Trump is a liar
And the media is finally starting to call him out for it
Was it the particular egregiousness of Trump’s lies this week? He claimed thousands of Arabs somewhere in New Jersey partied as the Twin Towers came down on 9/11. Then he tweeted grossly inaccurate statistics about black-on-black and white-on-black crime with bogus sources, that led even Fox News host Bill O’Reilley to call him out.
“That’s totally wrong,” O’Reilly said to him in an interview.
Trump lies. And he’s been lying for a long time (ahem…saying in 2012 “an extremely credible source” told him President Obama has a fraudulent birth certificate). His lies are becoming problematic, and if he won’t check his facts (he told O’Reilly, “What? Am I going to check every statistic?”) — journalists must. Having a racist liar centerstage at each Republican debate spouting misinformation is misleading, and gives some Americans watching the wrong idea of what’s true and what isn’t.
This week, journalists across the political spectrum finally took on Trump.
“America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies,” wrote the New York Times editorial board Nov. 24. “In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.”
The day before, the Washington Post published an article headlined “Donald Trump is constantly lying.”
“We are at the point in Donald Trump’s campaign when it’s difficult to decide whether to focus on his unconstitutional policy proposals or his blatant lies,” a Post contributor wrote.
Finally.
Buzzfeed put out a list of Trump’s top fibs. And on Nov. 24, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers devoted a lengthy segment to Trump’s problems with truth.
Meyer’s put it well:
“What’s scary is that Trump has cross the threshold from fun, wildcard candidate who said crazy things and made debates watchable, to someone who is spreading dangerous rhetoric.”
Amen. We couldn’t have said it better.
Watch Meyer’s entire bit:
