Alert The Media! PolitiFact Located a Lying Democrat

Tim Graham on Jul 10, 2026

The "independent fact checkers" at PolitiFact did something truly shocking on July 2. They tagged a Democrat with their harshest judgment, "Pants On Fire." It's shocking because it's been almost two years since the last time they lit pants for a Democrat. On July 31, 2024, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was flagged for suggesting J.D. Vance had sex with a couch.

The lying Democrat in this case is Abdul el-Sayed, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, hoping to face former Rep. Mike Rogers in the fall. PolitiFact's Caleb McCullough reported that in multiple interviews and recent social media posts, El-Sayed claimed Rogers "took a $14 million payout as a pharma lobbyist." Rogers isn't a registered lobbyist for anyone. He did "paid consulting work for technology companies" after leaving Congress, but not for Big Pharma.

The Rogers campaign sent a letter to el-Sayed saying his statements "constitute defamation under Michigan law." In reply, El-Sayed partially walked back the statement, but then suggested Rogers was so pro-Big Pharma as a member of Congress that he confused him with a lobbyist. This could be a real excuse since el-Sayed confuses himself with a physician, even though he's never acquired a license to practice medicine.

In between those two rare "Pants On Fire" tags for Democrats, PolitiFact threw that fiery tag at Republicans and conservatives more than 50 times. I counted 32 of them for Donald Trump alone in that time span. Twice, they launched three "Pants On Fire" attacks on President Donald Trump within a two-week period -- in September 2024 and in July 2025.

No one should claim that Trump doesn't unload whoppers, but it's the dramatic difference in how rarely Democrats are pinned as "pants on fire" liars. Kamala Harris never received one. Bernie Sanders has zero. Former President Joe Biden has seven, Hillary Clinton has nine and Trump has 225.

In the first quarter of 2026, PolitiFact looked incredibly partisan by never finding a Democrat elected or appointed official as "Mostly False," "False," or "Pants On Fire." In May and June, they corrected that course, putting Democrats on the False side in 8 of 16 fact checks, or 50% of the time. In those same two months, Republican officials were tagged on the False side in 15 of 18 fact checks, or 80% of the time.

It's sad to say that this is "progress" for PolitiFact, but it's suggesting they're no longer pretending Democrats never say anything wrong. Overall in the first half of 2026, the Republicans were tagged as false in 71% of "fact checks," and the Democrats are now up to 31%.

Leftists feel free to unload wild charges with zero fear of fact-checkers. The radical-left streamer Hasan Piker (one of those who believes America deserved 9/11) just proclaimed, "Fox News is Rape TV ... the pro-rape network." He claimed, "some of the most prominent hosts on the network were such prolific rapists that other women who were on the network had successfully sued them." Piker claimed Pete Hegseth "was such a prolific rapist his own mother sent him an email begging him to stop." Oh, and Hegseth has a "Nazi tattoo."

None of that is true. Fox News has settled several lawsuits for sexual harassment, but that is not the same as rape. Hegseth was accused of rape once, and no criminal charges were filed by police. He denied it, then settled with the accuser for $50,000.

This underscores that leftists can feel a sense of impunity that the "independent fact-checkers" aren't going to challenge their wildest, most potentially damaging smears.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.