The following scenario has been playing out once a week or so in recent months.
Donald Trump calls into Morning Joe. He makes several statements that are so transparently false that a 6th grader would spot them as lies.
Mika and Joe nod and smile as they listen to Mr. Trump. They don’t ever — not ever challenge him on his statements.
Or, in the alternative they simply do not ask him questions about lies he has told in his speeches or on other TV shows.
One that I recall from last fall when Trump was when he was speechifying about the unemployment rate.
The number isn't reflective. I've seen numbers of 24 percent -- I actually saw a number of 42 percent unemployment. Forty-two percent.
5.3 percent unemployment -- that is the biggest joke there is in this country. … The unemployment rate is probably 20 percent, but I will tell you, you have some great economists that will tell you it's a 30, 32. And the highest I've heard so far is 42 percent."
How should an interviewer respond
Assuming that you believe (lol) in Trump’s acumen in employment math, there are a number of questions that an actual reporter could ask.
- Where did you see this 42% figure?
- Did you see it from only one source?
- Have you (or anyone on your team) done anything to fact check it?
- Are you suggesting that today’s unemployment rate is 17 points higher than during the great depression when it peaked at 25% in 1933
- In Bush’s last month, the unemployment rate was 7.8%. Are you suggesting that there are 5 times more unemployed people in 2015?
- How do you think that the Obama administration got the low-mid level employees to falsify the data?
I could go on, but you get the point.
Now — to be fair, it is not just Mika and Joe who let him get away with it. From what I’ve seen, no one has challenged him on this in an interview.
Sure there have been many reports about this falsehood — but only second hand. It’s been reported, just as I am doing, that his claims are not only false — they seem to be intentional lies. No one seems to ask him directly to go into any detail.
This is only one example. We all know about the dozens of other falsehoods he spews.
The reason I am focused on Ms. Brzezinski and company is this.
When challenged on letting him get away with this, she dodges the question by changing the topic.
Instead of offering an explanation for the sucking up, she falls back to the position that she and Joe are not giving special treatment to Trump. They would welcome ANY of the candidates to phone in on a daily basis. She actually commented that he was the most accessible of all the candidates.
So to be clear Mika,,,,
We aren’t complaining that you don’t provide access to other candidates. We are complaining that in your interviews, you nod and smile when Trump says things that you know he is lying about.
Why do you let him repeatedly lie to your face on national television?
Huff post, ran an excellent piece yesterday regarding how Edward R. Murrow would have interacted with Trump.
We don’t expect all reporters to be Murrow — but we do expect you to try.
Full disclosure: I do not watch Morning Joe every day — but I do watch it frequently. If there has been any direct challenge to Trump’s lies, then consider this post an inquiry — not a criticism. What are some examples of pressing him to back up his statements? To paraphrase Dennis Miller: This is based on my observations — I could be wrong.
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Side note before anyone defends the 42% stat.
Yes, Trump did “hear” about this number — from David Stockman. My point is not that he didn’t have a source. My point is that he simply repeated it without explaining or probably without understanding it. Politifact explains the math here.
There are many ways that one can look at employment statistics. There is, however a major flaw in attempting to use Stockman’s data manipulation as a political cudgel. It’s the old trick of using the worm in the apple to prove that the oranges are spoiled.
The number that Trump is challenging is the BLS standard reporting. This is the same method that has been in use for years.
In other words, if it is 42% now, what was the number last year and the years before? If he wanted to be be honest, Trump should put out a chart showing the unemployment statistics going back 10 or more years using the same methodology.
What was that number under Reagan? What was it throughout the 90s? What was it when W took office — and when he left? Most importantly though, if you want to make the point that the economy has worsened since Obama took office — what was the number in 2009?