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CBS gives Vance free rein to go unchecked in VP debate

Gillberg
CBS gives Vance free rein to go unchecked in VP debate

Facts are for losers, and fact checking makes Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular SUPER angry. So the network definitely made the right decision not to expose lies.

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Great news for people who like to lie: CBS News is not allowing its vice presidential debate moderators to engage in fact-checking.

This is an excellent decision. First of all, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is severely allergic to facts — that’s a fact — and no one wants to see Tuesday night’s debate stopped midway while aides to the Republican vice presidential nominee rush the stage to jab him with EpiPens .

More importantly, facts are for losers and fact checking is driving Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular SUPER crazy.

Republicans rightly believe that all fact-checkers should be locked up

At the first presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis corrected four of Trump’s roughly 18 million lies. That led to GOP pundits and lawmakers, and of course Trump himself, collectively freaking out over what they saw as a completely unwarranted act of journalism.

The CEO of the online right-wing falsehood factory called The Federalist calmly and rationally posted on social media: “Revoke ABC’s broadcast license and criminally charge its anchors and executives with campaign finance fraud.”

The audacity of these journalists to correct Trump when he repeated the racist and completely fabricated claim that legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating people’s pets. Such real-time fact-checking is definitely a crime as long as you live in a world where presenting facts is a crime. If Trump were president, these moderators would have been arrested immediately. (And that’s a fact.)

Opinion: Trump’s GOP excuses racists, idiots and criminals. There is no more ground.

CBS News has caved to the Trump campaign and will not fact-check the vice president debate

Apparently, the CBS News vice presidential debate moderators heard the grievances of the former president and his supporters loud and clear and then bravely caved to the smart and far from autocratic advocates of rapid-fire dishonesty.

Claudia Milne, senior vice president of standards and practices at CBS News, told The New York Times: “The goal of the debate is to facilitate a good debate between the candidates, and the moderators will give them the opportunity to challenge each other on facts to check.” in real time.”

The network provides online fact checks, cleverly avoiding calling any of the candidates to task mid-lie during the live event and ensuring fewer people learn the truth.

It’s a device that allows Vance – who only lies when he uses nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs – to say whatever he wants while his Democratic opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, pushes him through The diving mask he wears can be fact-checked to avoid drowning in Vance’s duplicity.

A possible exchange in a fact-check-free vice president debate

Here’s a hypothetical example of how the NO FACT CHECKING ALLOWED debate might go:

Vance: “Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for an end to the child tax credit, and I think that’s terrible.”

Moderators: “Governor. Walz, your rebuttal?”

Walz: “Well, that’s just demonstrably false. The Vice President has always supported the tax credit for children and even wants to expand it. Senator Vance is lying again and you are simply allowing him to say things that are objectively false without any resistance.”

Moderators: “OK.”

Vance: “Tim Walz also likes to eat cats. His neighbors say they had to stop getting cats because the governor kept stealing and eating them. He regularly hosted barbecues where he and his fellow Satanists ate cats.”

Moderators: “Governor. Walz, your answer?”

Walz: “My answer? Are you kidding me? He just makes up crap!!!”

Moderators: “OK. Next question…”

Trump is already spreading election denial nonsense

This is exactly how an important political debate should play out at a time when a political party largely exists in a fantasy world that bears no resemblance to reality.

For example, CNN reported on Monday that Trump “has made at least 12 clearly false claims over the past two months that cast unfounded doubt on the validity of a potential victory for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Under the Trump-world/ABC News theory that fact-checking is evil, the people responsible for this CNN report should be arrested and prosecuted for crimes of dishonesty, and the network’s broadcast license should be revoked.

Why fact check people who are constantly making things up?

Also on Monday, Trump visited Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Helene and said of the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp: “The governor is doing a good job, but he’s having a hard time getting the president on the phone. “They’re very unresponsive.”

Opinion: Trump lied about mail-in voting. Now the Republican Party is spending millions to fix his mess.

However, earlier in the day, Kemp himself said he had spoken to President Joe Biden on Sunday: “He offered that if there are other things we just have to call him directly, which I really appreciate.”

Should Trump’s Comment Be Fact-Checked? Of course not. It is up to the people to decide when a politician is lying. It’s probably in the Bible and the US Constitution, and I’m sure it’s mentioned repeatedly in Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic work, Democracy in America.

Tim Walz should lie like crazy in the debate. 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, “The greatest form of democracy is believing whatever you want to believe.” Post that (expletive) on my Insta!”

So kudos to CBS News for having the patriotic and journalistic common sense to give in to the political party that fears fact-checking most.

And good luck to Governor Walz, who was supposed to fight fire with fire with his first sentence: “Good evening. My opponent JD Vance, who we know is romantically involved with a paisley sofa, single-handedly murdered 143 circus clowns.”

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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