A fact-check of former President Donald Trump’s recent statements about Vice President Kamala Harris did not include many “facts” in its “checking.”
In a story titled, “Trump moves to tie Harris to Biden on the economy: ‘They are a team,'” the headline appears to be setting up for an article that distances Harris from the “Biden-Harris” moniker that the administration is insisting upon. Yet, the article does not pursue this route.
Rather, the outlet spent several hundred words quoting and framing recent statements from Trump blaming President Joe Biden and his running-mate turned nominee for the state of the economy.
The first supposed fact-check was expressed in these words: “Trump’s rhetoric runs counter to the reality that the economy has been in a sustained upswing throughout much of Biden’s presidency — even as prices rose and voter sentiment remained glum.”
Then, the article’s author, Lisa Kashinsky, reasons that this alleged prosperity is due to COVID-19 spending. Equating federal COVID expenditures with the current alleged economic “upswing” is a point that many would hotly debate. Nevertheless, even assuming that premise, the Politico writer does not recognize that pandemic-era spending occurred under both Biden and Trump.
“Economists broadly credit the passage of trillions of dollars in Covid aid with pulling the nation out of a pandemic-induced recession faster than anticipated. Jobs and wages have grown steadily since then, key achievements that were overshadowed by Americans’ fixation on spiking inflation two years ago,” the piece said.
The article then states that inflation is slowing down, appearing to imply that prices are also falling. Kashinsky also argues that job losses are minimal:
“Those price increases have since moderated even as voters say affordability remains a top priority, with new data on Wednesday showing inflation continuing to trend downward toward the 2 percent figure the Federal Reserve has long targeted. And it has come without major job losses — a tradeoff that economists once saw as a certainty, but which is no longer seen as a likelihood.”
However, consumer prices are not coming down.
“If inflation goes down, it means that the rate at which prices increase is slowing down, but it generally is not going to mean that prices are going down,” said William Hauk, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of South Carolina, according to Time.
Moreover, unemployment has continued to tick upward over the last two years. Goldman Sachs and other major employers have announced layoffs recently. Likewise, many newspapers saw an ominous sign in the national unemployment rate suddenly spiking upward to 4.3% when the latest labor report was issued in early August.
The announcement of this labor data was followed just days later by some instability in the stock market.
This fact-check did not mention the skyrocketing amounts of debt held by Americans or the increased prices of essentials such as rent.
The piece closed with several quotes from Trump about Harris’ laugh, Biden’s policies, and campaign spending.
Kashinsky’s Politico bio reads, “Lisa Kashinsky is a politics reporter and author of the Massachusetts Playbook. She covers the 2024 presidential election with a focus on New Hampshire and Massachusetts state politics. She is based in Boston.”
An archive of her work on Politico’s website reveals a theme among her stories. A few headlines that demonstrate this pattern include, “As Trump fumes, Republicans wince at ‘public nervous breakdown,’” “Democrats rally around Harris to replace Biden,” and “Trump returns to the stage. And stays and stays and stays.”