Nancy Pelosi fact-checked by Washington Post for claim 'fewer' migrants crossed the border under Biden
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was fact-checked on Wednesday by the Washington Post for claiming that fewer migrants came into the U.S. under President Biden than under President-elect Trump's first term.
"I don’t think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Joe Biden than came under Donald Trump," Pelosi told the New York Times during a recent interview. "It’s clarity of the message, and if that’s what Bernie’s talking about, and that’s what Joe Manchin’s talking about, we weren’t clear in our message as to what things are, then I agree with that."
The Washington Post published a fact-check on the claim on Wednesday, and noted that it was "documented fact" that "at least four times as many migrants entered the United States under Biden than under Trump."
An aide told the outlet that Pelsoi was referring to deportations during the interview and pointed to numbers in a Reuters report, according to the Post.
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"It showed that in fiscal year 2024, Biden was on pace to exceed the number of deportations of any single year under Trump. But the article did not say that deportations under Biden would be higher than they were under Trump — far from it. Through four years, Biden almost certainly will have fewer deportations than Trump, according to the Reuters count," the Washington Post's report read.
The outlet reported that Pelosi's claim "veers even more off course" when they dig deeper into the numbers and said the former House Speaker earned "Four Pinocchio's."
During the same New York Times interview, Pelosi suggested Vice President Kamala Harris might have won if Biden dropped out sooner.
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"Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala, I think, still would have won, but she may have been stronger, having taken her case to the public sooner," she told the Times.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend called out Pelosi over the weekend for the role she played in President Biden exiting the presidential race.
"I’m going to say it if she ain’t going to say it — Nancy Pelosi, everybody talks about how the speaker emerita, you know, she’s so strategic, she can count, she did all of that when she was the speaker in Congress, but my question is: Where is your calculator now?" Townsend said. "She played in presidential politics this cycle, and she helped orchestrate the very public demise of the president."