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Seriously, the Fact-Checkers Should Just Take the Rest of the Month Off...

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Mar 06, 2025
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Body Checking the Fact-Checkers (Pt.1) – CNN

  • So you saw “trans monkeys” and just stopped right there?!

Let’s remember that in the mind of the news outlets, fact-checks are the definitive measurement of a news item. That is why the very fact that they need to correct them so often reveals the discount value of their “facts.”

During his joint session speech, Donald Trump mentioned we were spending millions of dollars on transgendered mice experiments. This has the press spinning out of control, and at CNN, they were fact-checking the speech and came to the conclusion this was a lie; the only experiments were with transgender monkeys.

Now, bypassing whether this is a valid use of tax dollars, the White House came out with an official statement that lists a number of university studies concerning – you guessed it – transgender mice. CNN was compelled to come out with a revision, one that carries the whiff of “needs more context.”

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Body Checking the Fact-Checkers (Pt.2) – ROLLING STONE

  • You just fell prey to what you accused him of doing.

Over at Rolling Stone, they, too, chose to get in on the transgender mice issue, deciding to take a different tack. The music magazine (seriously gang, stick with your strengths) states Trump lied about transgendered mice because when they searched for examples, they got confused by the term “Transgenic mice,” which are genetically altered rodents for various studies.

The problem: When the reporter stumbled on this term, he just assumed there was a mistake and stopped looking into the matter. As explained, there are a number of universities researching various cross-hormonal tests and procedures with what they term to be transgendered mice.

The real irony is in them trying to call Trump and the administration ignorant for not recognizing the difference, as they fail to recognize the difference.

Body Checking the Fact-Checkers (Pt.3) – WASHINGTON POST

  • We are giving your piece a grade of INCOMPLETE, Glenn.

In his fact-check of Trump’s speech, WaPo’s dependably fractured fact-checker Glenn Kessler disputed the claim immigrants are put up in luxury hotels in NYC; Glenn points out they ONLY cost $156 a night. He disputed the claim that we drop $10 million on circumcisions in Mozambique by noting they were needed to battle AIDS. So…we ARE funding that, is what you are saying.

The best, though, was Glenn attacking the claim made by the president about remote government workers as he tries to play a shell game. Trump stated, “We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work.” Glenn goes with percentages:

This is false. Trump appears to equate teleworking with not showing up for work. But he often uses inflated numbers for how many federal workers work from home.  The White House budget office reported in August that 54 percent of federal employees “worked fully on-site…while just 10 percent worked only from their homes.

Now, to finish his math assignment. Excluding the postal service and military, you still have millions of government workers – which means if 10% are at home, it totals out to…hundreds of thousands of workers.

Presentation Paradox – REUTERS

  • It would be helpful to have some content to support your headline.

Reuters came out with a scathing headline about President Trump being poised to send hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians back to their war-torn country. It is a jarring story with emotional ramifications – that is if any of it was rooted in facts.

Citing four anonymous sources, the syndicate has to connect upwards of three or four possible scenarios at which some people from the country might end up being shipped out – and it could be months away, if it happens at all.

Yet, Reuters goes with this full report, even as two administration officials go on the record to say that there is no such plan in place.

Still, makes for a gripping headline, right?!

Reporting on the Mirror – ABC NEWS

  • That Stephanopoulos defamation suit could not have been helpful.

After a number of layoffs totaling well into the thousands of employees, Disney announced a new round of job cuts – these were specific to the ABC News division and Disney Entertainment Networks. Two hundred jobs are set to be involved. On the news side, they are dissolving the election polling vertical FiveThirtyEight, and then combining the two television news magazines, "20/20" and "Nightline."