'Highly misleading': CNN brutally fact-checks Kevin McCarthy's latest series of unfounded claims

24 January 2023

It's only been two weeks since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was elected House Speaker and already, CNN is taking swift action to correct inaccurate claims he's shared.

On Tuesday, January 24, CNN's Don Lemon aired a brief clip of the top-ranking Republican lawmaker's remarks about the debt ceiling.

In the clip, McCarthy could be heard saying, "Listen, when Trump was president and Nancy Pelosi was speaker, they became a debt ceiling agreement. And it was a cap agreement for two years to cap the spending and make those decisions."

Lemon turned the segment over to CNN Daniel Dale who broke down the claims and pushed back against McCarthy's arguments.

"John McCarthy is wrong in two ways here. First of all, House Republicans didn't actually repeal anything they did vote to repeal. They passed a bill to repeal more than 70 billion in new IRS funding," Dale explained. "But that bill is not going to get through the Senate or President Biden. So they have not changed the law. Second of all, this frequent Republican talking point you hear about how Democrats are hiring 87,000 new IRS agents is just not true. It's an exaggeration.

He went on to discuss President Joe Biden's legislation to combat inflation.

"The inflation reduction act that Biden signed into law last year includes 80 billion in additional funding for the IRS that will very possibly allow the IRS to hire tens of thousands of additional employees," he said. "But not even close to all these employees, Don, will be agents. The people who conduct audits and investigations sometimes frighten people. Non-agents make up the vast majority of the IRS workforce."

He continued, "And many of the newly hired employees we know will be in things like customer service and operations in it. And experts tell us that many of the new hires will be making up for attrition filling posts left by tens of thousands of retirements departures, not taking newly created jobs."

Dale added, "So the image McCarthy and other Republicans are trying to conjure, Don, of this army of 87,000 new agents coming to get you is not based on the facts."

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