CNN published a fact-check detailing “an avalanche of lies” told by President Donald Trump, and has now been forced to correct one of the few strikes they identified against former Vice President Joe Biden.
Fact-checker Daniel Dale and other CNN staff published a fact-checking overview of Tuesday night’s first presidential debate in Cleveland that opened by noting that “The first 2020 presidential debate Tuesday night in Cleveland featured an avalanche of lies from President Donald Trump — while Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was largely accurate in his statements, though he did make some false or misleading claims.”
What follows that opening statement is a litany of 15 false or misleading statements by Trump, and only one false statement by Biden — as well as another that was judged to be in need of context. Three of Biden’s claims were evaluated and found to be true, but that doesn’t include Biden’s multiple true objections to things Trump said.
The fact-checking score wasn’t always quite so lopsided, though. One of Biden’s “True” claims was initially and falsely deemed “misleading,” before a correction was appended on the network’s live blog:
Would eliminating the ACA take away 20 million people’s health insurance?This is trueEVIDENCEHealth care experts say this figure is roughly accurate. It is an estimate from the Obama administration as to how many people
gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act.Some 12 million newly eligible, low-income adults have obtained coverage under…Correction: An earlier version of this graphic incorrectly stated that Biden’s claim was misleading. The claim is true. Health care experts say this figure is roughly accurate. It is an estimate from the Obama administration as to how many people gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The correction does not appear on the fact-check card itself, which goes on to note “Some 12 million newly eligible, low-income adults have obtained coverage under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion provision, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some 38 states and the District of Columbia have broadened their coverage or passed ballot measures to do so.”
“And roughly 10.7 million were enrolled in individual coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges in February, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”
Watch the exchange above via NBC News.