Jen Psaki, Glenn Kessler, and Katie Couric accused Republicans of misleading voters about Democrats’ support for abortion up until birth.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we recap the media reaction to the first Republican debate, refute a Washington Post column about Republicans and health misinformation, and cover more media misses.
Media Reacts Predictably to First GOP Presidential Debate
Two of the media’s favorite things to lie about — Florida governor Ron DeSantis and abortion — converged the night of the first Republican primary debate, leading to a slew of purported media “fact checks” and snark.
“I believe in a culture of life,” DeSantis said on the debate stage in Milwaukee. “I was proud to sign the Heartbeat Bill. I remember one of the most impactful moments of my life was when I heard the heartbeat of my oldest daughter in my wife’s womb and then saw the sonograms of all three of my kids.”
Where it really went off the rails for the media, DeSantis added: “What the Democrats are trying to do on this issue is wrong, to allow abortion all the way up to the moment of birth.”
Predictably, reporters and pundits rushed to Democrats’ defense.
White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki wrote in a post on X, “No one supports abortion up until birth.”
The argument was apparently still on her mind days later, when Psaki shared a clip on X yesterday responding to “Republicans’ misleading claims about late-term abortions.”
“The argument that Democrats are advocating for more late term abortions is completely misleading. I explain with lots of FACTS today…” she said.
The argument that Democrats are advocating for more late term abortions is completely misleading. I explain with lots of FACTS today… https://t.co/JFe4ARSF0V
— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) August 27, 2023
Meanwhile, despite her efforts to refute DeSantis’s abortion comments several times, she claimed the night of the debate that she couldn’t “remember a single thing” he said on the stage. “You want to have a memorable moment. You want to have a moment that goes out on social media. You want a moment that your donors remember, that you can fund-raise off of. I don’t remember a single thing that Ron DeSantis said,” Psaki said.
Former Democratic senator Al Franken joined in to claim: “No one is trying to allow abortions right up to birth. You a******, DeSantis. #GOPDebate.”
Yet Franken himself cosponsored a bill in 2015, U.S. Senate Bill 217, that would have prevented states from restricting abortion at any stage of gestation.
Additionally, states like California, Colorado, Maine, and New York have passed laws in recent years that do not provide any specific week-based limits on abortion.
The DeSantis war room account on X hit back with a supercut of Democratic lawmakers contradicting these “fact checks”:
🤣🤣 @jrpsaki is still trying to fact check @RonDeSantis for pointing out that Democrats support abortion until birth.
Jen, it’s on tape.pic.twitter.com/5k1aZIlv4l https://t.co/qekpnv2wZ4
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) August 27, 2023
Weeks earlier, DeSantis faced another effort to fact-check his claims about Democrats’ limitless support for abortion when NBC’s Dasha Burns falsely told the governor, “There is no indication that Democrats are pushing that.”
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler called the claim a “common Republican talking point” and argued it was wrong — but only because late-term abortions are rare.
“This is a common Republican talking point — that Democrats support nationwide abortion-on-demand up until the moment of birth. The implication is that late-term abortions are common — and that they are routinely accepted by Democrats,” he wrote.”The reality, according to federal and state data, is that abortions past the point of viability are extremely rare. When they do happen, they often involve painful, emotional and even moral decisions.”
Katie Couric took a similar approach in a post on X: “Worth noting that fewer than 1% of abortions occur in the third trimester. #GOPDebate…”
Conservatives were quick to note that even 1.3 percent of abortions amounts to 10,000 to 12,000 babies each year.
But abortion wasn’t the only debate-related point of attack from the media. Ahead of the debate, pundits took turns guessing how many times the Republican candidates would use the word “woke.”
The word ended up being uttered just a single time by Nikki Haley.
“I want you to keep your ears tuned for one single word: Woke. You’ve heard it before, and I’m betting you’ll hear it a lot more tonight. Or at least enough to rankle your nerves. Or maybe mine,” MSNBC columnist Trymaine Lee wrote.
“‘It’s almost another way of saying ‘Black.’ It’s another way of saying the N-word,’ Ishena Robinson, the editorial director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told me,” he added.
MSNBC previews the GOP debate by focusing on the party’s use “woke” which is apparently “another way of saying black. It is another way of saying the N-word.” pic.twitter.com/HouFTvOPuA
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 23, 2023
NBC News’s “misinformation” reporter Ben Collins suggested the word could be used dozens of times on the debate stage, and suggested DeSantis would use the word more than any other presidential candidate.
And American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten also had to join in on the DeSantis pile on. She said he “has been a disaster on education.”
“They’re banning history, they’re banning books, banning AP psych, and have a terrible teacher shortage. Nobody should be taking advice form [sic] him on schools,” Weingarten posted on X, despite several of her claims having been roundly debunked.
Headline Fail of the Week
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump asks, “Why do Republicans disproportionately believe health misinformation?”
Bump points to new polling from KFF that he says “shows the extent to which Republicans are disproportionately credulous about health-related misinformation.”
“Asked about false claims that have been made about covid and other vaccines, Republicans were on average 20 percent more likely to state that they believed the false claims were accurate. Foremost among them: the regularly debunked idea that the coronavirus vaccine has caused thousands of deaths in otherwise healthy people. Nearly half of Republicans think that’s true,” he writes.
But while the survey asked questions about the efficacy of Ivermectin as a Covid treatment and the safety of vaccines, it failed to ask questions about the lies the “follow the science” party has adopted.
Democrats have peddled a host of lies, including claiming with absolute certainty that the Covid-19 pandemic could not have originated with a lab leak and that mask mandates and the closure of schools would help stop the spread of the virus.
Media Misses
• The Washington Post’s Matt Viser wrote a lede that sounded more like the start of a White House press release last week as President Biden visited the site of devastating wildfires in Lahaina: “President Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived in this grief-stricken community Monday afternoon, touring damage from one of the deadliest wildfires in American history and attempting to channel one of the president’s signature traits: comforting those who have lost loved ones.” CNN’s Bill Weir similarly said Biden “said the right things” during his trip and served as “empathizer-in-chief.”
This despite Biden having compared the devastation from the wildfires to a small kitchen fire in his own house in 2004. “I almost lost my ’67 Corvette and my cat,” Biden claimed, despite reporting from the time indicating the fire was contained to one room and was under control in 20 minutes.
CNN’s @BillWeirCNN praises Biden’s Hawaii visit: “He said the right things … He serve[d] as empathizer-in-chief” pic.twitter.com/UOLoQAVBSO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 22, 2023
-Biden had little to say after Russia’s Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash:
“Mr. President, do you have a reaction to the plane crash in Russia?”
BIDEN: “I don’t know enough to know the answer. I’ve been working out for the last hour and a half.” pic.twitter.com/d2cng8aANz
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 23, 2023
• While Biden has come under fire for vacationing instead of doing more to address the fires in Maui, CNN came to his defense saying he was taking a “routine” summer vacation. “With the vacations usually comes criticism. For Biden, the harshest attacks came following the Maui fires. Although he quickly signed an emergency declaration and worked to marshal federal resources, a ‘no comment’ when questioned about the death toll on the beach led to days of Republican backlash. (The White House later said Biden couldn’t hear the question.)”