President Joe Biden and his administration have shown on countless occasions that they will eschew facts and truth in favor of a preferred narrative, even as Biden’s White House incessantly rails against disinformation and misinformation.
The official White House Twitter account did exactly that Thursday with a tweet that falsely claimed that there was “no vaccine available” when President Biden took office in January 2021, the Daily Caller reported.
That tweet also made a highly disingenuous claim about unemployment that seemed to take credit for having “created” millions of new jobs that, in actuality, were in large part just workers returning to jobs they had previously held before the pandemic-related shutdowns and lay-offs.
Biden claims “no vaccine available” when he took office
“When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available,” the White House account tweeted Thursday. “In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.”
When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available.
In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 12, 2022
Numerous Twitter users were quick to point out in the replies that the claim that “there was no vaccine available” when Biden took office was simply not factual, as vaccine doses began to be rolled out and administered in December 2020 while former President Donald Trump was still in office.
Facts vs. narratives
Then-President-elect Biden himself was fully vaccinated with both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine before being inaugurated. Biden shared a photo of himself receiving his first dose on Dec. 21, 2020, while the White House account posted a video of Biden receiving his second dose on Jan. 13, 2021, about a week before he was sworn in as president.
President-elect Biden received his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine because he trusts scientists.
Our administration is committed to doing everything possible to ensure every American has all the information they need to get vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/9FzLEeqwOi
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2021
Furthermore, according to an interactive vaccine tracker compiled by The Washington Post, there were more than 196,000 doses administered on the same day that President-elect Biden received his first dose, more than 1 million on the day he received his second dose, and more than 1.6 million doses were administered on Inauguration Day in 2021.
No “misinformation” warning, but “context” added
The Daily Caller noted that, as of Thursday night, Twitter had not slapped that White House tweet with its notorious “COVID misinformation” warning label that it was so quick to affix to missives about the pandemic and vaccines from the prior administration and others just a year and a half ago.
The platform did, however, add a box at the bottom of the tweet to provide missing “context” to readers and specified that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 11, 2020 — more than a month before Biden took office.
This false claim from the White House about vaccines was such an unnecessary and easily debunked mistruth that never should have been posted in the first place, and now that Biden’s team has been caught red-handed lying about this it only makes one wonder what else they have been deceiving and misleading about to the American people.
