Attorney General Merrick Garland never called parents 'terrorists' We're often interested when new rhetoric starts to become part of a politician's regular patter. Three times in recent weeks, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has asserted that Attorney General Merrick Garland called parents "terrorists" because they wanted to attend school board meetings. Usually when a politician starts dropping a new talking point into his interviews, there's private polling indicating that it resonates with voters — and McCarthy's language fits a recent pattern in which Republicans have said they want to champion parents' rights to protest critical race theory or transgender accommodations. It's a complicated story, but it turns out McCarthy is putting words in Garland's mouth. Garland has never equated parents to terrorists, and in fact he told Congress he "can't imagine" a circumstance under which that would happen. Through a Rube Goldberg artifice, McCarthy is relying on an association letter that has been withdrawn, a Justice Department news release and a bureaucratic designation to somehow tag Garland with words he did not say and has rebutted. That's not enough to make such an incendiary claim. McCarthy earned Four Pinocchios. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. A master class in spin and obfuscation McCarthy has forcefully denied a New York Times report, based on an upcoming book, that he had told other Republican leaders he would tell President Donald Trump to resign — only to have his denial contradicted by an audio recording to the conversation. This was not the first time McCarthy had denied reports about the Jan. 8 conversation. The Times had first reported on it just three days after it took place, but McCarthy denied it the next day in an interview with his local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian. Now McCarthy is denying the audio says what it says. How can someone in McCarthy's position evade the truth like this? Good question. Our article takes readers through the transcript of the audio recording, which shows McCarthy clearly told his colleagues that he would tell Trump he should resign. We demonstrate how McCarthy repeatedly mischaracterizes what has been reported to make his denials. For instance, McCarthy keeps saying he did not ask Trump to resign. That may be correct. But that's not what the report said — it said he told his colleagues that he would tell Trump to resign. That's a big difference. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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