AP FACT CHECK: Biden puffs up claims of virus, job gains

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a self-appraisal that didn't always fit with the facts, President Joe Biden on Wednesday made the dubious assertion that he's outperformed all expectations on the pandemic in his first year and inflated his contribution to COVID-era economic growth.

A look at some of Biden's comments in a news conference that stretched for nearly two hours:

PANDEMIC

BIDEN on COVID-19: “I didn’t overpromise. I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.”

THE FACTS: That's a stretch. The month before the election, he vowed: “I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country.” The pandemic is obviously far from being shut down — instead it's been surging. The world may be headed to a future in which the virus becomes a manageable risk, not one in which it vanishes.

It is not true that he has outperformed everyone's expectations on the coronavirus. Vaccine supplies have been a success; COVID-19 tests have been a widely acknowledged failure that the administration is trying to fix by making the tests free and sending them to homes. Biden conceded Wednesday that more tests should have been available sooner.

Biden himself set higher expectations than have been met when he held a July 4 event headlined a celebration of “Independence Day and Independence from COVID-⁠19.” His remarks acknowledged the rising delta variant while stating “we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.”

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BIDEN: “We just made surprise medical bills illegal in this country.”

THE FACTS: He ignores the fact that President Donald Trump signed that consumer protection into law before leaving office in December 2020. The achievement is Trump's.

The act prevents patients from being hit with “surprise”...