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About 20 minutes before this morning's grotesque Trump rant, Fox & Friends ran a segment about "the Squad" and aired comments Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley (both born in the U.S.) made at Netroots Nation.
Left, Fox & Friends Sunday, 8:06 a.m.
Right, Trump, 8:27 a.m.
Left, Fox & Friends Sunday, 8:06 a.m.
Right, Trump, 8:27 a.m.
On Tuesday, Fox host and sometime Trump adviser Tucker Carlson said Rep. Ilhan Omar "has an awful lot to be grateful for, but she isn't grateful, not at all," adding, "maybe we are importing people from places whose values are simply antithetical to ours." mediamatters.org/video/2019/07/…
On Wednesday, Carlson added that "Our country rescued Ilhan Omar from the single worst place on Earth... How did Omar respond to the remarkable gift we gave her? She scolded us, and called us names." mediamatters.org/video/2019/07/…
What are the odds the White House communications office ends up providing a list of the foreign-born Democratic congresswomen Trump was referring to here?
“Actually, he wasn’t talking about The Squad, he was specifically referencing...”
So let’s be clear. The problem isn’t that some of the congresswomen he was almost certainly talking about were actually born in the U.S. The premise is what’s disgusting, not a fact-checking issue.
Telling naturalized citizens who are elected members of Congress working to do what they think is best to improve this country that they should instead go back to their home countries and fix them is a betrayal of what the U.S. is supposed to stand for.
If he had done the exact same tweet but referenced Omar specifically instead, that would not make this ok.
Factchecking Trunp’s lies is incredibly important work, but this is a case where focusing on his accuracy will lead you (and your audience) astray.
Look who thinks this is hilarious.
This is what I'm talking about. The Times is using a fact-checking frame, which allows it to appear "neutral" while skirting around the issue. The Post is cutting straight to the point.
Major news outlets fact-checking Trump in tweets is a very good thing as a general rule -- I'm the guy who did the study on this! -- but in this case, I don't think it's the best approach for readers. mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/0…
Or at least, it is not sufficient.
