(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . NYT Calls Trump's Claim of Fake Crowds "Wild Accusations" [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-11 The media dam is starting to break, and Trump is standing (or something) right downstream. There is a top diary up now: TRUMP'S DEMENTIA Dives Deeper as He Spews Conspiracy Theories About Kamala Harris Crowds at Airports, and some of the comments there are complaining that the WaPo article on it (Trump falsely accuses Harris campaign of fabricated AI crowd photos) didn’t hit hard enough; it should have questioned The Orange Felon’s mental state, much as they did Biden’s. Well, WaPo did quote David Plouffe, about 5 paragraphs down: David Plouffe, a senior adviser for Kamala Harris for President, expressed concern on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, about Trump’s comments. “These are not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet,” Plouffe wrote. “The author could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades.” WaPo did not challenge Plouffe’s concerns, or water them down, or provide a “bothsides” comment nor any comment from the Trump team. They also reminded the readers of Trump’s history of lies, including the 30,000+ plus that they documented during his presidency. And they spent most of the article providing evidence after evidence that the rally was real. Still, they could have and should have thrown in a few thoughts about the Mangled One’s mental state other than quoting a Harris campaign operative. The New York Times was — for a change — more blunt: Trump Falsely Claims That the Crowds Seen at Harris Rallies Are Fake. Former President Donald J. Trump has taken his new obsession with the large crowds that Vice President Kamala Harris is drawing at her rallies to new heights, falsely declaring in a series of social media posts on Sunday that she had used artificial intelligence to create images and videos of fake crowds. [emphasis added] (Well, it’s not new, but let’s not quibble; they used the word “obsession.” Also, this paragraph changed while I was putting the diary together; this is the current wording, and the earlier one was also pretty strong.) Further down, they reported on how Harris knows just how to get under Trump’s skin and exactly how she is doing it — and in the process threw in a zinger: The Harris campaign has begun to mock Mr. Trump for his frustration over her crowds, one of which, it said, topped 15,000 people at an event in the Phoenix area on Friday. . . . Ms. Harris’s campaign went on Mr. Trump’s social network to mock his wild accusations, replying to one of his posts by sharing a video of Air Force Two arriving in Detroit to an enormous crowd and her exiting the plane with Mr. Walz. “In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump: This is what a rally in a swing state looks like,” her campaign wrote. [emphasis added] This is a news story, by the way, not an opinion. I don’t know whether diaries like these on dKos and commentators like Lawrence O’Donnell and Jennifer Rubin are having an effect, but I plan to keep it up just in case. I also suspect the Times is not pleased that Trump yelled at one of its reporters for digging up the truth about that helicopter ride. Or maybe it’s dawned on them that they will likely not stay in business under another Trump term. Whatever works. PS: Back on July 11, the Times did publish this lead editorial, which stayed on the front page for a couple of days: Donald Trump Is Unfit to Lead. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/11/2262483/-NYT-Calls-Trump-s-Claim-of-Fake-Crowds-Wild-Accusations?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/