CNN Shockingly ‘Fact Checks’ Biden WH Claim of ‘No Covid Vaccine Available at Start of Presidency’, White House Apologizes

On Thursday, The White House Twitter account shared, “When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available. In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.”

Surprisingly, CNN fact-checked the account for the blatant lie. The White House revisited its false claim in the tweet, with egg on its face, and tried to cover the lie with an excuse sharing, “We previously misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021. We should have said that they were not widely available. Vaccines became available shortly before the President came into office. Since then, he’s responsible for fully vaccinating over 200 million people.”

We previously misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021. We should have said that they were not widely available.

Vaccines became available shortly before the President came into office. Since then, he’s responsible for fully vaccinating over 200 million people. https://t.co/rHJ0GZ63Dy

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 13, 2022

The main point of the first tweet was to highlight the dramatic decline in unemployment numbers recently reported. Someone felt they needed to throw in a little extra in, in an attempt to make Biden Administration take credit for something it wasn’t responsible for.

CNN reported, “Facts First: It’s just not true that “there was no vaccine available” at the time Biden took office. About 3.5 million people were fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and about 19 million people had received at least one vaccine dose as of Biden’s inauguration day on January 20, 2021, according to statistics published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The US was already administering an average of more than 1 million doses a day at the time. The first doses administered outside trials were given on December 14, 2020, while President Donald Trump was still in office. And Biden himself received his second dose nine days before he was sworn in... But saying “there was no vaccine available” at the time he took office, period, went too far — wrongly making it sound as if the whole vaccine rollout began under Biden.“

The article then goes on to point out a flaw in the economic claim made in the original tweet, “Biden is free to tout the major decline in the unemployment rate during his tenure — it has fallen from 6.4 percent in January 2021 to 3.6 percent in April 2022 — but, as usual, the President’s role in the improvement is the subject of debate. And though the tweet said that “when President Biden took office, millions were unemployed,” there are still millions of people unemployed today despite the improved jobs situation. There were about 5.9 million unemployed people in April 2022, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics”

With its horrible ratings, it seems that CNN may see the writing on the wall, and seemingly has been shifting to being more critical of the Biden Administration.

On Jake Tapper’s show, CNN political director David Chalian went over Americans’ high disapproval of how Biden is handling the economy. According to the poll cited Biden sits at a 66% disapproval on his handling of the economy. The poll was taken between April 28th and May 1st.

Chalian pointed out, that Biden’s approval on handling the economy has fallen from 37% to 34%. He goes on to share that 55% of those polled believe that Biden’s Economic policies have worsened conditions.

Only 49% of people approve of the overall job Biden is doing as president according to the poll.

Inflation is affecting how people spend their money, the poll showed the majority of Americans are cutting back on spending. The future of our economy seems uncertain to many at this point and the majority of America doesn’t approve of Biden’s handling of it.

The White House it seems is in a scramble to do anything to make President Biden look better, even share false information. The midterm elections are drawing nearer and it doesn’t look pretty for Democrats.