White House Deletes Tweet Crediting Biden for Social Security Increase After Twitter Adds Fact-Check Note — KJP: “The Tweet Was Not Complete”

On 11/2/2022, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre why the White House had deleted a tweet that credited “President Biden’s leadership” for the 2023 Social Security cost-of-living increase. Twitter had added a contextual note to the tweet explaining that the increase was automatic and driven by inflation, not presidential action. The reporter asked whether the tweet was removed because of the fact-check note or “because of the concern about the veracity of the message.” KJP claimed “the tweet was not complete” and lacked “context” — but never explained how additional context would have changed the fundamental problem: Biden was taking credit for an automatic inflation adjustment that was caused by the very inflation crisis his policies helped create.

The Deleted Tweet

The White House had posted a tweet claiming that the 8.7% increase in Social Security benefits for 2023 was the result of “President Biden’s leadership.” The tweet was designed to appeal to seniors — a critical voting bloc — days before the midterm elections, framing the largest Social Security increase in decades as a Biden achievement.

Twitter’s community notes feature — which allowed users to add contextual information to misleading tweets — appended a note explaining that Social Security increases are determined by a statutory formula tied to the Consumer Price Index, not by presidential action. The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is automatic: when inflation rises, benefits increase proportionally to maintain purchasing power. No president has the authority to set or influence the COLA amount.

The community note effectively fact-checked the White House on the platform the White House used to distribute the claim. Rather than leave the corrected tweet visible, the White House deleted it — removing both the original claim and the correction from public view.

”The Tweet Was Not Complete”

KJP’s explanation was carefully worded. “The tweet was not complete. Usually, when we put out a tweet, we post it with context, and it did not have that context,” KJP said.

The explanation raised more questions than it answered. What “context” was missing? If the White House had included the context that Social Security increases are automatic and tied to inflation, the tweet would have been an acknowledgment that Biden’s inflation was forcing larger cost-of-living adjustments — hardly the message the administration wanted to convey.

The “not complete” framing suggested the tweet needed additional language to make the credit-taking less transparent, not that the fundamental claim was wrong. A “complete” version of the tweet would presumably have still credited Biden while adding enough caveats to avoid a fact-check note — a distinction between a lie of omission and a lie of commission.

Was It the Note or the Veracity?

The reporter’s question was precisely constructed. “Was it removed because of the addition of a note, or was it removed because of the concern about the veracity of the message in the tweet?” the reporter asked.

KJP never directly answered which it was. If the tweet was removed because of the community note, it meant the White House was willing to make the claim when it went unchallenged but not when it was publicly corrected — a tacit admission that the claim couldn’t withstand scrutiny. If it was removed because of “veracity” concerns, it meant the White House had posted something it later recognized as false — raising questions about the vetting process for official presidential communications.

Either answer was damaging, which explained why KJP chose a third option: “the tweet was not complete” — a formulation that addressed neither the note nor the veracity question.

Biden’s Social Security Boast

The deleted tweet was connected to Biden’s November 1 speech in Hallandale Beach, Florida, where he had made the same claim in person. “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,” Biden said. “So, checks are going to be up.”

Biden’s framing — “on my watch” and “for the first time in 10 years” — implied presidential causation. The claim that it was “the first time in 10 years” was misleading: Social Security benefits had increased in 9 of the 10 previous years, with the only exception being years when inflation was near zero. The 2023 increase was larger than previous years specifically because inflation was higher than previous years — at 8.7%, it was the largest COLA since 1981.

Biden was bragging about the size of the increase without acknowledging its cause. The COLA was large because inflation was severe. Seniors were getting bigger checks because their purchasing power had been eroded by 40-year-high inflation. The increase didn’t make seniors richer — it attempted to keep them from falling further behind.

How the COLA Works

The Social Security COLA is determined by a formula established in 1975. Each year, the Social Security Administration compares the average Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the third quarter of the current year to the third quarter of the previous year. If the CPI-W has increased, benefits are adjusted upward by the corresponding percentage.

No president sets the COLA. No president can increase or decrease it. No presidential “leadership” is involved in the calculation. The formula runs automatically based on inflation data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Biden’s “leadership” had no more effect on the Social Security increase than any other president’s — the increase was a mathematical consequence of the inflation rate.

The irony was profound: the mechanism Biden was taking credit for was specifically designed to protect seniors from the effects of inflation. The larger the COLA, the worse inflation had been. Biden bragging about a historically large COLA was, in effect, bragging about historically high inflation.

The Twitter Dynamic

The incident occurred during a period of intense political scrutiny of Twitter. Elon Musk had just completed his acquisition of the platform in late October 2022, and the community notes feature — originally called “Birdwatch” — was gaining prominence as a crowd-sourced fact-checking tool.

The White House’s decision to delete a tweet rather than accept a community note correction set a precedent for how the administration would interact with platform-level fact-checking. Previous administrations had occasionally posted inaccurate or misleading content on social media; the novelty was a real-time correction visible to all users that the White House couldn’t control.

The deletion also raised transparency concerns. Government communications on official channels are generally considered public records. Deleting a tweet after it was fact-checked removed both the original claim and the correction from the public record — leaving only screenshots and media coverage as evidence of what was originally posted.

Key Takeaways

• The White House deleted a tweet crediting Biden for the 2023 Social Security increase after Twitter added a contextual note explaining the increase was automatic and inflation-driven.
• KJP said “the tweet was not complete” — but never explained what context would have changed the fundamental problem of taking credit for an automatic formula.
• Biden had bragged at a Florida rally that “for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase” — the increase was the largest since 1981 specifically because inflation was at 40-year highs.
• The Social Security COLA is a statutory formula tied to the CPI — no president sets it, influences it, or deserves credit for it.
• The deletion removed both the original misleading claim and Twitter’s correction from the public record.

Transcript Highlights

The following is transcribed from the video audio (unverified — AI-generated from audio).

• The White House removed a tweet that talked about the increase in Social Security benefits in 2023 through President Biden’s leadership.
• Was it removed because of the addition of a note or because of the concern about the veracity of the message?
• The tweet was not complete. Usually when we put out a tweet, we post it with context and it did not have that context.
• On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors getting an increase in their Social Security checks.
• Checks are going to be up.
• The tweet was not complete.

Full transcript: 126 words transcribed via Whisper AI.