The New York Times published a fact-check!

MONDAY, JULY 8, 2024

Was it a bit of a fail? What explains President Biden's performance at the June 27 debate?

We still can't answer that question! Last Friday, the president spoke with George Stephanopoulos for twenty-two minutes about that very topic.

In this morning's print editions, the New York Times published Linda Qiu's fact-check of that high-profile interview. Our question about her fact-check is this:

Was it a bit of a fail?

Was the fact-check a bit of a fail? We ask because of the statements Qiu chose to check—and because of a few of the statements by President Biden which she chose to skip.

Qiu fact-checked six statements in all. At times, she engaged in what we'd describe as quibble-adjacent behavior. As an example of what we mean, this was her first presentation, headline included:

Fact-Checking Biden’s ABC Interview

[...]

WHAT WAS SAID
“After that debate, I did 10 major events in a row, including until 2 o’clock in the morning after the debate. I did events in North Carolina. I did events in — in — in Georgia, did events like this today, large crowds, overwhelming response, no — no — no slipping.”

This is exaggerated. Since the debate on June 27, Mr. Biden has traveled up and down the East Coast and participated in more than a dozen events, according to his public calendar. Whether or not the events can be considered “major” and crowds “large” are matters of opinion, but Mr. Biden did misspeak at several.

Before the interview on Friday, Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump at a rally in Wisconsin that he would “beat him again in 2020.”

At a Fourth of July barbecue with military members and their families, Mr. Biden referred to Mr. Trump as “one of our former colleagues” before correcting himself.

And at a fund-raising reception in East Hampton, New York, he confused Italy and France when referring to the location of a veterans’ cemetery he recently visited.

In our view, that specific fact-check comes dangerously close to being quibble-adjacent. So too, we'd have to say, were some other presentations by Qiu.

Qiu selected several fuzzy statements by Biden—statements in which the embattled president certainly could have been more clear. There was nothing "wrong" with these presentations by Qiu, but several of her presentations had the flavor of rather thin stew. 

On the other hand, she completely bypassed the strangest factual claim the president made that night. We discussed this claim the very next day. Here is the relevant transcript:

PRESIDENT BIDEN (7/5/24): Well, look. After that debate, I did ten major events in a row, including until 2 in the morning after the debate. I did events in North Carolina. I did events in—in in Georgia, did events like this today, large crowds, overwhelming response, no— no— no slipping. 

And so, I just had a bad night. I don't know why.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And how— How quickly did it come to you that you were having that "bad night?"

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, it came to me I was having a bad night when I realized that even when I was answering a question, even though they turned his mic off, he was still shouting. And I— 

I let it distract me. I— I'm not blaming it on that, but I realized that I just wasn't in control.

Say what? At the June 27 debate, was Candidate Trump "still shouting," whether at Biden or into the ether, after his mic was turned off? 

We saw no sign of any such conduct during the split-screen telecast. As far as we know, no one made any such claim until the president did, in this ABC interview, some eight days post-event.

At the Washington Post, Dana Milbank was also puzzled by this claim. In a July 5 column, he included these observations about the president's session with Stephanopoulos: 

Biden’s determination not to give an inch was belied by his delivery: some of the same mouth-agape looks while listening to the question, a couple of meandering answers where he seemed to lose his train of thought. Incredibly, he said he hadn’t re-watched the debate that threatens to sink his candidacy. “I don’t think I did, no,” he said after a pause. He also said he had been distracted during the debate because of Trump’s behavior: “Even when they turned his mic off, he was still shouting.” The debate was broadcast in split screen, which did not show this.

Milbank was puzzled by this claim too. Like many others in the mainstream press, Qiu completely ignored it.

Why did the president make that claim? Is there any evidence that his statement was true?

At the Times, the peculiar claim was completely passed over in favor of some fairly trivial stuff. Aside from Milbank, we don't think we've seen anyone in the mainstream press corps question this strange-seeming statement.

In our view, the woods are lovely, dark and deep—but the judgement and skills of our upper-end press corps are often remarkably limited. Assumptions to the contrary will often lead us astray, however understandable such assumptions may be.

Was the New York Times' fact-check a bit of a fail? We'll be discussing questions like this all through the course of the week.