Politifact

Filling in for Executive Editor Tim Graham, Associate Editor Nick Fondacaro and I first dove into the results of Graham's new study about Politifact's ongoing double standard when fact-checking conservatives vs. liberals. Spoiler alert: They only really try when they can make the right look bad.

PolitiFact’s home page begs for donations with the sales pitch: “Stand up for the facts! Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.” But PolitiFact’s liberal agenda is easily identified by studying its partisan pattern of “fact checking.” Their disparity in "False" warnings between Republicans and Democrats is 63 to 14.

On Friday, PolitiFact posted a story headlined “Why Republicans are focusing on transgender issues in competitive 2026 campaigns.” The headline could have been “Republicans are using misleading anti-transgender rhetoric.” That was their argument.

Politifact (D-Florida) is already demonstrating the notion that "fact checking" is often Republican spin-spoiling. Democrats chose DSA member Angie Nixon to run for Senate, and PolitiFact asked: "How aligned is Angie Nixon with democratic socialists? Moody's Florida Senate race attack misleads." Wrong.

Florida Republican-turned MSNBC talking head-turned Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Jolly has portrayed himself as the kind of aspiring governor who would not insert himself into decisions about whether or not a minor should receive transgender “medical care.” This has led GOP nominee Byron Donalds and his PAC to say Jolly supports transgender surgeries for minors, but the damage…

The “fact checkers” are marching in line with the elitist media in slamming Republican Mike Rogers for pointing out Abdul el-Sayed’s sketchy choice of allies like Hasan Piker.

PolitiFact threw the "False" flag at a minor GOP candidate for wrongly claiming the U.S. and Israeli militaries were merging. But they could have done the same for AOC, Ro Khanna, and Thomas Massie. Why single out the un-elected conspiracy theorist? 

PolitiFact did something truly shocking on July 2. They tagged a Democrat with their harshest judgment, “Pants On Fire.” It’s been almost two years since the last time. On July 31, 2024, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was flagged for suggesting J.D. Vance had sex with a couch. In between those, I counted 32 "Pants On Fire" tags for Donald Trump.

Sen. Jon Ossoff is an easy Exhibit A in the “fact checking” tilt at PolitiFact. In his first Senate run in 2020, PolitiFact’s Tom Kertscher threw a “Pants On Fire” attack at his opponent Sen. David Perdue for rudely labeling Ossoff a “socialist.” Now his GOP opponent is "False" for saying he cast the "deciding vote" on the Inflation Reduction Act. (He did.) 

The "fact checkers" looked ridiculous abroad! The former editor of PolitiFact claimed "we've been accused of bias even when we've made every effort to be fair and nonpartisan." Our studies at NewsBusters have shown repeatedly that PolitiFact has a dramatic bias in favor of the Democrats. 

Ahead of America 250, PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson penned an article on Monday chronicling what he considered to be eleven instances where presidents “shaded reality as they shaped US history.” Unfortunately for Jacobson, in some instances it was he who did the shading, especially when he considered some of the nation’s most defining foreign policy moments.

PolitiFact’s Caleb McCullough was at it again with more Senate campaign cherry-picking shenanigans on Friday. This time McCullough focused on Iowa Republican Ashley Hinson’s recent ad that accused Democrat Josh Turek of supporting sex changes for minors. McCullough called it “false,” but his actual article suggested it was not quite that simple.

PolitiFact’s Caleb McCullough has his priorities out of order. On Wednesday, he penned an article declaring GOP Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton “false” for calling his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, a vegan. However, he could have rated Paxton “half-true” or written another article labeling Talarico “false” because Paxton also cited Talarico’s previous comments about there being six…

On Friday, PolitiFact writers Samantha Putterman and Maria Briceno gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio a “half true” rating for his claim that the United States is not the reason that Cuba is experiencing 22-hour blackouts.