Drew Holden Profile picture
Sep 17 27 tweets 13 min read Read on X
🧵Thread🧵

The media, focused solely on Trump, haven’t seemed interested in fact checking Kamala Harris. And not for lack of opportunity.

So I decided to. Below are some false and misleading statements from last week’s debate.

I could only fit so many. But give it a read. ⤵️
For starters, I think this image typifies how the media treat the two candidates.

Dale’s sentiment here applied broadly to the rest of the media, who had eyes only for Trump. Image
So let’s look at Harris, shall we?

1. She claimed that she was the only one on the debate stage with a plan for the middle class.

That’s the type of claim the media usually says “needs context,” as the Biden-Harris admin has failed the middle class, as even CNN acknowledged.

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2. Harris claimed that Trump intends to implement Project 2025, the latest monster-under-the-bed for Democrats.

Beyond overhyping the details of the project itself, what Harris glossed over is that Trump has denounced the project, repeatedly saying he’s got no interest.

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Surely, fact checkers must’ve been climbing over one another to point out that this connection was bogus, right? That whatever else, Trump had clearly said he isn’t supportive of it?

Well, no. The media mostly ignored the claim, or counterclaimed that really he does support it.


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If you’re wondering why, I have an idea. Image
Okay, back to the facts.

3. Harris claimed Trump would ban abortion nationwide.

Again, Trump has repeatedly said he won’t do this. He’s even taken heat for being too liberal on the issue from pro-life folks. But Harris keeps repeating it. And the media keeps ignoring it.

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4. Harris also said that nowhere in the country are there full-term abortions.

This simply isn’t true. As @MaryMargOlohan explains in a recent piece and thread:
5. Harris said she was tough on immigration, and would hire “1,500 new border patrol agents”

Again, this is one of those claims that, if the political shoe were on the other foot, the press would say “needs context.”

Harris supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. Image
5 cont. And Harris led immigration for Biden.

Much as she may deny it, I’ve got the receipts. She presided over the disastrous border policies that led to record crossings.



That those facts aren’t front and center in this conversation elides the point.
Okay, not a fact check, but Harris bragged about the endorsement of Dick Cheney.

Does anyone else think it’s really weird that the Dems are hyped that the guy who lied us into the Iraq war, whom Dems wanted tried for war crimes, supports their candidate? Image
6. Harris said that Trump would “weaponize” the legal powers of the federal government against his opponents.

Again, this “needs context.” The Biden-Harris admin are doing precisely this to Trump. Isn’t it a touch rich for Harris to try to call it out?

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7. Harris claimed (repeatedly) that she had been “very clear” about her position on fracking.

Look at these screenshots, one from 2019, one from 2024, and tell me this is “clear.”
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I mean, the press have even celebrated how she’s pivoted on this topic! Image
8. Harris bragged about her and Biden’s investment in clean energy. But is that investment going anywhere?

As I fact checked for Biden’s DNC speech, all that money has led to a grand total of 7 new charging stations, a key climate focus.

Not 7,000. Not 700. Just 7. Nationwide.
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9. Harris said “and some died” when describing law enforcement casualties at the Capitol on Jan 6.

Whatever else you think about what happened, law enforcement personal weren’t killed as a result. To imply otherwise is dishonest. Image
10. Harris repeated the “very fine people on both sides” lie about Charlottesville.

Even Snopes, no right wing rag, has explained that this isn’t real. Image
11. In a similar vein, Harris accused Trump of saying there’d be a “bloodbath” if he lost the election.

The phrase is pulled, without context, from Trump’s remarks about the auto industry.

To apply it instead to the country is bogus, and maliciously so. Image
12. Harris claimed that “there is not one member of the…military who is in active duty in a combat zone.”

Even NYT disputed this one. Since they let most of her claims go, I’ll give them the floor:
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13. Harris claimed she has a “plan” (again) for bringing down the cost of living.

If so, why hasn’t she implemented it in three years as VP, while her admin has spiked the cost of living with inflation and other failed economic policies?

Lovely time for “context.”


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Bonus: I can’t not include the most ridiculous aspect of the debate “fact checking”: claims that Trump was wrong to accuse Harris of supporting trans surgeries for detained illegal immigrants.

Problem was, she did.

H/t @guypbenson for this terribly awkward NYT reflection. Image
And @time produced one of the most cringe-inducing corrections on record (h/t @TimMurtaugh).

Apparently @sbg1 didn’t get the memo from NYT.

And I can’t not include this “needs context” claim from NYT initially, the ‘context’ being that Trump was right, apparently.


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Look, I get the protest that Trump isn’t a beacon of truth. But the American people deserve to know whether what his opponent has to say is actually accurate.

In many cases, it isn’t.
And it’s impossible to ignore how all of this intersects with the media, who regularly repeat these bogus Harris claims as gospel truth.

That they can’t do their “fact checking” with any integrity says a lot about the mission such work actually serves: furthering Dem interests.
As ever, there’s too much here to fit into a thread. Read the full write up at my newsletter, @Holden_Court, linked here: open.substack.com/pub/drewholden…
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@Holden_Court And if you’d like to kick me a few bucks to support the beer fund that supports my sanity by going through all of this, I won’t stop you from doing so. paypal.com/donate/?busine…
@Holden_Court If you needed more evidence that Harris’s claim #12, about the safety of our troops, was a lie: @RepJimBanks has it.

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More from @DrewHolden360

Sep 16
🧵Thread🧵

Look, I know there’s bigger news today, but with Biden’s “black jobs” quip on Friday, I’ve gotta revisit the media meltdown on the term, as stupid as it is.

Do you remember how insulted & offended the press were when Trump said “black jobs”?

I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️
Some quick context: Biden in a speech on Friday, referred to jobs as “black jobs,” as in held by black folks.

If that phrase sounds familiar, it’s because Trump said it at his debate with Biden a couple months ago.

The media went ballistic.
Just look at the indignation here from @axios when Trump used the phrase.

“Reality check.” I mean, cmon!

And so now what, Axios? Is Biden suddenly a monster, too?
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Read 23 tweets
Aug 26
🧵Thread🧵

I was struck by the number of dubious statements and flat-out lies at the DNC.

It appears the mainstream media isn’t much interested in them, amid their jubilant, joy-full coverage. So I decided to do some fact-checking, focused on Biden’s speech.

There’s a lot. ⤵️
1. The first thing that jumped out to me was Trump’s alleged “very fine people on both sides” description of Charlottesville.

Haven’t we been over this, time and again? The context makes clear Trump didn’t mean the neo-Nazis. Even @snopes admitted it!

Yet Biden trotted it out.

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2. Biden claimed he and his admin “demonizes no one.”

What, then, about Biden’s remarks about Trump supporters? That they are “determined to destroy democracy,” practitioners of “semi-fascism,” and “a threat to the very soul of this nation.”

Is that not demonizing?

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Read 27 tweets
Aug 14
🧵Thread🧵

The media haven’t been interested in providing voters with much of a picture of Kamala Harris beyond “vibes.”

So I did the work for them and went back through what she’s actually said and done on policy and beyond.

It isn’t a pretty picture. Follow along ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than on immigration. Back in 2020, Harris was among the Dem candidates who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings.

Now @politico claims she “promised to go tough on border security.”

Color me skeptical.
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Especially considering she supported eliminating ICE, tried to stop production on the border wall, and otherwise unwind the Trump policies that actually reduced illegal immigration.

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Read 26 tweets
Aug 12
🧵Thread🧵

I know it’s difficult to keep track of all of Tim Walz’s “stolen valor,” exaggerations & false claims about his time in the military.

I tried to compile as many as I could, as well as a few egregious cases of the media spinning for him.

Buckle in, there’s a lot. ⤵️
First, the false claims. To avoid a sort of journalistic stolen valor, I want to be clear: others did this work.

I’ll try to source as well as I can, starting with the latest Walz whopper: saying he took part in the Afghanistan surge in a 2010 debate.

From @NoVA_Campaigns: Image
There’s been a lot of good reporting. Perhaps none better than from @ChuckRossDC of the Free Beacon.

His first is on that Afghanistan claim, citing Walz’s repeated description of himself as a veteran of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the gov’t name of the fight in Afghanistan.
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Read 25 tweets
Jul 24
🧵THREAD🧵

The media are already hard at work to mislead about VP Kamala Harris.

The latest is an effort to memoryhole Harris’s role leading Biden’s disastrous immigration policy as “border czar.”

Who’s up for some side-by-sides, lest we forget? ⤵️
There’s no better place to start than with @axios, who made waves today when they claimed that Harris was never the “border czar.”

The problem?

Axios had called her exactly that back in 2021.
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They added a truly Orwellian editors note after the backlash, claiming that they had misreported initially.

Really. Image
Read 24 tweets
Jul 10
🧵THREAD🧵

Biden’s disastrous debate performance brought to a screeching halt a multi-year campaign from the media to present the president as mentally fit.

Do you really remember how hard the press pushed you not to trust your lyin’ eyes on Biden’s decline?

Start here ⤵️
I suspect most of you remember the allegations from the White House that videos showing Biden behaving erratically were “cheap fakes.”

The media rushed to repeat this claim. Look at the extent @nytimes went to say you didn’t see anything and that Biden was fine.


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Perhaps the wildest was @washingtonpost, who gave “Four Pinocchio’s” to videos showing Biden displaying cognitive problems, dismissing them as fakes, “pernicious” efforts “to reinforce an existing stereotype.”

Part of their defense was that Biden “doesn’t dance.”

Really.


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Read 34 tweets

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