The Patriot Post® · Biden's Address Was Full of Lies
Joe Biden has a long history of uttering untruths, and his speech before a slimmed-down joint session of Congress on Wednesday constituted a continuation of that practice. Thankfully, relatively few Americans tuned in to watch him spin his yarn, as only 27 million viewed the speech. That total was dwarfed by Donald Trump in his first speech before Congress in 2017, when over 47 million watched. In fact, every one of Trump’s speeches to Congress was viewed by significantly more Americans than was Biden’s first. But back to Biden’s fibbing.
Since The Washington Post recently announced that it will no longer maintain a database of fact-checks on Biden (because you can’t run cover for him if you’re keeping up with the volume of lies he utters), it’s been left to conservative media outfits to jump into the breach.
So, how bad were Biden’s lies? We’ll highlight three big ones on the economy, COVID, and guns.
As the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman observed, the Biden administration itself on Thursday morning was debunking “the economic fairy tale told by the president” via his own “government’s data release on Thursday morning.” One of Biden’s biggest lies was that he inherited an economy in crisis — what he claimed was “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” He then went on to tout how he has been responsible for “the economy [creating] more than 1.3 million new jobs in 100 days.” The truth is that from May to December of 2020, the economy under Trump’s leadership recovered 12.1 million jobs, and it was only that resilient because of his prior three years of outstanding stewardship.
Biden’s “savior of the economy” mythology is laid bare by the facts. Freeman notes, “Unemployment in the 1930s soared to roughly 25%. Since October of 2020 it’s been below 7%. By the time Mr. Biden was taking office in January it had fallen to 6.3%. The U.S. unemployment rate has been higher at some point in every decade since the 1930s, including for the entire first five years of the Obama-Biden administration.”
Nevertheless, Biden explicitly took credit for an economic recovery that began months before his election, much less his Oval Office occupancy. “Now, after just 100 days, I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. … America is rising anew. … After 100 days of rescue and renewal, America is ready to takeoff. … One hundred days ago, America’s house was on fire. We had to act.”
The facts? During the first quarter when Biden assumed office, the U.S. economy was already soaring, as 2020’s fourth quarter showed economic growth over 4%. The economy was bouncing back big time under Trump’s leadership, and America was not a “house on fire” — far from it. The economic fire, caused by lockdowns excused by a global pandemic, already had been largely put out and the restoration was well on its way. If anything, Biden, throughout his 2020 campaign and even into his first 100 days has been trying to keep that fire burning. He persisted with backing lockdowns and mandates, peddling COVID panic and fear by criticizing governors who opened their economies, as well as continuing to wear a mask outside and on Zoom calls, even post-vaccination.
Speaking of vaccines, Biden blatantly sought to deceive by taking credit (again) for them. Biden declared, “After I promised 100 million COVID-19 vaccine shots in 100 days, we will have provided over 220 million COVID shots in 100 days.” While 220 million shots is indeed true, Biden neglected to mention that multiple coronavirus vaccines were developed in record time under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed directive, and that by the time Biden took office nearly one million Americans were being vaccinated every day. In effect, everything to combat the pandemic was developed and put in place by his predecessor, and all Biden had to do was keep the ball rolling. Trump, not Biden, deserves the lion’s share of the credit.
Then there were Biden’s lies on guns. “In the 1990s,” he boasted, “we passed universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that hold 100 rounds that can be fired in a second.” Then came the lies: “We beat the NRA. Mass shootings and gun violence declined.” Actually, the “assault weapons ban” did nothing to lower “gun violence” — a data point we have repeatedly noted. In fact, “gun violence” decreased after the “assault weapons ban” ended. Biden also erroneously claimed, “I need not tell anyone this, but gun violence is an epidemic in America.” Not according to the data — homicides with firearms have been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years, while American gun ownership has significantly increased over that same span.
Again, these were but a few of the many untruths uttered by Biden on Wednesday evening. His revisionist history was chock-full of misinformation and missing context, and it’s aimed solely at creating a fantasy world wherein he and the Democrat Party have been busy “saving the country.” But from what? The true answer is that they have been “saving” the country from Liberty.