(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump Lies - and the Media Is Reporting It [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-08 The media does have a lot to answer for. (I’m adopting the singular today. Tomorrow may be different.) Back in 2015, they thought Trump was funny but didn’t take him seriously. Then they wanted a horse race so as to drive up clicks and reads. They normalized his rants, his raves, his ramblings. This year, a lot of the media piled onto President Biden after that disastrous debate performance and largely left Trump alone, though he was almost as bad. But . . . Google (or Duck-Duck-Go, in my case) “Trump lies” and “Trump falsehoods” these days and you get a different picture. Start with today’s Merde-A-Lago sh!t show: CNN: Trump attacks Harris and Walz during first news conference since Democratic ticket was announced Former President Donald Trump on Thursday repeatedly demeaned opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “barely competent,” and made a string of false and often confusing claims about her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. [the lede paragraph; emphasis added] And some clips from the aggregated CNN Politics: Fact check: Trump falsely claims there was "just about no inflation" during his administration Fact check: Trump falsely claimed that he signed the largest tax cut in history Fact check: Trump tries to distance himself from calls about Hillary Clinton to "lock her up" Fact check: Trump falsely claims Harris "couldn’t pass her bar exam" Fact check: Trump falsely claims that "nobody was killed on Jan. 6" Fact check: Trump falsely claims Democrats will force everyone to buy an electric car if they win election Fact check: Trump exaggerates the role energy prices had on inflation Fact check: Trump falsely claims migrants are being deliberately sent from jails and mental health facilities Fact check: Trump falsely claims Harris was "border czar" under Biden administration And they reported the Harris/Walz response: “The facts were hard to track and harder to find in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago meltdown this afternoon. He lied. He attacked the media. He made excuses for why he’s off the campaign trail,” a statement from the Harris campaign read. New York Times: Fact Checking Trump’s Mar-a-Lago News Conference False: 9, lacks evidence: 2, misleading: 2, exaggerated: 2, needs context: 1. (The list may be updated.) WaPo (opinion by Karen Tumulty): What Trump chooses to obscure reveals the truth “Unhinged” has become a shopworn word in the years since Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower. But the former president’s hour-long news conference on Thursday afternoon from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida might have been a new personal best. . . . [T]he former president on Thursday veered from grievance to grievance like a pinball. As he took questions from the media, desperation was practically oozing from his pores. And without the cheers of a rally crowd punctuating his rambling monologue, the incoherence of what he had to say was all the more apparent. LA Times: In rambling news conference, Trump lashes out at Harris, agrees to Sept. 10 debate In a rambling 65-minute exchange with reporters, the former president lobbed a string of insults at Harris, repeated wild and misleading claims and portrayed the U.S. in stark, apocalyptic terms: "We could literally be on the throes of the Depression," he said. "We are in great danger of being in World War III." Parkersburg (WVa) News and Sentinel: Trump recommits to a Sept. 10 debate at news conference, lashes out at Harris Donald Trump gave an hourlong news conference Wednesday in which he recommitted to debating Vice President Kamala Harris and taunted her while also repeating old falsehoods and lashing out at questions about the enthusiasm her campaign is receiving. [emphasis added] Arizona Republic: Finally, Trump and Harris agree to debate. Great. Let's get weird Harris by default will be different. Certainly, she seems more prepared to counter the lies Trump leaned into in the first debate; for whatever reason, Biden never really took that bait. It will also be interesting to see how Trump behaves with her as his opponent. Remember when he stalked behind Hillary Clinton during a debate? [emphasis added] Daily Express US: Panicking Trump 'lies' about his crowd sizes in rambling press conference - 'lost it' HuffPost posted on Yahoo News: Donald Trump Jr. Spreads Weird And Gross Lie About Gov. Tim Walz USAToday: Trump's press conference was more of what you'd expect from him: Rambling nonsense And this one’s fun: HuffPost: Social Media Reacts To Donald Trump's Wackadoodle Press Conference And some of the many earlier stories from the past week or so: NYT: Trump Elevates False, Fringe Attacks on Harris to Center of His Campaign Ashville (NC) Citizen-Times: Opinion: Trump's lies, indecency, dictator qualities make him unfit for presidency Chicago Sun-Times: Trump lies about Kamala Harris' race, bashes moderator at Black journalists convention in Chicago Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Donald Trump renews 2020 election lies in Atlanta and sows doubts for 2024 Washington Monthly: Data Don’t Lie: Harris Has the Facts to Refute Trump’s Lies About the Economy It’s not all great, not by a long shot. There’s still reporting and commentary out there that Trump wasn’t that bad (faint praise being the best they can do), and the false stories about Walz’s military service is still stinking up the place. But it’s better than it was, and if we keep pointing that out, it will get better still. The media is smelling blood in the water, and that is one of the main things that drives them. No wonder Trump is so afraid of sharks. And a final touch from the Panicked One’s niece: Mary Trump's Response to Mar-a-Lago Press Conference Goes Viral (Newsweek): [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/8/2261759/-Trump-Lies-and-the-Media-Is-Reporting-It?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/