"If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/11/jd-vances-claim-that-biden-is-targeting-maga-voters-with-fentanyl/?utm_campaign=wp_fact_checker&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_fact&utm_source=reddit.com

“If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl? … It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him and opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it.”

— GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance, in an interview with Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, April 29

Shortly before he won the Republican primary for Ohio’s Senate race, Vance made this startling observation. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and a conservative commentator, argued that President Biden’s border policies had reverberated across the country, allowing not only undocumented immigrants but also deadly drugs to flow into the country — with a nefarious purpose. He suggested that Biden was intentionally allowing drugs such as fentanyl to flood the United States with the intention of trying to kill supporters of former president Donald Trump in the “heartland” of the country.

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Taylor van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, sent us a copy of an ABC News report showing that opioid overdose deaths between 2019 and 2021 among teenagers ages 14 to 18 rose more rapidly than the general population, mainly because of fentanyl. The article was based on a research note that analyzed CDC data and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study showed the rate of deaths (2.36 per 100,000) had jumped sharply to 4.57 per 100,000 in 2020 and to 5.49 per 100,000 in early 2021. But the report only covered the first few months of Biden’s term and, yet again, showed the big jump in deaths occurred under Trump.

The Pinocchio Test

In just about every way, Vance’s outrage at Biden is misplaced. Fentanyl seizures have increased, not fallen, under Biden. Overdose deaths jumped sharply under Trump. As for Trump voters being supposedly targeted, people of color die at a higher rate from opioids than Whites.


.......SNIP"