Glenn Kessler, a “fact checker” for The Washington Post, kept track of everything he and a team of deemers deemed to be a lie uttered by President Trump.
His final tally of Trump’s “false and misleading statements” – 30,573.
But according to a new report, the Post team won’t be keeping score on President Biden, a Democrat.
“Trump’s departure also equals an end to having a false claims project for the current president, as The Post said it does ‘not have plans to launch a Biden database at this time,'” the Daily Caller wrote.
“The database of Trump claims was started a month after Trump became president as a way to not overwhelm our fact-checking enterprise, where the core mission is to explain complex policy issues,” Shani George told the Caller. “While we do not have plans to launch a Biden database at this time, we will continue to dig into the accuracy of statements by political figures of all party affiliations.”
Back on January 16, Kessler explained in a CNN appearance why he won’t keep a list of alleged lies from Biden. “I assume the Biden presidency will be a lot like the Obama presidency, and that they will be responsive, and will be able to quickly back up what they’re saying,” he told host Victor Blackwell.
WashPost 'fact checker' Glenn Kessler won't count false Biden claims like Trump's: "I assume the Biden presidency will be a lot like the Obama presidency, and that they will be responsive, and will be able to quickly back up what they're saying."https://t.co/PUg8z4uzIZ pic.twitter.com/EQAUyaRqSy
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) January 24, 2021
Here’s their exchange:
BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about the president-elect. He made a lot of pretty dramatic claims in his speech on Thursday, Thursday evening. I understand that your team reached out to him and just compare and contrast the reaction and response you got from the incoming administration to what you’ve gotten over the last several years.
KESSLER: Well, in the case of the Biden-Harris transition team, we asked — we identified five factual statements he made, interesting claims that we wanted to know if they — what was the basis for this. Within 15 minutes, we received citations to those factual statements, and they all checked out.
Generally, the Trump White House almost never responded to our queries, [because], of course, a lot of what the president said could not be defended or explained in terms of where he got these so-called facts. I assume the Biden — you know, I did five years of Obama, and I assume the Biden presidency will be a lot like the Obama presidency, and that they will be responsive, and will be able to quickly back up what they’re saying. And occasionally, the president will go off-kilter, particularly when he’s, you know, speaking extemporaneously and not following something that previously — has previously been fact-checked.
On Twitter, Kessler wrote: “I had a question about five factual statements in a recent Biden speech. I received citations and documents backing up those numbers 15 minutes after sending an emailed request for back-up.”
I had a question about five factual statements in a recent Biden speech. I received citations and documents backing up those numbers 15 minutes after sending an emailed request for back-up. https://t.co/rbunMxSgu4
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 22, 2021
In its own report, Newsbusters wrote: “Kessler warmly accepted Biden’s use of liberal think tanks like the Brookings Institution, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and poverty analysts at Columbia University backed by liberal foundations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But when Trump used the National Federation of Independent Business for a survey of small business confidence in 2018, Kessler dismissed it as a ‘conservative group’ whose survey didn’t draw enough responses to impress him.”
But if you want to keep up with Biden’s false and misleading statements, check out this story on The Federalist headlined: Here’s The Full List Of Every Lie Joe Biden Has Told As President.