I guess that is par for the course with these Presidential news conferences? Fact check: Biden's first news conference as president (msn.com) President Joe Biden held the first formal news conference of his presidency on Thursday, taking questions in the East Room of the White House on immigration, foreign policy, the Senate filibuster, his political future and other subjects. © Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America/Getty Images WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 25: U.S. President Joe Biden answers questions during the first news conference of his presidency in the East Room of the White House on March 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. On the 64th day of his administration, Biden, 78, faced questions about the coronavirus pandemic, immigration, gun control and other subjects. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Here is a fact check of some of the claims he made. Migrant families and the border Defending his approach to migration at the southern border, Biden claimed that "we're sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming." Facts First: This was not true in February, the last month for which we have full data. Published Customs and Border Protection data for February shows that 7,915 migrants who were part of a "family unit" on the southwest border were expelled under the Title 42 pandemic expulsion policy -- about 41% of the 19,246 family-unit members who were in "encounters" with US officers that month. At another moment of the news conference, Biden said, "The overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back." That is a fair claim about what happened in February, when nearly 72% of the 100,441 total people encountered at the border -- in other words, not just family-unit members -- were expelled under Title 42. Preliminary data for this month up to March 17, which was reviewed by CNN, showed that the percentage of people expelled under Title 42 had fallen substantially since February. For the week ending March 17, 53% of the 34,526 people encountered at the southwest border were expelled, the lowest percentage of a 2021 week to date. CNN did not review preliminary March data specifically on family expulsions. Filibuster statistics Biden claimed that there were five times as many motions to break the filibuster in 2020 than there were between 1917 and 1971. "Between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed, there were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster. That whole time. Last year alone there were five times that many," Biden said. Facts First: While experts on the filibuster say it is hard even for them to pinpoint the number per year, Biden's figures are misleading. In 2020, the number of motions filed to end a Senate debate -- a proxy measure for the use of the filibuster -- was about double, not five times, the number from 1917 to 1971. Molly Reynolds, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who has studied the filibuster, previously told CNN that most scholars think the best proxy measure is the number of motions filed for cloture, a move to end a Senate debate. According to official Senate data, there were 58 cloture motions filed from 1917 through 1970 and 13 filed in 1971. If Biden was referring to the number of cloture motions filed from 1917 through 1970, he'd be right when he said there were a total of 58 motions to break the filibuster, but if he was including 1971, the total number of cloture motions would be 71. Using either figure, Biden exaggerated the relative number of cloture motions filed in the past year, though he was accurate on his general point that the number of filibusters has increased significantly over time. There were 118 cloture motions filed in 2020 alone, closer to double the amount filed between 1917 and 1971. Vaccinations in the US and the rest of the world While discussing his goal to reach 200 million Covid-19 vaccinations in the first 100 days of his administration, Biden repeated his claim that "no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we are doing" on the vaccine front. Facts First: It's true that no country has vaccinated more total people than the US, though it's worth noting that there are some smaller countries that have vaccinated a larger share of their total populations. So far, the US has administered vaccines to more than 130 million people, a higher number than any other country in the world. However, 16 countries and territories -- including Chile, Israel and the United Kingdom -- have administered vaccines to more people per capita. It should be noted that these countries and territories have much smaller populations. The Trump tax cut and the top 1% Biden challenged Republican criticism of the $1.9 trillion cost of his pandemic relief law, which he noted would put money in the pockets of "ordinary people." He asked rhetorically whether people had heard Republicans complain about President Donald Trump's $2 trillion tax cuts, which Biden said had "83% going to the top 1%." Biden and other Democrats have repeatedly invoked the "83%" figure. Facts First: This statistic needs context. While it's correct to generally say the wealthiest Americans were the biggest beneficiaries of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, the "83%" figure is a projection about what might happen under certain circumstances in 2027, not about what has happened already. The Tax Policy Center estimated in 2017 that the top 1% would get about 83% of the benefits in 2027, if the law's individual tax cuts (which were designed as temporary) were allowed to expire without an extension and the law's corporate tax cuts (which were designed as permanent) continued to exist. For 2018, conversely, the Tax Policy Center estimated that the top 1% got 20.5% of the benefits, while the 95%-99% group got another 22.1%. For 2025, the estimate was 25.3% going to the top 1%, while the 95%-99% would get another 21.6%. Biden was correct on his broader point that there is a substantial difference in how the new Biden law and the 2017 Trump law treat the rich and the poor. For example, the Tax Policy Center found that households earning $25,000 or less will receive an average tax cut of $2,800 this year from the new relief law, boosting their after-tax income by 20%. Under the Trump law, these households saw a $60 average reduction in the first year, or about 0.4% of their after-tax income. The American Rescue Plan and economic growth Biden claimed that since the American Rescue Plan passed, a "majority of forecasters have significantly increased their projections. Now projecting it will exceed 6%, a 6% growth in GDP." Facts First: It's true that many economists upgraded their 2021 gross domestic product forecasts north of 6% either just before or after the legislation passed, but it's hard to say whether a majority did without a survey of all economists. Once the passage of a big Covid relief bill became more likely, several economists upgraded their forecasts of 2021 US GDP growth. RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas said the legislation would boost GDP by an additional 3 percentage points and is now predicting 7.2% growth in 2021. In March, Goldman Sachs increased its 2021 US GDP growth projection to 7% from an earlier projection of 6.8%. Morgan Stanley is now predicting 7.3% growth, upgrading from the 6.4% it projected in December. Republican support for the American Rescue Plan Dismissing criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Biden said that he has the support of Republican voters. He said that even if McConnell says that "the last thing I did, this last piece of legislation, is so far left, well, then he ought to take a look at his party. Over 50% of them must be over that edge as well. Because they support what I did." Facts First: Biden has a reasonable basis for this claim; there is some polling that has shown that a majority of Republicans support the American Rescue Plan. Multiple other polls, however, have shown Republican support for the bill well below majority level. For example, a CNN poll conducted March 3-8 found 26% of Republicans supportive and 73% of Republicans opposed. Poll results have appeared to vary with the wording of pollsters' questions. A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted February 19-22 found 60% support for the bill among Republican registered voters -- after poll respondents were told about the plan's $1.9 trillion cost and some key provisions, including the $1,400 direct payments. A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted March 6-8 found 59% Republican support. A Monmouth University poll conducted February 25-March 1, however, put Republican support at just 33%. In addition to standard differences in pollster methodology and sampling (the Monmouth poll surveyed adults, not registered voters in particular), it's worth noting that Monmouth mentioned the plan's $1.9 trillion cost before asking respondents their opinion but did not mention the $1,400 payments until after that question. Even in the CNN poll in which 73% of Republicans expressed opposition to the bill overall, a majority of Republicans expressed support for three of its specific provisions: checks of up to $1,400 (55% support), billions for schools to help resume in-person classes (55%), and larger tax credits for families and making it easier for low-income families to claim them (73%). However, 71% of Republicans were opposed to the bill's $350 billion in aid to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. Children on the border Addressing the recent influx of unaccompanied migrant children on the US southern border, Biden claimed that "nothing has changed" from the Trump administration -- saying there had been a "28% increase in children on the border under my administration" versus a 31% increase in the same period of 2019 under Trump. Facts First: Biden was wrong about the increase in children at the border during his own administration. He appeared to be mixing up two different statistics, one about children and one about migrants generally. According to data from Customs and Border Protection, the number of unaccompanied children encountered on the border rose by 61% between January and February 2021, not the 28% Biden claimed. That is about double the increase between January and February 2019. According to the Customs and Border Protection data, overall encounters with migrants on the border did increase 28% from January to February of this year. But Biden referred specifically to "children." This story has been updated with additional fact checks.
Some people might think Joe was reading scripted answers at his first news conference. I think it was more like he was trying to read answers -- and not doing too well. https://www.rev.com/transcript-edit...BnMOA2IcF4?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=1022.83
De-spiriting of America, mislead by old Joe or cackling Kamala. Why would 81 million people do this to themselves. Trump derangement crippled a good country.
Fact-checking Joe Biden’s first White House press conference https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/mar/25/fact-checking-joe-bidens-first-press-conference/ President Joe Biden blamed Donald Trump for the surge of migrants at the southwest border, saying his predecessor dismantled the country’s immigration system and failed to provide enough beds for child migrants. At the first press conference of his presidency, Biden downplayed the number of migrants crossing the border, saying past years had seen similar seasonal increases. Biden said that his administration will speed up efforts to get children united with relatives in the country. "We can get this done," Biden said. "We're going to get it done." Biden started the hour-long session by announcing he planned to double his vaccination goal from 100 million to 200 million shots in arms in his first 100 days. He also talked about proposals to limit voting access in many states, calling them "un-American" and "sick." Some of his comments about migrant families and voting proposals needed a fact-check. Other claims proved accurate when we looked into them. "We’re sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming." We rated his claim False. While most adults coming alone are being expelled under a public health law, the same is not true for families, according to federal data. In February, the latest month for which data is available, Border Patrol expelled about 41% of families (which can include a child and at least one parent) who arrived at the southwest border. Authorities turned away more than half of families in January, about 64%. Most of that month fell during the Trump administration. Some states are deciding "that you cannot bring water to people standing in line waiting to vote, deciding that they are going to end voting at 5 p.m." Biden did not single out any states, but at least one — Georgia — is on track to ban giving food or water to in-line voters. He did not give the full picture for his claim about a 5 p.m. cutoff that would affect "working people." The Georgia House passed a bill, HB 531, on March 1 that prohibits "any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector." Such giveaways will be banned within 150 feet of a building where people are voting, within any polling place or within 25 feet of any voter standing in line. A violation is considered a misdemeanor. A Georgia Senate bill has similar language, except it allows "self-service water from an unattended receptacle." Several proposed bills in multiple states would scale back early voting hours. We did not find one that bumped up the cutoff on Election Day. The White House pointed to the Georgia proposal, which sets weekday early voting hours as ending at 5 p.m. although it also allowed counties to extend hours to 7 p.m. A Michigan bill bans the use of absentee ballot drop boxes after 5 p.m. the day before election day, which is 27 hours earlier than current law. In Texas, a proposal would limit poll hours during the first week of early voting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the second week, according to the Texas Tribune. In Arkansas, Republicans introduced a bill that would end early voting at 4 p.m. the Saturday before the election, rather than the current 5 p.m. on the Monday before the election. Biden said "yes" when a reporter asked if he agreed with former President Barack Obama’s remark at Rep. John Lewis’ funeral that "the filibuster was a relic of the Jim Crow era." The emergence of the filibuster — the tool that allows a minority of senators to hold up a final vote on legislation — did not originate with legislation related to race, and it has been used against a wide variety of bills during the history of the Senate. However, historians agree that for more than a century, the filibuster was closely linked with anti-civil-rights efforts in the Senate, thanks to repeated efforts by southern senators to filibuster civil rights bills. Historians said the filibuster’s decades of use in opposition to civil rights bills has bequeathed it a historical stain. "The histories of the filibuster, civil and voting rights, and race in America are intertwined," said Steven S. Smith, a political scientist and Senate specialist at Washington University in St. Louis. "Since (the American Rescue Plan) was passed, a majority of economic forecasters have significantly increased their projections on the economic growth that's going to take place this year. They're now projecting that it will exceed 6%." Biden is right that several closely watched forecasters raised their projections to at least 6% growth, most of them specifically citing Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which he signed on March 11. On March 17, the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee said it expected GDP to increase by 6.5% this year, up from the 4.2% it had projected in December. The Fed’s statement partially credited "policy measures to support the economy." The same day, Fitch Ratings upped its growth forecast for 2021 from 4.5% to 6.2%, saying the "main driver" was "the much larger-than-expected fiscal stimulus package." Other private ratings agencies also increased their projections, including the European bank HSBC Holdings, Deutsche Bank, and money manager Pimco. "Back in the ‘60s, we used to invest a little over 2% of our entire (gross domestic product) in pure research and investment in science. Today it’s 0.7%." This is accurate. Biden cited this statistic in the context of U.S. economic competition with China, arguing that we need to invest more in basic and applied research. Data from the National Science Foundation shows that federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product hit a high of almost 1.9% in 1964 and has generally fallen since then, to 0.6% in 2017, the most recent year for which the foundation has complete data.
Trump still winning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...0573-over-four-years/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2
When Biden reads the cards it seems like it is the first time he is seeing the policy As he read sometimes he looks surprised..saying to himself..I didn't know that