President Trump on Tuesday evening gave his first address to a joint session of Congress in his second term, and as we have covered here, it was a raucous affair, with intemperate Democrats in attendance followed by a press corps that was uniformly negative about his speech. The Democrats behaving like jackals is of no surprise, nor is the press delivering pre-written condemnation pieces. But one entry did inspire interest.

The slanted minds at PolitiFact came out with their expected fact-check of Trump’s delivery, but there were many noteworthy aspects. Yes, they came up with strained examples. Yes, they gave no instances of Trump being accurate. And yes, at times, they employed their trademark tactics of importing unrelated aspects in order to muddy the waters. But first, what was striking was the paucity of falsehoods. Here are the stats from their rundown:

• FALSE - 6

• MOSTLY FALSE - 3

• HALF TRUE - 2

• TRUE - 0

Consider two things now. First, we are accustomed to seeing them insist that Trump delivers dozens of fraudulent comments in an appearance. Second, this was considered one of the longest joint session speeches ever made. This makes the low number more glaring. Then we see where PolitiFact had to strain in order to build up that number.

On SOCIAL SECURITY, they take issue with Trump’s comments on DOGE finding millions of names on the rolls that are aged 120 years and up to 150 years. There has been some dispute if these are all recipients or if it is a tabulation quirk in the software used by the administration. But in labeling his comment with a firm FALSE rating they fail to show it.

In citing the millions on the spreadsheets, Trump gave no firm number; “Money is being paid to many of them,” was his quote. PolitiFact, in citing a Social Security administration official, said of those names simply they, “are not necessarily receiving benefits.” At best they gave conflicting, vague figures.

On the matter of ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSINGS they took issue with Trump saying that last month saw the lowest recorded month ever. They looked at those records, which began in 2000, and show he was correct, but then had to import other data to prove him wrong. The fact checkers chose to look at prior years and then extrapolate a monthly average to show there were times when months had lower numbers decades ago. But these were not “recorded,” as Trump claimed.

There was also the qualifier they saw a need to add that makes Biden look better. While admitting Trump’s tough stance on the border and deportations “likely played a role” in lowering illegal arrivals, it was also stated “but it has been dropping since March 2024, during Biden’s administration.”

Then with EGG PRICES, there is a convenient fluid application of market influences. Acknowledging it has been a reality that began in the Biden years, we read, “This omits that the price hikes occurred during an outbreak of bird flu.” This piece goes on to cite the sharp rise in egg prices in the five weeks Trump has been in office; “the price of eggs is higher now than it was during the peak under Biden. It has gone up by about $2 since Trump was sworn in.” Conveniently, now it is PolitiFact that omits that same reality, as there was a surge in the bird flu in the past few months.

One way @Politifact “fact checks” the Joint Sessions speech.

Biden is excused from responsibility for egg prices due to the bird flu, but then Trump is blamed for a big jump in prices since taking office.
He is not granted the same pardon as the problem spiked in recent months. pic.twitter.com/t14Ej21QzU

— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) March 5, 2025

Now for a sense of contrast. How did this same fact-check site regard Joe Biden’s last two speeches before Congress? For starters, we do not see boldfaced ratings like those assigned to Trump. There are however times that Biden has comments that are noted as being truthful, a recognition never afforded to Trump regarding the content of his speech

Also, the rating of “False” is nowhere to be seen in the measure of Biden’s address, with convenient euphemisms employed. In last year’s SOTU fact-check, PolitiFact rated falsehoods and lies from Biden in their selected comments thusly: Needs Context - Points Were Exaggerated - Depends On The Measurement - Merits Asterisks - Misleading. 

The fact-check also corrected statistics on a number of matters with no critical or corrective comments, fixed a pair of attributed quotes by Trump without accusing Biden of a falsehood, and on the question of a promised legislation not coming to light, they rated it as “Stalled.”

For his 2023 speech, we see many of the same convenient judgments. A false claim about workers' laws had “significant errors,” a lie about the deficit “Needs More Context,” his claims on the national debt and creating jobs were rated as “Half True” (while Trump is measured with “Half False”), his bragging about wages versus inflation was “Complicated,” and a Medicare boast was “A touch too broad.” 

Meanwhile Biden collected a number of “Mostly True” measures and, laughably, a mostly fraudulent comment was instead given a “Partially Accurate” rating. 

This lays out why these people need to be disregarded. It is all so pathetically desperate, and it exposes, yet again, the failure of the media to deliver accurate data points and facts for the public. Worse, though, is how these are the acclaimed outlets who were lording over the efforts to impose restrictions on claimed instances of misinformation. This is the very reason we have seen platforms such as Facebook and others who have moved on from employing fact-check sites. 

The interpretation of information and the contortion of facts has been a pernicious activity for far too long. This is the very reason we strive to address the press tactics and techniques; it takes steady pressure to alter the entrenched bias, but we are seeing dividends.