A surprising fact check from a surprising source. Finally, yesterday morning, CNN tried to push through Joe Biden’s White House nonsensical claim that Donald Trump’s distribution plan for COVID-19 vaccines “ didn’t exist, ” a claim that contradicted the 36 million doses given to states and 17 million vaccinations. delivered by the time Biden walked into the Oval Office. By the end of the day, even liberal journalists were throwing fact-checking CNN flags.
Perhaps this is an attempt to wipe the egg off their collective face:
Biden defended the 100 million goal. He said to the reporter, “When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible. Come on, give me a break, man. It’s a good start – 100 million. “
Facts First: Biden’s statement is false; it is not true that there was initially a consensus in the media that the goal of 100 million was impossible. Some of the early coverage of the target did not even doubt it was plausible. Some of the experts who came up in the early coverage, including CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said the goal was achievable. And while some journalists and pundits were more skeptical, warning that the goal was ambitious, they didn’t go so far as to claim it was impossible.
Gupta said on CNN on the day of Biden’s announcement in December that the goal of 100 million was “very doable,” given what we had heard from vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer. The next morning, medical analyst Dr. CNN’s Jorge Rodriguez on the airwaves that “it’s a realistic goal” as Biden has a plan.
A brief CNN analysis article said that achieving the goal would be a “huge undertaking” and that Biden would generally have to endure an “immensely daunting” first 100 days in office. But this article also did not say that achieving the goal was impossible or even unlikely.
Oddly, none of the other fact-checkers have weighed up this claim to date. It’s certainly an verifiable claim, especially given the lie that Biden officials floated anonymously through CNN yesterday about having to start from scratch. Maybe other media outlets will be interested at some point, but … don’t hold your breath for a rush of fact-checkers to challenge Biden’s statements. Even if, as you could easily predict, Biden will provide a rich environment for such material.
So why was CNN at the forefront of this? I suspect it might be the aforementioned attempt to wipe eggs, but it could also be a signal to their sources in Biden’s White House. CNN was ashamed of its coverage yesterday, especially since the claim could be verified so easily that the editors should have reinforced the claim before it ever aired. They may want to stress that playing it in such a way will result in harder coverage. Which would be nice, of course, but it would be more fun if CNN just covered Biden with the same force that Trump did in the first place. Don’t hold your breath there either.