Aren’t TV Anchors Obliged To Call Out Trump’s Lies? What About Biden's

Like Trump, Biden can't control his tendency to blatantly lie

Alexander Hefter raised some important considerations for the 2020 cycle. Two of the leading candidates, Trump and Biden are compulsive liars. Yet the mainstream corporate media lets them both slip by with lie after lie. (Of course Trump is worse, but Biden lies far more than acceptable from even a politician and more than anyone else running other than Trump.) the media has been normalizing “a habitually deceitful president,” he wrote, “in return for the perception of access. We saw this again Sunday, as some gloated about a groundbreaking presidential North Korea landing without appropriate context. A historic betrayal of American values and acquiescence to authoritarianism would be more accurate.”

In a climate in which he has bashed senselessly their hosts, ABC and NBC chose to invite Trump back to the mainstream and legitimize his hateful rhetoric. They seem intent on giving a platform to the only president to call journalists the enemy of the people (which alone makes Trump the most un-American, anti-constitutionalist president in U.S. history).

In Trump’s recent Time magazine cover interview, there was a revealing postscript: “There’s no question Trump has significant advantages as he looks ahead to the re-election fight, beginning with time and money and the biggest megaphone on the planet.” Yes, but the media makes the megaphone so. And it must not.

Some broadcasters are exhibiting more discretion, and the public shows signs of tuning Trump out. According to ratings, Celebrity Family Feud bested the recent ABC News interview special. But that won’t stop some programmers from trying to revive the circus of 2016 for new ratings heights, and Trump will continue to profit if the press amplifies rather than diminishes his pollution of the public square.

In seeking to reach beyond his base, Trump wants to expand anew his lies to a non-loyalist audience, entrap the press in false equivalencies, and replicate his incestuous mainstream coverage from 2016. As Lawrence O’Donnell commented recently about Trump surrogates on television, “I’ve never understood the value of putting someone on television to lie, knowing that they’re going to lie ahead of time, knowing that that is their deal: to lie ahead of time. That is their deal.”

Some in the press are easily sucked back into what we might call the presidential restraint narrative— the misguided idea that “Trump is coming to his senses.” First it was his decision to pause military engagement with Iran. Next, his decision to stop ICE raids to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted about Trump’s empowerment: “A source told me 30 minutes ago that [he] was pleased with his own performance last night, loved being in command by ordering the strikes and by then ordering the stand-down.” The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Bender added: “After 29 mos. in office, Trump repeatedly has shown that— contrary to his reputation in domestic politics— he’s much more cautious on military matters.”

Heftner never mentioned Biden. It was just Trump, Trump, Trump. Maybe he’s a Democrat or a #NeverTrump Republican. But the last time I checked, 84% of Trump’s public utterances were lies. And 50% of Biden’s were too. Neither is fit to be president. The GOP is stuck with Trump. The Democrats can still save themselves from Biden.

And as long as we’re talking about lies… Trump was at it again in South Korea Sunday, where he told U.S. troops he had given them their first pay increase in almost a decade. “And, you know, one thing I didn’t mention: You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years.” That’s a bold-faced lie. From 2008-2016 U.S. troops got a pay raise every single year. Obama was president at the time.