Watch: Former Washington Post ‘Fact Checker’ Can Only Stammer When He’s Confronted About Paper’s Bias
The article discusses a recent interview with Glenn Kessler, the former Washington Post fact-checker, conducted on Mark Halperin’s “What’s Next” podcast. During the interview, Kessler struggled to defend the Washington Post against longstanding accusations of liberal media bias. Halperin posed pointed questions reflecting concerns many conservatives have expressed for years, highlighting a perceived hostility in the Post’s reporting toward Republicans compared to Democrats. Kessler repeatedly stumbled in his responses and denied recognizing any such bias, even claiming the Post treated former presidents like Obama and Clinton as critically as it treats Donald Trump.
The interview also addressed Kessler’s controversial 2024 “fact check” labeling videos suggesting President joe Biden’s cognitive decline as misleading “cheapfakes.” Kessler defended this stance, despite Halperin’s challenge that this effectively dismissed legitimate concerns about Biden’s mental fitness.Kessler admitted the Washington Post had tried but failed to comprehensively cover Biden’s cognitive issues, calling it a missed opportunity.
the interview revealed Kessler’s unpreparedness to justify his record and suggested he is accustomed to favorable treatment from left-leaning media peers. It underscored criticisms of bias within legacy media outlets and questioned the accountability of those tasked with fact-checking and mediating political discourse.
Former Washington Post “fact checker” Glenn Kessler found himself on the receiving end of some overdue accountability this week.
In a revealing interview on Mark Halperin’s “What’s Next” podcast on Thursday, Kessler, who worked with the Washington Post for 27 years, squirmed and stammered his way through a series of straightforward questions about liberal media bias.
He was oblivious to such bias.
Halperin, to his great credit, asked the kinds of questions conservative Americans have been asking for more than a generation.
“My theory would be [that] … you attract a lot of liberal readers because your reporters are hostile to Republicans more than Democrats,” Halperin said, before asking his guest how he interpreted the theory.
“Yes, I completely reject it,” Kessler replied, before stumbling through a rambling defense of The Washington Post’s editorial tone.
“Uh, I think, um, uh — that … I mean, how to … how — how to — how to — I’m — how to phrase this?” he said.
No line more accurately summed up the cadence of the interview than that one.
Kessler laughably claimed the Washington Post was just as hard on former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as it has been on President Donald Trump.
He also blamed Trump for the fact that more and more Americans are realizing that the biased legacy media is biased.
When asked if Washington Post reporters were indifferent to whether Trump or Biden won in 2020, Kessler again stalled.
Halperin asked if he’d ever read a story in the Washington Post and understood why conservatives would be upset.
Kessler found the question nearly impossible to answer, at least in any language resembling English.
Eventually, he landed on the idea that the outlet’s perceived bias wasn’t deliberate.
That excuse didn’t hold up for long.
Halperin pressed Kessler on his 2024 “fact check” labeling videos of Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline as so-called “cheapfakes.”
Kessler defended the move, saying he only fact-checked one specific video clip before he told an entire country that Biden was fit for office and that what people were seeing was not in context.
“You are saying in that column – to any normal reader – the Washington Post is saying the chatter about cognitive decline is made up…”@MarkHalperin debates @GlennKesslerWP about his infamous “fact check” of Biden “deepfake” videos, which Kessler says he still stands by.… pic.twitter.com/ssKfYurd1P
— Next Up with Mark Halperin (@NextUpHalperin) August 7, 2025
But Halperin wasn’t buying it.
“You know the power that you had in that job,” Halperin said. “People say that and say, the Washington Post is saying that that video is not reflective of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.”
When asked how well the Washington Post covered Biden’s decline, Kessler admitted, the paper tried to write that story, but “it never came together.”
When grilled by Halperin, Kessler admitted, “Yes, in retrospect, one could say, ‘God, that was a real missed opportunity.’”
A missed opportunity indeed — one that helped shape public perception that Biden was not only capable of doing his job, but for doing it for four more years.
This interview is remarkable and worthy of a watch from beginning to end.
Kessler was completely unprepared to defend his record, and the interview shows how accustomed he is to being coddled and celebrated by his left-wing peers.
Whether he was lying or delusional, it’s clear that the Washington Post’s former fact checker couldn’t face the facts about his own career.
Writers at the Washington Post love to hang their hats on the idea that they’re somehow speaking truth to power.
Kessler had a lot of power in his position at the outlet, and Halperin nailed him for abusing it.
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