PolitiFact, AP, WashPost Leap to Defend AOC’s Riot Claims; CNN’s Alone in Flagging Her a Bit

Snopes was the first liberal “fact-checker” to defend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against conservative critics of her Instagram Live testimony of the Capitol insurgency trauma, but other aggressive defenders followed at AP, PolitiFact and The Washington Post. Only CNN decided to tag AOC for saying some unproven things.

PolitiFact skipped their “Truth-O-Meter” for a feature called Ask PolitiFact: Where Was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez During The Capitol Uprising? PolitiFact writer Bill McCarthy was AOC’s defense attorney:

“AOC wasn’t even in the Capitol during its near-death experience,” read a headline on RedState, one of several conservative websites that challenged Ocasio-Cortez’s report.

“AOC lied!” another headline said. “She wasn’t even in the Capitol during the uprising … Her life was never in danger: report.”

Similar claims attacking Ocasio-Cortez surfaced in widespread posts on Facebook where they were flagged as part of the company’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation in its newsfeed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The criticism also reached cable news. “There weren’t any rioters in the hallway (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez),” said Tucker Carlson, Fox News host. “Trump voters didn’t try to kill them.”

…. It is true that Ocasio-Cortez was not in the main building of the Capitol, which houses the chambers of the House and Senate, when the rioters broke in. She was in the cannon building.

However, in her video, she never claimed to have been in the main Capitol building, and the cannon building was one of two buildings in the wider Capitol complex that needed evacuation.

McCarthy had nothing on AOC and claimed Ted Cruz tried to kill her. For another example of how heavily biased McCarthy is, see the latest issue of James Agresti.

Associated Press Checker Ali Swenson was also “all-in” for AOC’s defense:

CLAIM: US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, falsely alleged that she was exposed to rioters in the Capitol main building during the January 6 uprising.

AP’S RATING: Wrong. Ocasio-Cortez never claimed she was in the main Capitol building, nor did she claim that she had faced a lot of violent rioters.

Swenson even went into Jussie Smollett: Critics “seemed to compare the Congresswoman to former” Empire “actor Jussie Smollett, who it was accused of staging a racist, anti-gay attack against himself in 2019. “Can’t a fact-checker confirm that he was faking it?

Washington Post fact-checkers Glenn Kessler and Adriana Usero were the last to arrive on Saturday and assigned “Four Pinocchios” to Marjorie Taylor-Greene for saying on Friday, “I was in the chamber, unlike AOC representative Ocasio -Cortez – who faked their outrage with another joke, just another joke shared everywhere. “They waited for the hottest anti-AOC recording:” There was no joke. Ocasio-Cortez’s words were twisted beyond recognition. “

Kessler and Usero concluded, “Ocasio-Cortez has many critics jumping on a possible misstep, but the problem was made worse when a tweet from a GOP congressman was seen as confirmation of right-wing criticism. Instead, this legislature found fault with them Media for misreporting Ocasio-Cortez’s story. “

Ocasio-Cortez also has many defenders who jump to defend them and ignore missteps. Take a bow, posties.

CNN’s Daniel Dale in this case deserves credit for being the only one to rate, not just defend, AOC. Is it so difficult For example:

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday: “The bombs that Trump supporters planted also surrounded our offices.”

Facts first: Claim that Trump supporters planted the bombs has not been proven.

And the Ted Cruz arch on Twitter:

Ocasio-Cortez replied, “I’m happy to be working with Republicans on this issue where there is common ground, but you nearly murdered me three weeks ago so you could expose this problem. I’m happy with almost everyone else GOP to work that doesn’t exist. ” In the meantime, I’ll try to step back if you want to help. “

Facts first: There is no evidence to support the allegation that Cruz “tried” to kill Ocasio-Cortez. While Ocasio-Cortez can make a reasonable argument that the Republican’s actions fueled the violent insurrection in Texas, this is different from saying that he actually tried to obtain the assassination of a member of Congress. Cruz did not advocate violence against Ocasio-Cortez, much less demanding her murder.

For information on his review of Candidate AOC’s dramatic staging of the immigration problem on a fence in Texas, please click here.

See also how no one asked about AOC and declared “without evidence” that she was a victim of sexual assault.

Comments are closed.