Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week we have President Biden’s mistruths during his first address to a joint session of Congress, Democrats’ racist attacks on Senator Tim Scott, and USA Today’s stealth edits on Stacey Abrams’s behalf. As we noted in our first edition, the Washington Post and other outlets incessantly fact-checked Donald Trump’s presidency. Now, the Post says it will give up on cataloguing Biden’s lies after his first 100 days in office. Here's the Biden database — which we do not plan to extend beyond 100 days. I have learned my lesson. https://t.co/qK42PRlnrS — Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) April 27, 2021 As NR’s staff pointed out, Biden’s first congressional speech on Wednesday — which received the lowest TV viewership in 28 years — included more than a few falsehoods. The president called out Senate Republicans for stalling progress on gun control, saying lax gun laws have led to “daily bloodshed.” He argued that the expiration of the assault-weapons bans “in the early 2000s” caused an increase in violence. However, gun violence continued to decline even after the ban expired in 2004. Even while the ban was in effect, the country was not free of shootings, as NR’s Jim Geraghty noted, the Columbine High School massacre, the Long Island Rail Road shooting, and the Atlanta day-trading shooting all occurred while the ban was in effect. In his speech, the president also touted his infrastructure and families plans, which he said he plans to fund by taxing corporate America and the wealthiest 1 percent. He claimed that he “will not impose any tax increase on anyone making less than $400k.” But, as it turns out, “anyone” is a deceptive claim — as White House press secretary Jen Psaki has explained, the $400,000 threshold refers to households, not individuals. Biden also claimed that Medicare could save “hundreds of billions of dollars” by negotiating drug prices, though the Congressional Budget Office has said that “providing broad negotiating authority by itself would likely have a negligible effect on federal spending.” Biden just claimed that Medicare could save “hundreds of billions of dollars” by negotiating drug prices. CBO has concluded “providing broad negotiating authority by itself would likely have a negligible effect on federal spending.” https://t.co/4SBSAIMhAS — Philip Klein (@philipaklein) April 29, 2021 The president said, “We kept our commitment — Democrats and Republicans — of sending $1,400 rescue checks to 85 percent of American households.” However, the American Rescue Plan, which delivered the checks, was hardly a bipartisan effort, with Democrats using budget reconciliation to pass the measure without any Republican support. Biden also made some dubious claims about the economy, saying he had inherited the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” and created “more jobs in the first 100 days than any president on record.” Philip Klein noted that last spring the unemployment rate reached an abysmal 13.
