Editors' Note: Many years ago, the Times fired their Public Editor, claiming that the job was no longer necessary because the Internets would keep them honest. (The former Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, is now covering media for The Guardian and killing it.) To help Ms. Sullivan, we have appointed our own Public Editor who among his other duties fact-checks the Times to provide the objective context that you the reader deserve for your $2000 a year Times subscription.
By A.J. Liebling
Public Editor
What They Said:
Less than nine weeks before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump summoned journalists to the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan and then spent 45 minutes recounting in detail multiple sexual harassment allegations against him, lashing out at the women who made them and casting himself as the victim.
This omits needed context.
In fact Trump once again publicly defamed E. Jean Carroll, whom he sexually assaulted in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store, leaving himself open for a third massive civil verdict.
He also brought up another sexual assault allegation and dismissed it on the grounds that the victim wasn't attractive enough to rape.
–What They Said:
Just a day earlier, on Wednesday, Senator JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, responded to a similar question about child care with a nearly equally confusing answer at an event in Mesa, Ariz.
“Maybe Grandma and Grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, right, said on Wednesday in response to a question about child care.
Mr. Vance, like Mr. Trump, acknowledged that the issue of affordable child care was “such an important question.” But his initial answer was that parents should get help from grandparents or aunts and uncles.
“Maybe Grandma and Grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Mr. Vance said.
This is misleading.
As the detail implies, there was nothing “confusing” about Vance's position on government assistance with child care. Like the last 60 years of Republican candidates, he opposes using government funds to help parents out with the immense costs of child care.
–What They Said:
Former President Donald J. Trump called for the creation of a government efficiency commission in an economic speech in New York on Thursday, adopting a policy idea that was pitched to him by the billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
Mr. Trump said that Mr. Musk would also lead the commission, which would conduct a sweeping audit of the federal government and recommend “drastic reforms” for cutting waste. He said the commission would save “trillions of dollars.”
In a wide-ranging and sometimes meandering speech that lasted more than an hour, Mr. Trump recast his first-term record as an economic miracle and renewed his pitch for lowering taxes and raising tariffs on imports, often disregarding some of the potential implications of his new proposals.
This is misleading.
This is what Trump said:
Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care. You have to have it — in this country you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to — but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take.
I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about.
We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible [country that can] afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.
As others including Parker Molloy have pointed out, these words are incoherent and even if parsed in the light most favorable to Trump insane because his ruinous tariffs will first never be imposed and if they are will not generate nearly enough money to pay for childcare. Further, Trump did not in fact outline any particular policy for helping with childcare costs other than the false claim there will be plenty of money.
Finally, the idea of appointing a ketamine-addled Fascist who most recently lost $30 billion on Twitter is ridiculous and, as the piece points out, brimming with conflict of interest, because Elno has trousered billions from government contracts.
–What They Said:
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| Journalism: it's failed before |
Asked for examples of the technique, the Trump campaign provided what it called a “masterclass weave” — a four-minute, 20-second video of the candidate speaking at a rally in Asheville, N.C., in August in which he bounces from energy bills to Hunter Biden’s laptop to Venezuelan tar to mental institutions in Caracas to migrant crime to “the green new scam” to Vice President Kamala Harris.
In its disjointed way, it did all sort of seem to wend back to why he thinks he should be president again.
“Unlike Kamala Harris, who can’t put together a coherent sentence without a teleprompter, President Trump speaks for hours, telling multiple impressive stories at the same time,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. “Kamala Harris could never.”
This is really missing the point
Trump's inability to talk coherently is not just a quirk of his personality; it shows that he lacks the cognitive capacity to serve as President. Given the Times's 152 stories questioning Biden's mental state, it beggars comprehension for the Times to tie itself up into pretzels to avoid grappling with the efflorescence of Trump's dementia. [Joe, take a deep breath – Ed.]
–What They Said:
Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for prosecutions against people who he believes have wronged him.
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| If he's not making any sense, you have to say so! |
After he was indicted by the federal government for the first time in 2023, Mr. Trump vowed to have a “real special prosecutor” who would go after President Biden and his family if he won the presidency in 2024.
On Friday, speaking to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower, in Manhattan, Mr. Trump said the criticisms of judges by Democrats “should be illegal” and that the Justice Department should look into “the legality of these people” attacking jurists like Aileen Cannon, the federal judge he appointed who recently dismissed an indictment against him.
This fails to make the obviously true and unarguable point that Trump is promising to obstruct justice and attack democracy again.
By simply reporting his threats without making it clear that if carried out they would subvert democracy and the rule of law, the Times is effectively admitting these threats into the universe of acceptable political discourse, thus normalizing these terrifying statements. [Joe, lighten up here. We're supposed to be taking a calm detached perspective. – Ed.]
–What They Said:
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| If only someone had called out hate speech in time |
Former President Donald J. Trump in a campaign speech on Saturday bounced among complaints about the economy and immigration, wide-ranging digressions and a number of personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, including jabs at her appearance and her laugh.
At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Mr. Trump swung from talking points on inflation and criticisms of Democratic policy as “fascist” and “Marxist” to calling illegal immigrants “savage monsters” and saying that rising sea levels would create more beachfront property.
This is a perverse effort to normalize bats**t crazy lies and rants and appeals to raw bigotry.
How can you repeat these revolting lies without first debunking them and then noting that at least with respect to immigration and the attacks on VP Harris, are nothing more than appeals to bigots from a deranged hatemonger? What possible justification could there be for not pointing out these facts so that readers will understand the true nature of the Republican candidate and his appeal? By simply repeating their crude smears, the Times gives them a plausibility that only increases with each repetition of these lies and slurs. No one who has even a particle of regard for the tenets of journalism could possibly – [Joe, I think you better lie down for a while. – Ed.]
