Fact-Checking 4 Claims From Biden’s Reelection Announcement
President Joe Biden launched his reelection campaign early Tuesday with a factually challenged video that focuses heavily on accusations against Republicans.
President Joe Biden launched his reelection campaign early Tuesday with a factually challenged video that focuses heavily on accusations against Republicans.
The 3-minute video with Biden’s voice-over opens with scenes of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, then shifts to a pro-abortion protester in front of the Supreme Court holding a sign saying “abortion is health care.” The ad prominently features images of Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden.
Here are four factually challenged claims made by Biden in the announcement of his reelection bid.
1. ‘Cutting Social Security’
“Around the country,” Biden says in the ad, “MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., repeatedly has said that Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in lawmakers’ budget and debt-ceiling negotiations.
“In the coming weeks, the House will vote on a bill to lift the debt ceiling into the next year, save taxpayers trillions of dollars, make us less dependent upon China, curb our high inflation—all without touching Social Security and Medicare,” McCarthy said last week. “Simply put, it puts us on a fiscally responsible path in three ways: It limits, it saves, and it grows.”
Previously, McCarthy had said that “cuts to Medicare and Social Security, they are off the table.”
Biden made a similar claim Feb. 7 during his State of the Union address, and was fact-checked in real time by members of Congress who booed or shouted, “Liar.”
The best evidence that Biden seems to have for the claim is that before the 2022 midterm elections, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., released an 11-point plan that, among other things, called for Congress to vote to reauthorize all federal programs, as opposed to allowing all programs to renew automatically.
Scott argued that “if a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
The Florida Republican’s proposal didn’t single out Social Security, but also didn’t include a caveat for Social Security or any other budgetary item.
However, Republicans didn’t adopt the Scott plan—with at best vague references to Social Security—as an official campaign document.