and, address -- issues from the british parliament. then, the ongoing conflict between russia and the ukraine. >> this week on q&a, our guest is glenn kessler. he talks about his year-and "biggest pinocchios" the people who made the biggest false claims over the past year. >> glenn kessler, what was 2014 like for the fact checker? >> it was midterm election year. that meant i had to look at many campaign ads.

with the rise of the super pac's , a lot of the ads were pretty bad. that, to me, was a big shift. you saw a torrent of advertising as a lot of it disconnected from the campaigns. some of the campaigns, you ended up with more ads done by outside groups than by the candidates themselves. >> we talked three years ago and we went through the philosophy of the fact checker which is online, anyone can watch. for those of you who don't know what you do, what is the fact checker? >> the washington post launched it in 2007. it was just for the 2008 campaign year. it was originally done by my

colleague, michael dobbs, who writes history books now. in 2011, the washington post asked me to revive the fact checker and make it a permanent feature. generally, i write -- and i have a colleague who works on it with me -- i write one or two fact checks per day. one runs in the sunday washington post as well. i rate politicians based on the accuracy of their statements. i look for statements that are about big issues, statements that i can use to tell a larger story about the background of the federal budget, or the health care law issues that are confusing to people, that they hear politicians talk about, and are wondering, is that really true? it is kind of like a reverse

restaurant rating. the worst you can get is four pinocchios. three is mostly false one is, there is some problem with the statistic, it may be out of context. if you are completely factually accurate, you get a gepetto check mark. >> how many gepettos did you give out this year? >> maybe four or five. i tell myself i need to give more gepettos. >> here is a video you put together about presidents. i want to ask you -- you don't like to talk about the word lying. i want to ask you about the word when we see this video. >> a small country of 7 million

people has been a neutral in nation since the agreement of geneva signed by the government of north vietnam. american poly see since then -- policy since then has been to respect the cambodian people's neutrality. we did not repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages. >> a few months ago, i told the american people i did not trade arms for hostages. my heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true. the fact's and the evidence tell me it is not. >> i want you to listen to me. i did not have sex with that

woman. miss lewinsky. indeed, i did have a relationship with miss lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. >> intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the mostly fell weapons ever devised. >> when we first got in there and started looking around, we did not find anything. there was a sinking feeling -- i felt terrible about it. >> americans like their doctors. they will keep their doctors. if you like your insurance you will keep it.

known will be allergic that away from you. i am sorry that they are finding the cells in the situation based on assurances they got from me. >> where did you get the idea to do that? >> i was working with some of my colleagues at the video arm of the washington post. i solicited comments from readers. what were the most egregious presidential misstatements and lies you recall from your lifetime? we put together this collection in part because i wanted to find as many instances as i could of where the president later admitted that what he had said was false. i think that is what makes the video and -- interesting and

powerful. you don't often hear the apology that comes after the lies. >> your former colleague at the post, eric dannen, wrote a piece that said, little surprise that americans of the government and financial institutions in low regard. surveys found 60% americans believe corruption is widespread among businesses while only about one in five has much trust in banks. for politicians 50 -- 54% rated congress very low on ethical standards. is this new? >> those kinds of opinions? >> when did this start? either as human beings, or in politics in this country? >> i would attribute -- you had a series of things that happened in the nixon administration. i think, my suspicion is borne

out of public polling, before the pentagon papers came out which was about the misleading statements made by the johnson abuse creation and kennedy administration before that, on top of that, you had watergate which the president and his people denied they had involvement, and it turns out they did. those two things together really flipped the switch in the way americans perceive their politicians. >> what will it take to get trust back? >> that is a difficult question. i do not know the answer. fact checking, at least, and fact checking has become quite a new form of journalism in this country and elsewhere around the world, i think that begins to

help, at least -- well, it puts politicians on notice that they must be careful about what they say. it does not mean that they will change their stripes, at least not immediately. i was at a conference recently where one of the ad makers for these ads that i rate someone asked him about the influence of fact checkers. he said i think we worry too much about what fact checker say. but a lot of time is spent drafting the ads and making sure they at least have something defensible to answer the inevitable questions that come up. >> you are from cincinnati and went to brown and got a masters at columbia. you have been in journalism for 32 years? >> i think you are right. >> three kids? >> yes. >> how old are they now? >> one is a senior graduating from m.i.t..

another is a senior in high school. we are going through the college application process right now. i have a daughter who is an eighth grader. she has graduated from middle school. >> one on each level. >> my wife -- >> let's take a look at the "biggest pinocchios of 2014." >> the president underestimated isis and he referred to it in an interview as a "jv team," making a reference to a basketball association team like the lakers. >> i wanted to pull the transcript of the interview, because it is important to understand the context. let me read the full quote. the president said, i think

there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of bin laden and in -- a network that is planning terrorist plots against the homeland, versus jihadists engaged in local disputes, often sectarian. the president was not singling out isis, he was talking about the different threat posed by a range of extremists around the globe. >> what was that about? >> you notice he said, i pulled the transcript. the president had made a comment about a "jv team" with an interviewer for the new yorker. the transcript had never been

officially released by the white house. what you saw with the press secretary was, he was cherry picking part of the quote. no one had seen the transcript. i got a hold of the actual transcript. it is clear, when you look at the exchange between david remnick and the president, that the president was indeed referring to isis, the islamic state, because remnick says, they just took over falluja. that is what isis had just done. the president compounded this when he went on national television and himself denied he was not specifically return -- referring to islamic state terrorists when he made that statement. >> the transcript was the responsibility of the white house to make public after they do an interview? >> each administration has their

own different policies. the bush administration would routinely released transcripts of every interview president had. the obama administration does not necessarily do that on a regular basis. that's transcript was never officially released by the white house, which is why the press secretary was able to kind of can choose the quotes in order to leave the impression. >> here is paul ryan. we will explain this after we watch it. >> that is making a big mistake. what they are offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. the american people want more than that. this reminds me of a story i heard from eloise anderson. she serves in the cabinet of scott water. she once met a young boy from a poor family. every day at school, he got a

free lunch from a government program. he told eloise he did not want a free lunch. he wanted his own lunch, one in a brown paper bag just like the other kids. he wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him. this is what the left does not understand. >> the problem with that? >> that story was part of a speech he gave to the conservative political action conference. it was widely picked up it was an evocative story about a boy who wants his lunch in a brown paper bag, not a government handout. i got interested in that. indeed, the woman he referred to testified before congress and said, i met a boy and this is what he said.

congressman ryan was indeed the chair of the committee when he heard that story. when i looked into it, it turns out she had never met such a boy. she got the story out of a book. it was not any kind of exchange that she actually had with a real person. it compounded -- the book she got it out of, the person who told the story was talking about 30 years ago when he made the comment. he now advocates on behalf of school lunches and against the paul ryan budget. the whole thing got twisted, in that he was using this story to say that the left does not understand why we would be left with an empty soul and a full stomach. it was all backwards. that is why a put it on the list. >> who gets the pinocchios?

>> i gave the pinocchios to the woman, eloise, as well as to congressman ryan because my feeling is the burden of proof is on the speaker, and it was up to congressman ryan to actually validate or verify this story before he retells it in a major speech. when i called the staff and told them that this is what i found out, even before i could publish my article, they rushed out with a facebook posting by ryan saying i made a mistake and should have verified the story. >> was that smart on his part to do that on facebook? >> probably. he got ahead of me. >> did you call eloise? what did she say? >> that she messed up, she should not have told the story. >> here is allison grimes,

beaten for the senate seat in kentucky. >> this is the big sandy power plant in kentucky. they are shutting off half the plants and laying off workers because mitch mcconnell did not fight. he pocketed $6,000 of enemies of coal, including new york city mayor michael bloomberg. the different -- difference between mitch and me is that i will fight for these jobs. no new york billionaire will ever buy me off. >> why would bloomberg be an issue in kentucky? >> this was one of the worst ads of the campaign year. on every level, it is false. from the scrubbers she mentions to the reference of michael bloomberg. bloomberg was often bandied about by the right, but also

occasionally by democrats running in red states. michael bloomberg comes off as a liberal new yorker, although he is an independent. he has funded groups that promote restrictions on gun rights, as well as groups that want to clean up the environment. so that is why he is an easy target in conservative parts of the country. what i thought was particularly a poly about the sad is that i had already rated the claim that he had taken $600,000 from anti-coal groups, as a four pinocchio whopper. that was based largely on money that his wife had gotten from being on the board of wealth -- wells fargo.

the former labor secretary was on a board affiliated with bloomberg. again, that had nothing to do with the environment or coal. because she had some connection with bloomberg, she was able to say bloomberg and anti-coal groups. she inflated the money to $60,000 because of the wells fargo money. i had already rated that as for pinocchio false. she goes on herself not as some unseen narrator, she repeats this thing, that she knows is absolutely false. the interesting thing about this ad is that it was never officially released on a youtube channel or on the website of allison grimes. instead, it aired on tv stations in huntington, west virginia. meaning, they were trying to get

it completely off the radar. it was in west virginia so it would get to the coal counties of kentucky, which would get that reception. in the end, she lost just about every coal county to mcconnell. that is the first time that has ever happened to a democrat. >> this is obviously confusing to someone who does not live in kentucky. because of the coal issue. there are a lot fewer coal miners in kentucky than there were just five years ago and 10 years ago. >> it was a big issue both in west virginia and kentucky, coal has been hit by the increasing popularity of natural gas and environmental regulations that the obama administration has done. it is certainly a very difficult industry in which to make a living. that is why it was a political issue. >> who got the original pinocchios?

the ad outfit that put it together, or her? >> the original pinocchios went to the grimes campaign that put out the ad. >> did you find out who actually produced the ad and came up with it? >> no, i do not do that. i have considered whether i should, at the end of the year when i do these campaign ads, also identify the ad maker. ultimately, it is the candidate's responsibility, at the end of the additives, i am alison grimes and i support this message. the candidate ultimately has response ability. >> here is another one. 30 seconds of a david perdue, who ran in georgia against michelle nunn. >> michelle nunn's own plans -- she has funded organizations linked to terrorists.

she is for amnesty, while experts say our border breakdown could provide an entry for groups like isis. >> of our country cannot protect its borders, what can it protect? to me, the answer is crystal layer. secure our borders enforce our laws, and once and for all forget amnesty. i am david purdue, i approve this message. >> anything wrong with that? >> the main aspect i fact checked was the thing at the very beginning, which talked about her own campaign plan said she funded terrorists. what was bizarre about that, is that her campaign plan, which was somehow leaked -- ordinarily, a campaign plan does not come out. it has a section there these are the bogus attacks that republicans will launch against you. one of the things they listed as a bogus attack was that she

financed terror groups. it is kind of strange to say her plans say she funded terrorist groups, win her plans said this will be a bogus attack. >> where would we -- where would they get that idea? >> she had been the head of the points of light foundation, a george h.w. bush foundation. the foundation had a thing through ebay, where you could direct charities to -- direct money to particular groups using ebay. points of light had nothing to do with that, but you could direct it to various groups. there was one group, called the islamic -- i forgot the name islamic something or other. it was a group that has been part of white house ceremonies. they got $30,000 through this

thing, this ebay thing that points of light set up. that is the so called terrorism connection. it is really lame, which is -- there is no evidence that this group had anything to do with terrorism. they just had the word islamic in their name. that is why the campaign plan said, this is a possible bogus attack that could be launched against you. >> to do find out who did this ad? >> no, i should find out. neil bush, the son of, had been chairman of points of light and supported david purdue. he put out a statement asking for the ad to be taken down. >> michelle nunn is the daughter of sam nunn, former georgia democratic senator. even purdue is the con it --

cousin of the former republican governor of georgia. >> she lost the election. this ad was effect it. -- effective. >> grimes lost the election, as well. is there any connection? >> they post lot -- most -- both lost the elections because they were democrats running in republican states. who is to tell at this point? the democrat allison grimes comes from a very prominent political family. the hope by the democrats was that these attractive, poised very accomplished women would with a political pedigree, be able to blunt the republican

wave. it did not work. >> we will come back to more of these in a second. i noticed that you have a son named hugo, who has done an apt for you -- an apt -- app for you. >> he is my middle child. he just graduated from high school. he did it on his own. it was a surprise to me. at this point it has 10,000 subscribers. it has a little pinocchio game where you can test whether or not you agree with the pinocchio rating i came up with. he did it when he was 16 years old. >> how'd you get to it? if you want to play with the app. >> it is designed for iphone and ipad. he likes apple a lot. he has not made an android

version. >> does he sell it? >> no, it is free. go to the apple store. >> kids or adults use it? >> it is adults. i have not seen data broken down by age, but it is for adults. i am proud of my son, it is actually quite good. >> did he talk to you before he did it, or did he just do it? >> i think he just kind of did it, then showed it to me with a presentation at home. it was definitely unusual. at the beginning the post was not sure what it thought about having an apt -- an app for a

reporter. they asked that it be taken out of the apple store. >> where is it now? >> it is still there. my son wrote to jeff bdeezos after he bought the post and got him to agree to allow the app to continue. >> your son sounds like -- i don't know thea word to use, aggressive? how would you explain. >> he is sure of himself, and he is very creative. i am proud of him, as i am proud of all my kids. >> you have also been to morocco lately. when did you go and why? >> i went in early december at the behest of the state department, because there is a group in morocco, a ngo, which

wants to set up a fact checking operation. they wanted some training on how to do fact checking. fact checking has become the rage around the world. before 2010, there were three organizations in the united states and one outside the united states. now, there are about 80 around the world. it is a really good entry point for journalism, particularly in countries where there is not much of a journalistic tradition or much of a democratic tradition. morocco is a pretty good -- difficult place to do fact checking. data is not available, and

certain issues are off-limits not fit for discussion. you do not talk about the monarchy or the western saha are a issue -- western sahara issue. i was telling people there that they can use this to build up not only journalistic expertise but bring out issues that resonate with ordinary people in morocco, such as the economy. there is a big debate on what to do with their version of social security. i think it is exciting to see how different groups around the world are latching onto the idea of fact checking as a way to advance journalism as well as advanced democracy. >> you said there were three in this country when it all started . how many are there now? >> there are three, there is

political fact -- politifact there is factcheck.org, and there is the fact checker. we are permanent, year-round operations. there are increasingly -- politifact has set up affiliates with local newspapers which try to do it year round. there is a station in north carolina that did great fact checking during a recent senate election. i think they will keep doing it on a regular basis. in arizona one of the arizona newspapers had no affiliation -- had an affiliation with the journalism school there. in the united states now, if you

add up the ones that pop up for elections and the permanent ones, it could well be 20 or 30. >> we will come back to this. first, we go to another ad, by the agenda project action fund. before we go there, can you tell us who they are? >> they are a left-leaning group that tends to run pretty out-their ads. they promote left-leaning causes. >> i checked online, the person that started it, erica payne? >> i don't know. >> it is the agenda project action fund. let's watch this and tell us what is wrong with this. >> washington actually can cut

spending. >> the cdc says it's discretionary funding has been cut by $585 million. the budget has been slashed since 2003, responding to an infectious disease threat. cut, cut. there are outrage happening today that we are not able to recognize, stop, and prevent as effectively as we could. cut, cut. cut, cut. [sound of breathing] >> what is wrong with that?

>> it is so broad brush. there are statistics in there about funding. in this case, in some cases congress increased the budget for agencies beyond what the obama administration asked for. republicans under george w. bush dramatically increased the budget to begin with. they were bipartisan votes, but supported the sequestration which is part of this. the notion that it is republicans who made the cuts and republicans are killing people because we do not have enough funding for ebola is outrageous. there was never a specific vote on ebola funding. but the way they run that ad, it is only republicans that are doing it. all they want to do is cut.

political discourse in washington is a little more new wants to than that. >> is this group a result of the citizens united? >> i don't recall. i don't know if they were something that -- >> they do not fund a candidate, right? >> they are issue advocacy ads, yes. >> next up is the nra ad with mary landrieu in louisiana. >> just like that the police cannot get there on time. how you defend yourself is up to you. it is your choice. mary landrieu voted to take away her gun rights. voted like your safety depends on it. the nra political victory fund

is responsible for this ad. >> this is a powerful ad. but it is completely false. the suggestion here is that the mother with the baby was probably killed by an intruder. and that mary landrieu had cast a vote that prevented the woman from protecting herself. when i looked into the ad, that was not the case at all. what they are referring to is the bipartisan vote in the senate that would have allowed -- it would've required more background checks for gun purchases. but it would not have prevented this woman from going out and buying a gun, even on short notice. that was something that the nra's lawyers confirm to me. i've rated it as one of the

worst ads of the year. >> she lost. >> yes. >> do you ever follow up on these? >> it is difficult to tell. mary landrieu lost badly. there was more going on there than just nra ads. you could only make a case that a particular ad made a difference if it is a really close race. >> more video. this is the president, november 2013. this is related to the 2014 pinocchio award for 500 filibusters. >> today's pattern of obstruction, it is not normal. it is not what our founders envisioned. a deliberate and determined effort to it obstruct everything, no matter the merits. this is not normal. for the sake of future

generations, we cannot let this become normal. >> what is that story? >> the president -- what i rated was a statement by the president that republicans had filibustered 500 pieces of legislation that would benefit the middle class. that was false. the technical definitions of a fraud buster -- eight filibuster , what he was actually doing was counting cloture votes. most of those votes had to do with executive branch traditional nominations, not legislation. the odd thing about that statistic of 500, if you would say 500 cloture votes, he was counting back to 2007 before he was president. in doing so, he was counting filibusters that he supported.

so, it was a very strange statistic for him to use. i rated him partially on that and partially because he is a former senator and he should know the difference tween -- between cloture votes and filibusters. >> what are your rules when you go about fact checking? went you call the participants? you mentioned earlier that paul ryan jumped the gun with his retraction on facebook. when do you call the white house and say, i've got you? >> i always try to get a comment. it is essentially -- i generally do some preliminary research to try and figure out where the statistic comes from. google is a wonderful search

engine, particularly if it is a very precise statistic. you put it in google, and apple come the think tank reports, or the something or other report from which the claim stems. then, i do preliminary research. i reach out to the office of the person i am checking to find out what their explanation is, what their take is. if i had not been able to find out where they got the information from, i will contact them and say, what is your proof? the burden of proof is on the speaker. it is not up to me to prove their statement. it is up to them. iss how good the evidence is. >> who kicks back the hardest around town? >> well, you mean -- >> who gets the maddest?

who protests the most when you are about to put one of these four pinocchios in the washington post? >> i would say, just speaking as a general matter, i think democrats tend to get a little more upset. i think they have bought into the myth of the liberal media and they think that the media is on their side. republicans firmly believe in the myth of the liberal media so they kind of expect that they are going to be -- a reporter from the washington post is calling, they are not going to be fair to me. i hope that's, over the last four years, i have done enough back and forth, and treated both parties with equal fervor, that

people have come to say, ok, you are someone that we can do business with. the senate majority pack, which is a fillet -- affiliated with harry reid stopped answering my questions midway through the campaign season. they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me. i would disagree. i did find that a lot of their ads were reprehensible, and i gave a lot of for pinocchios. at some point, they did not even bother to explain themselves. i think that is unfortunate. ask let me show some video of the communications director of the white house who was asked a question at a christian science monitor reporter's group meeting about cuba back in november. watch closely his body language and his reaction to the question

about that. >> i wanted to know the president is feeling more free whether he will include a review of cuba policy and a response to cuba? >> i do not have any news as to a new approach for cuba policy today, or any day. i don't know of anything -- i think we are always looking at all of our policies. thinking about cuba is always a part of our overall latin america policy. there is not any specific initiative. >> your reaction? >> this came up recently, a few weeks later the president announced sweeping new policy on cuba.

the explanation given by the white house was that, by using the phrase " no new specific initiative," he was referring to any initiative that came about after the election. their explanation for how he could get that answer is, the breakthrough with cuba actually started 18 months before. to be fair to dan pfeiffer, i do not think his boss would have been happy if he suddenly said, you got me, reporters. we are about to do this big deal with cuba, good question. he can't really do that. having covered this -- diplomacy for nearly a decade, i understand the need for discretion and secrecy in diplomatic matters.

>> what do you think the possibility is that he just did not know that they were not keeping him in the loop on that particular thing? >> i think he knew. he is enough in the hierarchy that he knew. considering that it was going on for 18 months -- don't forget, one of the secret negotiators was ben rhodes, a speechwriters -- a speechwriter who reports to dan pfeiffer. i would think he knew. there have been times when i have -- this was a clever way that he danced around the question. he was trying to provide an answer that would give no quote for any story. i'm not justifying it, but i understand his -- >> i am not sure, but isn't ben rhodes deputy to the national security council? >> he is a speechwriter, deputy to the national security advisor. dan pfeiffer is head of the

communications, maybe there is a dotted line connection there. obviously, speechwriters would be vetted ida communications director. i do not know specifically whether dan pfeiffer knew or not . my suspicion is that he would have known. he gave an answer that was designed to make absolutely no news. >> you gave a gepetto award which is, what? >> a true and correct fact. >> you gave it to senator john barrasso, republican from wyoming. >> you will have to remind me. >> how many do you do a year? >> four or five. i made -- i gave one to obama. i do not remember this one specifically. >> this is about jonathan

gruber. the headline is, did gruber earn almost $400,000 from the obama administration? before we talk about this -- and this was done november 14 if i am reading this correctly. here is what i want you to see the testimony of jonathan gruber after you had done all of this at the hearing on the house side. >> i think i have a question for mr. gruber. >> i was informed that i should report all federal moneys received for the previous fiscal years and this fiscal year. i received no federal -- >> i don't care what you informed. how much did taxpayers, state or federal, pay you to have you lie to them cap?? >> total? >> this has been a five-year ordeal.

>> i do not recall the total. >> he never did answer the question. on the advice of his attorneys apparently. >> you found two point $2 million that he has earned from the feds and from the state? how did you do this? >> a lot of the contracts are publicly available. publicly available for review. >> shouldn't they all be? >> presumably. it was easy to find the federal contracts. oddly, when i was trying to check the senators assertion that it was nearly $400,000, one of the contract was missing. i could not find it. to gruber's credit, he got back to me when i reached out to him, saying, i cannot find this one contract which seems that it should exist. he confirmed that he did receive

that money. now, he has obviously lawyered up, and has been told by his lawyers, do not talk about this issue. luckily, i was able to get to him before he stopped returning e-mails. >> the first four months of the contract, it could not be found on the fedbizop.gov website. what is that? >> you can find not only contracts that have been issued but also contracts that they are seeking to fill. these contracts, for gruber, if you go and look at them and you look at the original bid quotas, they basically tailored it so there is only one person in the country that could possibly bid for that contract. >> that was what his expertise was. and you go on to point out --

you call it, the gruber micro-simulation model for health care. michigan you said, paid him $481,000, and other states paid him a lot of money as well. i saw a story the other day, it was over $5 million total. >> right. vermont -- after this controversy or update, i think vermont announced they were going to stop paying him. he created an economic model that was really close -- the reason the administration wanted his expertise was, his model was very close to what the congressional budget office does when it runs simulations about the impact of various health care decisions. so they were able to use his model to get a pretty good sense as to how the health care law will be scored by cbo.

the congressional budget office, it was very important in terms of hitting certain marks. they did not want to increase the deficit. quakes -- >> here is what jonathan gruber got in trouble for. >> in terms of subsidies, if you had a law saying healthy people are going to be in and sit people get money, it would not have passed. a lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. basically, the stupidity of the american voter or whatever. that was critical in getting it passed. >> we passed on insurance companies. it ends up being the same thing. it is a very clever exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the american voter.

>> comment. >> what is interesting there -- those comments, i would say they explain the rationale as to why fact checking has become such a thing in this country and around the world. essentially, politicians are salesmen. in order to win support for their policies, they will betray those policies in ways where they will accentuate the good and minimize the bad. what gruber is saying there, is that if they had framed what was happening with the health care law in terms of, particularly in explicit economic terms, it would have been difficult to get that passed. there had to be some salesmanship there. certain things were emphasized.

one of the things the president got in trouble with, which we talked about was his claim, if you like your health plan, you can keep it. that was part of the sales job. that line was born of the fact that they were very aware of the fact that clinton -- hillary clinton -- when she tried to reform health care she got in huge trouble because people were afraid they would lose their doctors. this time, they decided to change the way they sold it. but for to put we do as fact checkers is explain to voters what is actually happening beyond the salesmanship. >> at the beginning i mentioned that, when we talked three years ago, you said you did not like to accuse people of lying. i thought it might be interesting -- why don't you? let me ask you that first. >> i find that i cannot -- i

don't want to put myself in someone's head. look at paul ryan. that was a mistake on his part. i don't think he was intentionally telling a false story. alison grimes, in that case, she knew what she was saying and she should have been alerted to the fact that it was false. she said it anyway. generally, i do not want to get into people's heads and say this is clearly a lie. >> i did not realize there were so many ways to lie until i got onto wikipedia. under the site titled "lie" a lie is an intentionally false statement by -- made by a person or group who knows that it is not the truth. how does that fit in with what you see going on in this town? >> i see instances where it

seems like people are saying things where they should at least know they are false. that might fit the definition. >> there is such a thing is barefaced lying, bluffing contextualize, bad faith, as defined by sartre, is failing to knowledge one's own ability to act and determine the possibilities falling back in the determinations of the barest various historical -- which has produced one as if they received one's freedom to do so. it is a little comic -- comp located. a barefaced lie is one that is obviously a lie to those hearing it. this comes from the 17th century british usage talking about how people without facial hair act in a -- an unconcealed way.

>> there are instances -- one of the things i rated as but -- a big pinocchio is when rand paul said that john mccain posed for pictures with islamist state terrorists. that is completely false. no evidence to support it. the -- but he said it. >> a big lie, a lie that attempts to trick the victim into believing something major will let the -- eventually be contradicted by information. how often do you see that happen? >> that is an important part of what happens at congressional debates. my competitor, politifact, does

a lie of the year. one year, they picked the lie that the affordable care act was a government takeover of health care. said constantly, not really true . a government takeover, like socialism? that law works very much within the current employer-based health care system which has grown up in this country since the 1950's. >> this is one of my favorites. lie to children. you have had three children. it was your reaction to this one. nothing to do with the government. elijah children is a lie often a platitude which may use euphemisms which is told to make an adult subject acceptable to children like, the stork brought you in response to childbirth.

>> i was thinking of santa claus. i half to admit i was reluctant about the notion of santa claus. i thought, that is kind of a lie to my kids. i called up my sister who had children before we did, and said, i am worried about this lying about santa claus thing. she said, you are being ridiculous. they are kids. they read books about talking animals and things like that. they have vivid imaginations. forget about it. let them have santa claus. >> so you did. >> i did. and i don't think they really held it against us. they figured it out on their own at some point, that it was made up. >> glenn kessler is the fact checker for the washington post.

you can find him in the newspaper and on the washington post website. >> for free transcripts or to comments, visit us. programs are also available as podcasts. >> "culinary" is 10 years old and multidigit, we are featuring 100 from each europe to mark deducted, we are featuring one interview from each decade. this movie tells a story using security camera