The media keeps fueling the myth of a fiscally responsible GOP

When Republicans are allowed to lie freely in interviews, it’s no wonder so many Americans don’t know important facts.

With news breaking that President Donald Trump’s actions are making the trade deficit—which he constantly rages about—even worse, here’s a crucial question: Did anyone expect otherwise?

Of all the myths in our political system, perhaps the most enduring one is the idea that Republican presidents are somehow more fiscally responsible. And the media is largely to blame for propagating it. Legacy news agencies let Republican leaders make all sorts of wild economic claims, unchecked and uncorrected.

By now, the fact that the media lets people lie is clear. But to people steeped in politics, it might not be clear what effect this has on the general population. Most people don’t follow politics or the news in general closely. They’re working long hours, taking care of loved ones, and being overwhelmed with content pouring through their phones, much of it designed to distract them. They don’t have time or energy to figure out the realities of Washington.

Every time the media has a chance to reach them with basic information, it should. Instead, it fails spectacularly. That brings us to the latest open mic nights given to Trump and other GOP leaders. In interviews on ABC and NBC, Trump spewed false claims about the economy. And, of course, when broadcasting these pre-taped interviews, neither network paused to fact check him.

NBC at least published something on its website. In a long, complicated piece, it offered mostly tepid takes. For example, it pointed out that Trump claimed the trade deficit under Biden meant that “we lost 5 to 6 billion dollars a day.” This claim is “a mischaracterization of the data,” NBC wrote, noting that the actual figure for 2024 was nowhere near that high and, more importantly, that a trade deficit “has nothing to do with the concept of a nation making or losing money.”

Though a piece like this is better than nothing, what difference did it make? Raise your hand if you think that, after watching Meet the Press, the show’s millions of viewers went searching for fact checks. [Crickets.]

It’s not just the president who gets away with this. On CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin did his party’s bidding. Host Jake Tapper began by asking him about a serious, pressing issue: lead poisoning at schools in Johnson’s home state. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently turned down Milwaukee’s request for assistance with lead abatement, noting “the complete loss of our Lead Program.” This was yet another disastrous result of cutbacks across the government.

“When you have a budget now that's $7 trillion large, having only been $4.4 trillion large in 2019, and you try and pare back government, there's some things that you're going to have to reverse,” Johnson replied, expressing no concern for students found to have elevated lead levels in their blood or the schools closed temporarily. He added that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “is going to take a look at this” to see whether “he needs some experts on this in CDC.” But, Johnson added, “Local and state officials ought to be able to handle this.”

News flash: The federal government plays a crucial role in protecting kids from lead poisoning. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates water systems at schools that receive water from public systems, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2020.

Tapper did not point this out. Nor did he fact check Johnson about the budget. Note that Johnson cited 2019, not 2020, Trump’s final year, when federal spending jumped massively amid the start of the Covid pandemic. Spending went down after President Joe Biden came in, then began growing again—but, crucially, receipts grew as well. This is the kind of thing that Americans could understand if the media paused to explain it. The key economic question isn’t just how much any entity spends; it’s the difference between spending and income.

Here’s a fact every major news agency should point out: Republicans rack up more debt than Democrats. Trump was already increasing spending and the deficit—the difference between spending and receipts—before Covid.

Given how Republicans get away with all these claims, it should be no surprise that, in a survey last year, Americans blamed Democrats slightly more than Republicans for the national debt. And in the most extensive analysis of the 2024 election, voters said they trust Republicans more on the economy.

How many voters even know that The Economist called the U.S. economy under Biden “the envy of the world?” Or that a Politifact analysis found that over the past 35 years, “97% of jobs have been created under Democratic presidents?”

Americans might be busy and overwhelmed with information, but they’re perfectly capable of understanding these basic points—if only the media would provide them.

Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.

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