When ‘Fact-Checkers’ Are Weaponized Partisan Public Relations
The aggression is overwhelming. The right side is nearly always wrong and blatantly lying, while the left side supposedly stumbles into falsehood every once in a while.
Every once in a while, the “fact-checkers” at PolitiFact publish reader comments, and this one stuck out: “Your site seems to be mostly about Trump all the time,” read one comment. “How about a little less Trump, and write more about any other falsehood subjects?”
PolitiFact’s audience chief Ellen Hine acknowledged they’ve published over 1,000 “fact checks” on President Donald Trump — 1,124, to be precise. But then she trotted out the false claim that their targeting is nonpartisan: “Without keeping count, we try to select facts to check from all sides of the political spectrum. At the same time, we more often fact-check the party that holds power or people who repeatedly make attention-getting or misleading statements.”
That “without keeping count” is an obvious excuse. Anyone who attempts to count what they’re doing will quickly realize they’re very partisan in their targeting — and in their ratings on truth and falsehood.
In the first five months of 2025, PolitiFact performed 68 “Truth-O-Meter” fact checks on Republicans to just 23 on Democrats. Even so, this website found the Republicans “Mostly False,” “False” or “Pants on Fire” liars in 85% of those articles, while the Democrats landed on the false side only 39%.
But let’s focus on presidents. From Jan. 1 through Oct. 22, Trump landed on the False side of the “Truth-O-Meter” 50 out of 54 times, or 92.5% of the time. The other four were “Half True” ratings, meaning he was rated “True” or “Mostly True” on zero occasions. It’s been more than a year — Oct. 18, 2024 — since Trump drew a “Mostly True.”
Instead, PolitiFact rated Trump as a “Pants on Fire” liar 13 times this year, 24% of the time. Since they began in 2007, PolitiFact has written up 217 “Pants on Fire” claims on Trump, to just seven on former President Joe Biden over those years.
If you take the same time period in 2021, Biden drew 34 checks, but they found him on the False side just 14 times, or 41% of the time. Biden was “True” or “Mostly True” 10 times.
In those first months of the Biden presidency, the liberal Democrats of PolitiFact were inflamed against Trump about election denial and the Jan. 6 riot, so Trump drew nine “Pants on Fire” ratings in 24 checks during that time period — and one “Half True,” and nothing on the True side.
The tilt in targeting is so obviously partisan. In 2025, when the “Pants on Fire” tag has been applied to individuals and not social media sites, every single target was on the right. In addition to the pile of attacks on Trump, the flaming list was Pam Bondi (twice) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, Kevin O'Leary of the TV show “Shark Tank,” and Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Let’s stipulate that some of these fact checks are identifying unfactual statements. But the aggression is overwhelming. The right side is nearly always wrong and blatantly lying, while the left side supposedly stumbles into falsehood every once in a while.
Trump is tagged as “False” when he calls New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a “communist,” and Mamdani has never been fact-checked. Trump was “Pants on Fire” when he called Kamala Harris a “communist,” but the Democrats can call him a “fascist” daily and there is no checking.
This isn’t “independent fact-checking.” It’s weaponized public relations.
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