It’s the first time the paper has “awarded” Biden the less-than-coveted rating, which it defines as a statement repeated at least 20 times that is so false that it has received either “three Pinocchios” or “four Pinocchios” in the past. circumstances. The statement in question is Biden’s oft-repeated claim that he has spent “more time with him [Chinese President] Xi Jinping than any other head of state,” traveling “17,000 miles with him.” The statement has since been proven false, with the White House in February 2021 telling the newspaper that it was “a reference to the overall travel back and forth — both domestically in the US and China and internationally — for meetings they had together.” “ But even this claim turned out to be inaccurate. “There is no evidence that Biden traveled that far with Xi, the president of China — and even if we added up the miles Biden flew to see Xi, it still didn’t total 17,000 miles,” wrote Monday Washington Post auditor Glenn Kessler. Biden made the comment for the 20th and 21st times during political events in California and New Mexico last week. The paper created the “bottomless” rating during the Trump administration to describe “false or misleading statements repeated so often that they became a form of propaganda.” Trump won 56 such ratings by the time he left office in January 2021. Kessler also called out the president for claiming that “the most common gas price in America is $3.39 — up from $5 when I took office,” as he said on Oct. 27. Biden repeated the claim on Twitter on Sunday, noting that “the most common price at gas stations across the country is $3.19.” The issue is with Biden’s use of the term “most common” — which does not equate to “average.” The average price at the pump when he took office was about $2.48, according to the Energy Information Administration. President Biden’s oft-repeated claim that he has spent “more time with him [Chinese President] Xi Jinping than any other head of state” has been proven false. Getty Images President Biden was called out for claiming that “the most common gas price in America is $3.39 — up from $5 when I took office.” Getty Images While it’s true that the most common price for natural gas — or the mathematical “function” of all prices — was about $3.19, according to the GasBuddy app, the average price of natural gas was about $3.80 per gallon from Monday, according to AAA. By referring to the most commonly seen price, Biden sidestepped the need to include some of the highest prices in the US in his tally. The Washington Post also criticized the White House for quipping in both public statements and a since-deleted tweet on Nov. 1 that seniors were “getting their biggest increase in Social Security in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.” While the observation is technically true, it is not due to some huge feat of management. The reason for the increase is rising inflation: A 1972 law mandates that Social Security must be adjusted each year to keep pace with inflation. So seniors over 65 and other beneficiaries next year will see about an 8.7 percent increase in benefits, according to the Social Security Administration, which will cost taxpayers about $100 billion.
