that pegged benefits to inflation. At a speech in Syracuse, Biden told the audience that gas was over $5 when he entered office and that it had fallen to just $3.39 on his watch. WaPo’s fact-checkers correctly pointed out that gas was only $2.48 when he entered office.
