FACT: PolitiFact only conducted 13 fact-checks on Biden in his first 100 days – while doing 52 for Trump’s
- PoltiFact carried out four times as many fact checks of Trump than Biden
- Fact-checking site also flagged 106 statements which were made about Biden
- Comes as Trump’s Facebook ban was upheld today over posts before Capitol riot
Fact-checking website PolitiFact only conducted 13 checks on Joe Biden in his first 100 days – compared to 52 for Donald Trump, a new study has revealed.
PolitiFact, which insists it is non-partisan, carries out checks on statements made by or about politicians and scores them with its ‘Truth-O-Meter.’
Not only did it publish four times as many fact-checks on Trump, but the website flagged 106 statements which were made about Biden.
It comes as Trump was permanently banned from Facebook today over posts he made ahead of the deadly Capitol riot on January 6.
Fact-checking website PolitiFact only conducted 13 checks on Joe Biden in his first 100 days – compared to 52 for Donald Trump, a new study has revealed (pictured: Biden speaks at the White House on Tuesday)
Donald Trump in the Oval Office in September 2019. His Facebook ban was upheld today
PoltiFact, which stands against ‘misinformation,’ has carried out checks on hundreds of Trump statements, finding that the majority are false, with 17 per cent in the worst category of ‘Pants on Fire.’
Among them was a line from Trump’s speech to the MAGA mob shortly before they descended on the Capitol.
‘We won. We won in a landslide. This was a landslide,’ Trump said.
Meanwhile, in its analyses of statements by Biden, PoltiFact found that more than half were true, with just 3 per cent of his checked comments ranked as ‘Pants on Fire’ lies.
However, in the period of the first 100 days, despite far more checks of Trump, the pair were found to have the same ‘Truth-O-Meter’ score of 61.5 per cent.
Thirty-two of Trump’s 52 statements were flagged as false, while eight of Biden’s 13 remarks were also branded untrue.
None of Biden’s warranted a ‘Pants on Fire’ flag but two of Trump’s statements from 2017 did.
Meanwhile, the Pulitzer Prize-winning site has flagged many posts made about Biden in that worst category, including statements made by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and one each for Fox News and for Tucker Carlson.
Liz Cheney was also called a liar for claiming that less than 6 per cent of Biden’s infrastructure plan was actually about infrastructure.
It comes as Trump was permanently banned from Facebook today over posts he made ahead of the deadly Capitol riot on January 6
‘In other words, they’re much more sensitive about someone “lying” about Biden than they are about Biden lying,’ said Tim Graham, executive editor of NewsBusters which carried out the study of PoltiFact.
PoltiFact is operated by the Poynter Institute, a journalism school based in Florida which owns the Tampa Bay Times.
The school has partnered with The Washington Post to promote diversity in media.
