Linda Qiu has checked Trump 19 times, Dems 0 times
Way back around 1990, shortly after this reporter graduated from college with almost no journalism experience but a burning desire to break into the profession, he used to cold call reporters at major newspapers and ask for advice.
This was an era when reporters were not so impressed with themselves. When New York Post columnist Ray Kerrison was asked if he had any advice for writing good columns, he replied, “Good Lord, no. I am still trying to figure it out myself.”
Other journalists offered very wise counsel.
One of them, Richard Bernstein, a classic New York Timesman in the mold of Clyde Haberman and Ralph Blumenthal, with a particularly eloquent and panoramic writing style, ended up becoming something of a mentor for many years.
In one early conversation, Bernstein advised to always be skeptical about your subject matter. But not, he cautioned, cynical. Skepticism requires careful and probing thinking and questioning. The stuff of classic journalism. It takes hard work. Cynicism is easy and a lazy way to write.
It is an understatement to say that journalists these days are cynical about Trump. They feverishly attempt to discredit whatever he says– even as they accord virtually no scrutiny to whichever public figure or phenomena he is talking about. In their mad dash to prove Trump a liar they end up with articles full of half truths and distortions of their own.
So Bernstein’s cautionary note came to mind after reading a recent New York Times story purporting to show that Trump’s executive orders are supposedly based on misrepresentations.
The article by New York Times fact checker Linda Qiu was titled “How inaccurate claims by Trump were used to justify executive actions.”
Once upon a time, reporters would never write under their own byline that something a politician said was “inaccurate” or false. They would need to quote somebody disputing the assertions in question.
Now, they just expect readers to just take their word for it that Trump is a liar.
“Since retaking office, President Trump has issued a pace-setting number of executive actions that have become a hallmark of his approach to governing,” Qiu wrote. “Some of the 164 directives signed so far have had profound consequences while others largely express opinions. Some pertain to administration priorities like immigration and energy production, while others cover more niche topics like showerheads and seafood. Some have been challenged in courts.
“Many reflect Mr. Trump’s public messaging. Some repeat nearly verbatim inaccurate claims that have long been a feature of his campaign rallies, news conferences and interviews. “
This article is not really a fact check.
It is a debate with Trump.
Many of the claims Qiu describes as “inaccurate” turn out to be more true than not. Or hyperbole that by definition is not really true or false.
Qiu starts by quoting Trump’s executive order cracking down on sanctuary cities. It said that the Biden Administration “allowed unchecked millions of aliens to illegally enter the United States. The resulting public safety and national security risks are exacerbated by the presence of, and control of territory by, international cartels and other transnational criminal organizations along the southern border, as well as terrorists and other malign actors who intend to harm the United States and the American people. This invasion at the southern border requires the federal government to take measures to fulfill its obligation to the states.”
Qiu then writes that, “The executive order, which targets local and state jurisdictions the administration considers sanctuary cities, or places that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, avoids repeating the specific statistics Mr. Trump invoked during his campaign, but it alludes to his warnings about the dangers posed by immigrants.”
Wait!
The whole premise of this article is that “inaccurate claims” by Trump were used to justify his executive order. But there is nothing “inaccurate” about this claim in the executive order that the Biden Administration “allowed unchecked millions of aliens to illegally enter the United States.”
That is indisputably true. Millions did enter the country. So what is the point of this item?
Probably to cast aspersions on Trump by making distinctions without a difference.
Having quoted from Trump’s claim in an October 2024 speech that Biden allowed “21 million” illegal aliens into the country, “ she lets readers know that,”The Biden administration recorded nearly 8.8 million unauthorized crossings at the southwestern border from February 2021 to January 2025, but many were repeat crossings and the administration also deported more than four million.”
So is this supposed to be exculpatory?
Biden only let 8.8 million illegal aliens into the country, not 21 million as the evil orange man claimed?
And many of the 8.8 million were merely “repeat crossings”? But they still got into the country. The border was still quite porous under Biden. Why isn’t Qiu addressing that?
Then she writes, “Government and independent immigration groups have estimated that the Biden administration granted parole or allowed entry to pursue asylum claims to 4.3 million to 5.8 million immigrants.”
But this phrasing writes around the illegality at hand. The migrants who were “allowed entry to pursue asylum claims” had entered the country illegally.
This was known as catch and release!
Qiu also tells us that during the 2024 campaign , Trump said the “Biden administration had allowed an “invasion of “villainous immigrants” and he used “misleading statistics to imply broad criminality” by the immigrants.
First of all, Trump’s claim that there was an “invasion by villainous immigrants” is purely his opinion that cannot really be deemed “inaccurate” or “accurate.”
But which statistics exactly offered by Trump about illegal immigrant crime were “misleading”?
She does not offer up any specifics.
Instead, she proceeds to again debate Trump–this time by purporting to refute an argument that he did not even make.
“While there are certainly cases of migrants committing crimes, including violent ones, a body of research shows that immigrants, including those who are unauthorized, are not more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.”
But Trump hadn’t said that illegal immigrants commit a higher proportion of crimes than do native-born Americans.
He just said they were committing lots of crimes. Even if the studies she cites are accurate–incidentally, she omits well-documented claims from immigration hawks that they are flawed–they do not disprove Trump’s assertions.
And saying only that there are “certainly cases of migrants committing crimes” without giving any specifics is a good way to obscure what unfolded.
“Broad criminality” among illegal immigrants seems like a reasonable argument to make about what occurred during the Biden Administration.
Consider the opening of this May 5 New York Post story about crime among illegal immigrants in the Big Apple during the previous two years.
“More than 3,200 migrants housed in Big Apple taxpayer-funded shelters were busted — including for violent crimes such as assaults — over a nearly two-year span,” wrote reporters Craig McCarthy and Matt Troutman. “A troublesome cadre of 3,219 migrants living in 48 city shelters across the city were arrested a total of 4,884 times between Jan. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2024, the data shows.”
That certainly sounds like broad criminality.
Xiu’s other examinations of Trump’s claims were full of the same kind of chicanery.
Consider her spin on Trump’s executive order requiring an “assessment” on the environmental impact of windmills.
“For more than a decade, Mr. Trump has vehemently opposed wind turbines, calling them “ugly” and “horrible” and claiming they kill wildlife. His dislike dates to his unsuccessful effort to stop the construction of windmills outside his golf course in Scotland.”
“The executive order temporarily halted new approvals and renewals of leases for windmills built on federal lands and in oceans. It did not repeat Mr. Trump’s more specific claims and instead ordered an assessment of the effect of wind farms on wildlife.”
So the executive order made no “specific claims.”
Again, isn’t the whole premise of this article that his executive orders are based on his “inaccurate” claims? That was, after all, the headline.
Then, we get this doozy.
“While wind farms do kill hundreds of thousands of birds, other things — inanimate and living — pose a far greater threat. By contrast, cats kill as many as four billion birds annually in the United States, fossil fuel power plants 14.5 million and collisions with buildings as many as 988 million.
So it turns out Trump is correct that windmills are killing lots of birds.
But in order to cast Trump as a liar she proceeds to refute something he did not say with a whole detailed sentence about the other ways birds meet their demise.
But Trump never said windmills are the only mortal danger that birds face.
While Qiu fills her article with extraneous information that disproves things Trump never said, she also leaves out important context for his remarks.
Consider how she handled Trump’s executive order calling for an investigation into Joe Biden’s use of an autopen as President. The executive order said that, “ Although the authority to take these executive actions, along with many others, is constitutionally committed to the president, there are serious doubts as to the decision-making process and even the degree of Biden’s awareness of these actions being taken in his name. The vast majority of Biden’s executive actions were signed using a mechanical signature pen, often called an autopen, as opposed to Biden’s own hand. This was especially true of actions taken during the second half of his presidency, when his cognitive decline had apparently become even more clear to those working most closely with him.”
Her opinionated subheadline for the item on the autopen executive order is, “Doubling down on a specious theory.”
Voila.
“A research project from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, laid the groundwork for a speculative theory that aides were signing executive orders and pardons without President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s knowledge by using an autopen, a machine that copies a person’s signature. Mr. Trump has repeatedly amplified the theory in rallies and on social media, criticizing the use of the autopen.”
“The autopen theory stems from the Oversight Project, formerly a branch of the Heritage Foundation. The group says it examined Mr. Biden’s signatures to produce its analysis and questioned whether Mr. Biden was fully aware of each use of the autopen. “
So how does Qiu know that this theory is “specious?”
Because Biden said it is not true.
She just took his word for it.
Qiu tells us that, “Mr. Biden has said, ‘I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations, and any suggestion otherwise is “ridiculous and false.”
Maybe some skepticism about his claim might have been in order?
Especially, because just days before her article, the new book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson about Biden being quite senile during his presidency was released.
So there you have it.
Biden’s word is treated as gold–with no mention of his cognitive impairment at all–even as she proceeds to pick apart Trump’s every word.
“Mr. Trump’s directive also inaccurately described the Oversight Project’s findings. The group has claimed that 58 out of Mr. Biden’s 164 executive orders and that 32 out of the 51 warrants providing clemency and pardons were signed by autopen. That is less than half of the documents the group said it examined, not the “vast majority.”
Gotcha?
Not really.
So it was not the “vast majority” of the documents. Only a good chunk of them: 42%
Again, this is what lawyers call a distinction without a difference.
Qiu’s New York Times bio says she “fact-checks statements made by politicians and public figures.”
Not exactly.
So far this year, she has done 14 fact checks on Trump, two on his Administration officials and three on Elon Musk.
She has not done a single fact check on any Democrat all year.
Why the fixation on Trump and his minions at the exclusion of everybody else?
Is it her position that Democrats never say anything untrue?
Why nothing on Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she recently called herself a Bronx girl even though she grew up in the suburbs?
That whopper was reported by multiple news outlets, but not the New York Times.
Are falsehoods by Democrats no longer fit to print at the New York Times?
Asked by email if it bothered him that Qiu has not fact checked any Democrats all year, New York Times assistant managing editor for standards Patrick Healty declined comment through a spokesman.
Qiu herself simply ignored two emailed inquiries
She seems awfully impressed with herself.
Old school New York Times journalists were not very impressed with themselves, even though they worked for what was then the “paper of record” and held enormous sway over the public conversation.
Which brings us back to Richard Bernstein
In 1993, Bernstein wrote a series of very complex articles about a controversy raging in New York.
Bernstein’s young charge, then working as a cub reporter at the Washington Times magazine, but still in awe of him and the New York Times, asked how he was able to put together such complex and exhaustively reported articles so quickly.
“Well, Evan,” he replied nonchalantly. “You will be asked to do many things in journalism, but performing acts of genius is not one of them.”
Exactly.
But these days, reporters who continuously call Trump a liar seem to think they are performing some kind of staggering act of genius.
Sadly, Richard passed away this March at the not very old age of 80.
But the ethos he embodied has long been dead at the New York Times.