 Just a few weeks ago on the show, we talked about how one of CNN's fact checks of a Bernie Sanders claim made about healthcare spending ended up blowing up in their faces when it was revealed that they made that same claim themselves previously. So it's obvious that they're being overly nitpicky on Bernie Sanders and they're looking for reasons to discredit him. We talked about that CNN fact check fail on the program. I'm gonna show a really quick snippet just so you kind of get the gist of what happened. So CNN politics tweeted fact check. Bernie Sanders is once again saying the US spends twice as much on healthcare per capita as any other country in the world. It's a claim he has been making since at least 2009 when Politifact noted that it was false. It's still false now and when you go to the article, they claim again that he's been making the same false claim for 10 years now. Now, here's why they say they rated this claim false. Facts first, it's still false now. The US does spend the highest amount on healthcare per capita of any organization for economic cooperation and development country, but not double every single one. So the issue isn't necessarily that he was lying. The issue is that he wasn't being specific enough because even if we spend double many countries when it comes to healthcare spending, we just don't spend double every single country. So the word every is really what's at issue here. It's a little bit misleading and here's how they say he could have been more correct. Sanders could have accurately said the US spends more than twice the average for OECD countries, which was an estimated 3,992 in 2018 and a firmer 3,854 in 2017. And what I love is that Bernie Sanders actually responded to this and it's in the actual article and he says, actually, we were referring to the average for OECD countries and noted that this was confirmed by CNN, who in January of this year published an article with the headline, US spends twice as much on healthcare as its peers. So in short, CNN rated one of Bernie Sanders claims false after they had previously published an article where they essentially said the exact same thing. Now, that's the Cliff Notes version. It's an oversimplification. I will link you to that full video down below because there's more to it and we kind of go into why they specifically say that Bernie Sanders was incorrect. But that same thing just happened again. But this time, instead of CNN doing it, the Washington Post did it. Now, David Dole cover the story in such a thorough and phenomenal way that I'm going to share his video with you and just again a really quick snippet. And then when we come back, I'm going to tell you the aftermath of that story because to say that this also blew up in the Washington Post's face would be an understatement because I think that this makes them look worse than CNN looked even Bernie tweeted out 500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills. Now, this is citing a published study in the American Journal of Public Health that says medical bankruptcy is still common despite the Affordable Care Act. And they published this number. Actually, the number is even a bit higher, which I'll get to in a minute. But the Washington Post took issue with this fact that Bernie tweeted out, putting out this article saying Sanders flaw statistic 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year, giving him three Pinocchios out of a possible four. Claiming that this is a classic case of cherry picking a number from a scientific study and twisting it to make a political point. This study before Bernie cited it was widely widely cited by a number of outlets, a number of outlets, including the Washington Post themselves. So this article from February, the Health 202 Utah is trying to roll back Medicaid expansion plans on a shaky assumption. 530,000 families deal with bankruptcies related to illness or medical bills. The Washington Post cited this same statistic themselves. Now, if you haven't watched David's full video, I would encourage you to pause this video. Go watch that video first so you kind of get the full context because the story is a lot crazier than that. Like he goes into all of the details. I'll link to it down below. It's just it's a mind blowing story. And I can't believe that the Washington Post would even publish that after they published the same thing. Themselves and David just does such a phenomenal job breaking it down. But the point is these fact checkers at two different outlets now, they proved that they're not being objective. They're just trying to discredit Bernie Sanders because they're probably banking on the fact that most people will see that headline and not go any further. Not really article itself. And then they'll just think, Oh, well, Bernie Sanders is a liar. He lied about this claim with regard to health care spending. And now he's lying about this claim about medical bankruptcies. He must just be like Donald Trump. So it's really disgusting and it's almost like the mainstream media hates Bernie Sanders and he's right about there being a bias against him. But the way that this story blew up in the Washington Post's face is so embarrassing because the author of the study that they cited here, Dr. David Himmelstein literally contacted the Washington Post and demand that they issue a public retraction. That's how bad he thought their article was. Now, again, I sound redundant, but author of the study is contacting them. Embarrassing, embarrassing. But here's what he said. Dear Salvador Rizzo, this is the author of the Washington Post fact check article. Your Washington Post fact checker article falsely claimed that my article in the American Journal of Public Health had not undergone peer review. While some other editorials that appear in that journal may not undergo such review, as indicated in the email included below that I received from the editor in chief of the journal, mine clearly did. Your false claim has besmirched my reputation as a scholar. I demand that you immediately publicly retracted and the rest of your article and that you pursue vigorous efforts to inform readers of your error. Now he attached a response from the editor in chief of the American Journal of Public Health where he does in fact confirm that Himmelstein's paper had in fact undergone peer review. And in that article, what's mind boggling to me is that the fact checker literally reached out to Himmelstein. Dr. Himmelstein responded and he said Bernie Sanders largely described my study accurately and they still gave Bernie Sanders three Pinocchios. They're just shameless. Now the story doesn't end there because senior advisor to Bernie Sanders campaign Warren Gunnell's actually tweeted out Dr. Himmelstein's letter which then prompted Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post who was another fact checker to respond saying this is false. Article did not say it was not peer reviewed. We quote an editor saying the editorial did not undergo the same peer reviewed editing process as a research article. But note it used a methodology similar to what the researchers used in a 2005 peer reviewed study. Now Warren responded to that saying Glenn honest question, what type of peer review does your quote unquote fact check go through? The only person you could find to say Bernie was wrong is the former chief economist of a right-wing think tank that represents fast food, tobacco and alcohol interests. Why didn't you mention that? And he then provided the receipts of course. So I was genuinely shocked at that CNN fact check kerfuffle. But this one from the Washington Post is just exponentially worse because they say, you know what Bernie Sanders, what you said here is wrong. We're going to give you three Pinocchios after one of the articles we published has the same headline saying exactly what you said. But in this fact check, we're going to reach out to the author of that study and then we're going to quote him in our fact check of you saying that what you said was correct. And then still proceed to give you three Pinocchios and then double down when that author calls us out Jesus. I mean Fox News would probably go a bit further in order to hide their bias. But the Washington Post now this is just pure propaganda. I don't know what else to say about this. And here's what's sad about this. We shouldn't have to worry about fact checkers being biased because if you are going to fact check, you are supposed to be objective. You're supposed to be the most objective. We all have biases and a lot of times fact checks, you know, these fact checkers, they're going to have to make executive decisions based on their interpretation. But this is not one of those instances where anything is left up to interpretation to fact check. What Bernie Sanders said, they reached out to the author of the study. He was citing and he said Bernie's correct and they still said Bernie's incorrect and then doubled down after the author of said study called them out. This is madness. I mean, this is just so embarrassing. If we have to worry now this much about fact checkers trying to discredit Bernie Sanders, then it's no wonder why there is a crisis in trust in corporate media because this is absolutely disgusting. And for them to then complain about Bernie Sanders calling out their bias and the fact that they're owned by Jeff Bezos, it makes the situation that much more ridiculous because just a couple of weeks ago, they were saying that Bernie Sanders was spreading conspiracy theories by suggesting that maybe the Washington Post was biased against him because it's owned by Jeff Bezos. And here they publish this fact check where they are going out of their way to give Bernie Sanders three Pinocchios when the author of the fucking study is saying Bernie's right. To take on the author of the study in this direct way to where he has to come out and demand that they issue a public retraction. This is a new low and it's, frankly, they should be embarrassed, but they're shameless. They have an agenda and for them to still tell us that that's not the case. It's as if they're pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining. No, you guys are absolutely biased. And if you didn't want us to call out that bias, then maybe tone it down a bit, be a little bit less brazen in trying to just go out of your way to discredit Bernie Sanders and hopes that people won't read beyond the headlines. I mean, I'm still like I'm genuinely shocked by this. Again, if you haven't already watched David Dole's video, because the story is just so bizarre, so bad even by the Washington Post standards that it enough can't be said about this. This is madness.