The zombie falsehood that Biden would defund the police It's one of those falsehoods that keeps coming back from the grave, kept on life support by Donald Trump during the 2020 campaign, and now, by Republicans in Congress. Six months into Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans are still claiming falsely that he would defund the police. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tweeted recently that Biden would "abolish the police." (False.) Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) tweeted about "violent rioting and the Defund the Police movement, both of which were supported, financially and rhetorically, by the Biden admin." (Untrue.) And Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) tweeted that Biden "went from defund the police during the campaign to now 'refund the police,' " even though his position has not changed. In his fiscal 2022 budget, Biden kept a campaign promise and proposed to more than double the funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program, which provides funds for local police departments to bolster their ranks. In Trump's last year, $156.5 million was provided for COPS Hiring, while Biden would boost that to $388 million, Justice Department documents say. Moreover, Biden announced on June 23 that he was urging cities experiencing an increase in crime to tap funds in his coronavirus relief bill "to hire police officers needed for community policing and to pay their overtime." Cruz and the others 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. Deceptive ad in the Va. governor's race A television spot running in the Virginia governor's race employs a few manipulative video edits to portray the Republican candidate as praising the Democrat in the race, former governor Terry McAuliffe. Except, a full review of the video that McAuliffe's campaign spliced into a 39-second ad shows that the GOP candidate, Glenn Youngkin, was not really heaping praise on the Democrat. Youngkin was moderating a panel discussion on economic growth in 2017 during the U.S. Export-Import Bank's annual conference. McAuliffe was one of four panelists. The ad says Youngkin called himself a "big fan" of McAuliffe, but he did not. As moderator, he offered a few benign comments to mark McAuliffe's points during the talk, but not any attaboys. The McAuliffe campaign defended its video edits, but in some cases the slicing-and-dicing goes over the top. Some quotes are stitched together from more than 20 minutes apart. The McAuliffe ad earned Three Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @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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