USA Today fact-checker asks comedian Tim Young for his source for a tweet about Ukraine aid

Brett T. | 4:52 PM on July 23, 2022

Back on July 8, comedian Tim Young tweeted about President Joe Biden sending Ukraine 15 times the amount of money that President Donald Trump asked to complete the border wall. The tweet racked up an impressive 57,000 likes and 16,000 retweets.

Just a reminder that we've sent more than 15x the amount of money Trump asked for to complete our border wall to the Ukraine to defend their border.

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) July 8, 2022

It also caught the attention of USA Today fact-checker Molly Stellino, who wanted to know where Young got that figure.

USA today "Fact checker" @mollystellino… whose twitter feed screams progressive… has reached out to me to "fact check" my opinion tweet above. Here's her email and my response. pic.twitter.com/HQcWiN3m7D

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) July 22, 2022

Young replies, “First of all you’re fact checking a comedian’s opinion … congrats!”

He also notes the context Stellino added. In linking to the original tweet, she changes “to defend their border” to “security aid,” and “the amount of money Trump asked for to complete our border wall” to “the Trump administration spent on the border wall.” That’s not the same thing at all.

“Your stupid game here is to add context to the questioning of my tweet for you to disprove the context you’ve added,” Young wrote back.

Holy crap, you roasted her with logic.

No one is talking about how the MSM keeps separating “security aid” to Ukraine from the rest of the aid so they can avoid mentioning the complete tab taxpayers have footed as we fund a war no one wants and very clearly sponsor a slush fund.

— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) July 23, 2022

So subtle how they play the game. Good thing you're one step ahead and can point out the trick they play. I don't think most people see it though.

— Jack McA (@JackMcA5) July 22, 2022

And then they whine that nobody trusts the media. Gee, I wonder why?

— Eino 🇺🇲 (@EinoMaki) July 22, 2022

I think two words would have sufficed.

— … (@EuclaDarcie) July 23, 2022

So Molly wants you to do her work?

— Darla Shine (@DarlaShine) July 22, 2022

My thought, exactly. If she read his tweet properly rather than adding progressive-friendly context that didn’t exist, then researched the information, it would be simple math.

Any chance Mollie can blame her failure on common core math being racist? 😆

— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) July 23, 2022

Fact-checkers are busy asking comedians about their tweets when they could very well be using their finely honed fact-checking skills to run the numbers. And why not fact-check some elected officials?

I simply love the fact that fact checkers believe you should help do their job by finding the data they chose to fact check.

— SEEK AND DESTROY (@FlaccidFingers) July 22, 2022

Clown world pic.twitter.com/uC9PXECMby

— Ticky’s Thoughts (@tickytac1855) July 22, 2022

She got Google, too, right? You wanna know? Google that shit. #GTS

— We've all been playing Calvinball for a while now (@Smithdk4) July 22, 2022

Don’t ask the person being fact-checked to run the numbers for you and call yourself a fact-checker.

Related:

Reason USA Today (an official social media ‘fact-checker’) removed 23 articles marks another banner week for #Journalism https://t.co/oMkdbCfbSg

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 17, 2022