Biden: The Great Pinocchio King?

AMAC exclusive – By Claire Brighn

After Joe Biden’s decades-long political career marred by plagiarism, dubious claims of being arrested during the Civil Rights Movement, dubbing himself a full-fledged college professor despite never teaching a college course, and a host of other misleading and outright false statements, Americans should perhaps be unsurprised that Biden’s presidency has been defined by one lie after another. But as the many crises plaguing the country continue to worsen and Democrats’ prospects in November grow ever direr, these lies and deceptions have only grown more egregious and dangerous. Here are just a few of Biden’s biggest whoppers.  

1. “When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available.” – Biden White House Twitter, May 12, 2022

The most preposterous aspect of this lie is that Biden himself received the vaccine before he took office – as did former President Trump, whose Operation Warp Speed delivered multiple COVID-19 vaccines in record time. Even Dr. Fauci told Jake Tapper of the claim, “I just can’t explain it.” The assertion is so blatantly false that even CNN fact-checked it, noting that by the time Biden came into office, roughly 19 million people had received at least one vaccine dose, according to CDC data.

2. “The first cause of inflation is a once-in-a-century pandemic…And this year we have a second cause — a second cause: Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine.” – May 10, 2022

Even a cursory glance at economic data over the past two years shows inflation was on the upward trend long before Putin invaded Ukraine. And COVID-19 is hardly to blame – even liberal economists cite the trillions in spending passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by Biden (most notably the $1.9 trillion ostensibly marked for “COVID relief”) as the primary cause of rising inflation. On December 1 of last year, with CPI surging, Treasury Secretary Yellen conceded in a hearing that the $1.9 trillion “did boost demand, and that is one of several factors that are involved in inflation.” Olivier Blanchard, former IMF chief, had also previously warned that the $1.9 trillion “could overheat the economy so badly as to be counterproductive.” A recent Morgan Stanley report confirms this widely held prediction, saying that despite an economy already recovering from the pandemic at the time, “the [$1.9 trillion stimulus package] was what turbocharged consumption and drove inflation to 40-year highs.”

3. “After their massive tax giveaway to the super-wealthy and giant corporations in 2017, Congressional Republicans now want to raise taxes on middle class families.” – April 18, 2022

Recently, Biden has repeatedly made the false claim that Congressional Republicans want to raise taxes. Specifically, he is referring to one sentence on page 34 of Senator Rick Scott’s 11-point plan, which reads that “all Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount.” But Scott’s plan is by no means the official Republican platform, and many Republicans have distanced themselves from that particular aspect of the plan. Moreover, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell specifically rejected this proposal. For Biden to consistently assert that the Republican Party agenda writ large is to raise taxes on all Americans is disingenuous and ignores decades of history of Republicans lowering taxes while Democrats raise them. Fittingly and in a moment of rare honesty from the legacy media, this lie has earned Biden “Three Pinocchio’s (Barely Missing Four)” from The Washington Post.

4. “The first year of my presidency, the first year, I reduced the deficit, literally, by $350 billion dollars. First year.” – May 11, 2022

In another variation of this lie, Biden also said, “Let me remind you, I reduced the federal deficit.” His claim to be a great deficit reducer immediately brought him a scathing fact-check from CNN’s typically partisan “fact checker” Daniel Dale.

While the deficit in 2021 was indeed reduced, it was still much higher than projected before Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus was passed. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “the main source of falling deficits is the expiration of most COVID relief.” And according to the Congressional Budget Office, had no new policy been enacted by Biden, the fiscal 2021 budget would have declined by $870 billion. Thus, Biden’s bogus claim of reducing the deficit hinges totally on artificial meaning and, according to Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “is almost bizarro world.”

On the other hand, Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would add $375 billion to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

5. “And under my plan, nobody — let me say this again — nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in new taxes.” – March 1, 2022 

Biden’s entire tax and spend plan is rooted in deception and the lie that it won’t actually raise taxes. Biden claimed on the campaign trail that he would put “truth over lies” and that “anyone making less than $400,000” would not see a “penny” more in taxes. But even according to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, his Build Back Better plan would raise taxes on up to 30% of middle class families. Not to mention, the runaway inflation directly caused by Biden’s big-spending policies is a massive hidden tax that disproportionately affects the poorest Americans.

6. “I grew up in a family where the price at the pump was felt in the kitchen.” – February 15, 2022

Around the time rising gas and groceries prices began to converge, Biden began telling this lie. At first it was missed by many on the left and the right. However, a quick look at history soon revealed that Biden’s sob story about the “price at the pump” was simply untrue – gas prices were totally flat during his childhood. As American families today face stretched budgets and trade-offs between gas or groceries thanks to his disastrous policies, this lie becomes ever-more callous and tone deaf.

7. “No one” that Biden “can recall” advised him against his Afghanistan withdrawal plan – August 2021

Despite 13 U.S. service members killed and others horrifically injured, hundreds of Americans left behind, and billions worth of U.S. military equipment abandoned, Biden immediately called the Afghanistan withdrawal a “success.” In fact, his administration has maintained this ever since, with his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying in December 2021 that the U.S. “safely and effectively drew down” from Afghanistan.

But after the botched withdrawal, both Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley testified that they had, in fact, advised against Biden’s withdrawal timeline and recommended leaving residual forces. Moreover, though Biden claimed that the intelligence community in June and July did not indicate Afghanistan would collapse to the Taliban, intelligence reports did, in fact, warn of a possible “domino effect” should U.S. forces leave.

For decades, Joe Biden has been the poster child of a lying and insincere career politican. But now, with an inflationary downturn, the economy shrinking, and Americans feeling pessimistic and anxious about the direction of the country, a Rubicon seems to have been crossed, and Biden’s credibility has been totally destroyed.

Claire Brighn is the pen name of a conservative researcher and writer with previous domestic and foreign policy experience in the Executive Branch.