Thread by @MCmuckraker

Reporters have got to stop relaying Trump’s false statements about the four freshmen congresswomen without fact-checking his statements. His rhetoric is dangerous, sloppy & slanderous. He clearly wants to paint Democrats as extreme & out of touch. ...

Trump continues to claim the four congresswomen are “anti-American” and have said “terrible things” about the country. No one is pressing him on what those “terrible things” are because it’s utter nonsense. But it prompts racist “send her back” chants.

Trump falsely claimed Friday that the four congresswomen used the anti-Semitic slur “evil Jews” and ““call[ed] the people of our country and our country ‘garbage.’” They’ve never said that. But Trump has said lawful migrants who arrive in the US on visas “can be truly evil.”

Trump recently said the congresswomen should leave the country if they don’t like it here. But
Trump, in defending Putin and Russia, once said, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump’s insistence that the four congresswomen “hate America” is so absurd it shouldn’t need a response, but some people believe it. Truth is, the four congresswomen have repeatedly supported legislation aimed at improving the lives of lower- and middle-class Americans.

In Detroit, @RashidaTlaib is popular because of her compassion for Americans. She worked for a nonprofit law firm that helped underprivileged people. In the state Legislature, she tenaciously fought to improve the lives of Detroiters. That’s not anti-American.

Trump has trash-talked America for years, but now says “love it or leave it.” He’s said, “our country is a laughingstock,” and critiqued Obama for asserting American exceptionalism. In 2018, he blamed sour relations with Russia on American “foolishness and stupidity.”

The role of a reporter is to convey facts, not to disseminate false rhetoric. “By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” — Oscar Wilde