Good news for people who like lies. CBS News won’t allow vice presidential debate moderators to fact-check anything.
That’s a great decision. First of all, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has a severe allergy to facts, and it’s true that the Republican vice presidential nominee’s aides rushed to the stage to tell him No one wants Tuesday night’s debate to be cut short while EpiPens are being administered.
More importantly, facts are for losers, and fact checking super infuriates Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular.
Republicans rightly believe that all fact checkers should be locked up.
During the first presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, ABC News hosts David Muir and Lindsay Davis corrected four of Trump’s approximately 18 million lies. This caused a collective outrage among Republican pundits, members of Congress, and, of course, Trump himself, who deemed it a completely unfair journalistic act.
The CEO of an online right-wing lie factory called The Federalist calmly and rationally posted on social media, “I am revoking ABC’s broadcast license and charging its hosts and executives with campaign finance fraud.” ” he posted.
The audacity of journalists who tried to correct President Trump when he repeated his racist and completely fabricated claim that Haitian legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets. As long as we live in a world where presenting facts is considered a criminal act, such real-time fact-checking is definitely a crime. If Trump were president, those hosts would have been arrested on the spot. (And that’s true.)
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CBS News bows to Trump campaign and won’t fact-check vice presidential debate
Clearly, the hosts of the CBS News vice presidential debate heard the grievances of the former president and his supporters loud and clear, and then proceeded to address the purveyors of the wise, not at all dictatorial, rapid-fire misbehavior. Bravely surrendered.
Claudia Milne, senior vice president of standards and practices at CBS News, told the New York Times: In real time. ”
The network provides fact-checking online and wisely avoids placing blame on either candidate during live events, ensuring fewer people know the truth.
This is because Mr. Vance, who lies only when using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, can say whatever he wants, while his Democratic opponent, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, tells the truth behind a scuba mask. This is a setting so that you can check it. Wear it so you don’t fall for Vance’s duplicity.
Possible exchange at vice presidential debate without fact-checking
Below is a hypothetical example of how the anti-fact-checking argument might go.
Vance: “Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for repeal of the child tax credit, which I think is a terrible thing.”
Moderator: “Government. Waltz, what’s your rebuttal?”
Walz: “Well, that’s obviously false. The Vice President has always supported the child tax credit and, in fact, wants to expand it. Senator Vance is lying again, but you don’t think he’s objective It just allows people to say things that are false without any resistance.”
Moderator: “Okay.”
Vance: “And Tim Walz loves to eat cats. Neighbors say they had to stop keeping cats because the governor was always stealing them and eating them.” regularly held barbecues and ate cat with fellow Satanists.
Moderator: “Government. Waltz, what’s your response?”
Waltz: “My response? Are you kidding? He’s just bullshit!!!”
Moderator: “Okay. Next question is…”
Trump has already started spewing election denial nonsense.
In an age when a political party largely exists in a fantasy world that bears no resemblance to reality, this is exactly how important political debates should be conducted.
For example, CNN said Monday that President Trump has “made at least 12 demonstrably false claims over the past two months that raise unfounded doubts about the legitimacy of a potential victory by Vice President Kamala Harris.” Reported.
Following the Trump World/ABC News theory that fact-checking is bad, those responsible for CNN’s reporting should be arrested and prosecuted for misconduct, and the network should have its broadcast license revoked. .
Why fact-check people who always make things up?
Also on Monday, President Trump visited Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Helen and said of the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp: “The governors are doing a good job, but they’re having a hard time calling the president. They’re very unresponsive.”
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But Kemp himself said earlier in the day that he had spoken to President Joe Biden on Sunday, saying, “He told me if I had anything else to do, I could call him directly, which I appreciate.” .
Should President Trump’s comments be fact-checked? Of course not. It is the people who decide when politicians are lying. It’s probably in the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, and I think it’s mentioned repeatedly in Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic work, Democracy in America.
Tim Walz should lie like crazy in debates. Who will stop him?
Americans don’t need fancy “news” organizations to help them separate fact from fiction. In fact, they don’t even need to know that there is a difference between fact and fiction.
I believe it was none other than President George Washington who once said this. “The greatest form of democracy is believing whatever you want to believe. Post that (expletive) on my Instagram!”
So kudos to CBS News for having the patriotism and journalistic decency to capitulate helplessly to the party most afraid of fact-checking.
And I wish Governor Walz the best of luck. In his opening line, he says, “Good evening. My opponent, J.D. Vance, who I know has a love affair with a paisley sectional, has single-handedly murdered 143 circus clowns.”
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Hupke on X (formerly Twitter). @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk