The Washington Post fact-checked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s statements that President Trump has not transferred money to combat the nation’s opioid crisis and gave her three Pinocchios for the “highly misleading” remarks.
In a tweet on March 8, the freshman Democratic lawmaker criticized Trump for wanting to divert money via a national emergency declaration to build a wall on the southern border but did not take the same action over opioid overdoses.
“Amount President Trump has transferred from other agencies to fund his ‘Build the Wall’ Emergency: $10s of millions, & has identified billions more. Amount he’s transferred to address the Opioid National Emergency: $0,” she wrote in the tweet that was liked and retweeted nearly 50,000 times.
Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet was in response to a posting from C-SPAN that showed her questioning James Carroll, the White House director of drug policy, and linking the crisis at the border with the opioid epidemic.
“So, we’ve got two emergencies, one is treated with an actual action and the other is just to raise awareness,” C-SPAN quoted her as saying.
The newspaper’s fact-checker said she incorrectly compared two different situations.