Last Updated on September 3, 2021
USA Today issued a fact check on the “partly false” claims that Joe Biden kept checking his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony honoring US service members slain in Kabul. Then, they issued a correction admitting that “Biden checked his watch multiple times at the dignified transfer event, including during the ceremony itself.”
On September 1, USA Today issued a blatantly false “fact check” on claims that Joe Biden kept checking his watch during a dignified transfer ceremony honoring the fallen US service members slain in Kabul. The initial rating of the claims were published as “partly false,” with USA Today’s Daniel Funke incorrectly claiming that Biden only checked his watch during the end of the ceremony. The original headline read “Fact check: Biden honored service members killed in Kabul, checked his watch only after ceremony.”
However on the very next day, USA Today was forced to correct the story, all while keeping the article up and changing the headline to “Fact check: Biden honored service members killed in Kabul, checked watch during ceremony.”
Biden checked his watch, but he did so after the ceremony had ended.
Watch the video for yourself: https://t.co/eYFRAtHFHN
— Daniel Funke (@dpfunke) September 1, 2021
“Biden checked his watch, but he did so after the ceremony had ended,” tweeted USA Today “fact checker” Daniel Funke on September 1. In the updated version of his own fact check dated September 2, it states:
“Corrections & Clarifications: This story was updated Sept. 2 to note that Biden checked his watch multiple times at the dignified transfer event, including during the ceremony itself. The rating on this claim has been changed from partly false to missing context.”
While the original “fact check” is now lost in the vast records of cyberspace, the updated USA Today piece now admits that Biden did, in fact, check his watch multiple times as the bodies of slain US service members were brought before him. “While Biden did pay his respects to the fallen service members, photos and video show he also checked his watch during the ceremony,” admitted Funke, who even notes that “several family members of the fallen service members have criticized Biden for glancing at his watch during the dignified transfer.”
Now, the blatantly incorrect “partly false” USA fact check of claims that Biden checked his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony have miraculously morphed into a fact check of claims that President Donald Trump “saluted the caskets of fallen U.S. service members, while Biden checked his watch.” In this new version, USA Today rated the new claims as “missing context.”
“The way Biden honored the 11 caskets presented at Dover Air Force Base, with a hand over his heart, was similar to how Trump paid respects to fallen service members during his presidency. However, Biden did check his watch at least three times, according to photos and video reviewed by USA TODAY,” the report reads.
However, it is worth noting that there is zero evidence indicating that President Trump had ever exhibited such disrespect for fallen soldiers during dignified ceremonies when he was President of the United States.
