‘Quite A Factual Speech!’ CNN’s Daniel Dale Fact-Checks Biden Shortly After State of the Union
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale gave President Joe Biden high marks for accuracy shortly after Biden’s State of the Union address, telling Jake Tapper it was “quite a factual speech!”
The president blew away expectations Thursday night with a fiery State of the Union speech that many observers noted showcased the sort of energy and sharpness his team wanted to project and which Republican critics pilloried as overly “political.”
During Thursday night’s CNN coverage of the State of the Union and post-speech analysis, Tapper tossed to Dale for one of his patented fact-checks, and while Dale gave the speech a broad thumbs up, he had some notes:
TAPPER: Thanks, Anderson. Now, let’s go to our fact checker, Daniel Dale, who was watching for anything President Biden got inaccurate during his State of the Union address. Daniel, the president was accused by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and other House Republicans have saying a lot of things that weren’t true. What did you make overall of the factual content of the speech?
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: I found Jake, it was quite a factual speech, at least in terms of the assertions of fact, I was able to check. Of course, I don’t check the many, many subjective opinions that fill these kinds of speeches. But President Biden did make at least a few false or misleading claims that I do want to address. Listen to something he said about the federal budget deficit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I’ve been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways. We’ve already cut the federal deficit. We’ve already cut the federal deficit over a trillion dollars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: The President keeps making this claim, I’ve called it misleading on air before. It’s still misleading now, Jake. Here is why. The federal deficit is indeed more than a trillion dollars lower today than it was in President Trump’s last fiscal year in office. But President Biden conveniently never mentions why? And that why is overwhelmingly simply because bipartisan emergency pandemic spending from 2020 expired as planned in the Biden era. So spending skyrocketed then it fell on schedule. That’s not a Biden fiscal achievement.
And especially because I think here’s the key, experts at places like Moody’s and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have told me in detail that Biden’s own actions, executive actions, laws, have worsened the deficit picture. So Biden is patting himself on the back for fiscal prudence, but his actions have clearly added to deficits, not improve them. A couple more claims I think we need to break down. Let’s also listen to something the President said about the corporate minimum tax he signed into law in 2022.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income tax, zero. Not anymore. Thanks for the law I wrote, we signed big companies have to pay a minimum 15 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: So Biden made this sound like a final triumph, like every big company is going to have to pay federal income tax now, not anymore will there be anybody paying zero. But that is false. It’s an exaggeration. Why? Well, Biden did sign a 15 percent corporate minimum tax into law. But here’s the key here. It only applies to companies with 1 billion or more in average annual income.
So on that list he cited of 55 companies that were identified as paying nothing in 2020 will only 14 of those 55 had us income of 1 billion or more that year. So it is clear and the think tank, the left leaning think tank behind the support has confirmed to me that many big companies will still be able to avoid taxes under this new Biden law.
TAPPER: All right, Daniel Dale, thanks so much.
Watch above via CNN.
