Oh, boo-hoo-hoo for Donald Trump and his nasty spokewoman, Katrina Pierson. Pierson appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources this morning and proceeded to steamroll Brian Stelter who bent over so far to be "fair" that he turned into a pretzel.
Pierson was on there for two reasons. First, to continue reinforcing Trump's lies about 9-11 and Muslims, and second to make sure the press looks away from Trump and toward President Obama ahead of his address to the nation tonight.
Stelter tried to pin Pierson down on Trump's lie about the thousands of celebrating Muslims on 9/11, asking, "You said Muslims celebrated 9/11. Don't you mean a very small number, according to media reports, maybe a handful?"
Pierson gave the expected response. "No, I mean radical Muslims celebrating 9/11 in America."
From there, she launched into an attack on NBC's Katy Tur, and finally circled back around to the conclusion that the press doesn't report "both sides of the stories," before complaining that they didn't fact-check the President on his claim that global warming "is the cause of the rise of radical Islamic terrorists."
Thus begins the circle that shouldn't have received any air time whatsoever. In the process of the rest of that interview, the audience is told that Donald Trump doesn't have to worry about facts because he's speaking from his heart, and the audience cares more about how heartfelt it is than whether it's true.
"It's not like -- like -- just like with the whole 9/11 thing, he wasn't reading an intelligence report and then lying about it, like the current commander in chief and Hillary Clinton do. So, he's speaking from the heart," Pierson contended.
"And Americans appreciate that. They don't want these Ivy League people that go around and pay thousands of dollars to be told what they want to hear. They want to hear somebody that's real and true."
"And the simple fact that Mr. Trump has been around for so long, he knows what he's talking about, he means it, and people want someone that is going to go out there and be real with the American public for a change."
Can you count the lies and equivocation in those claims? First, that Trump knows what he's talking about. He doesn't, of course.
Second, that Clinton and Obama read intelligence reports and lie about them. That's a statement with no evidence to back it up.
Third, that his claim about 9/11 is true by implication, because he was just speaking from his heart.
The entire transcript is on CNN's site if you want to read it rather than watch.
Stelter spent the entire show on Donald Trump today. It would have been better if he had spent some time fact-checking the plethora of lies about Islam, Muslims, and terrorism in the United States. Notice how all mention of the attack on Planned Parenthood has faded to black now that some people shot a whole bunch of other people in San Bernardino?
A show about what constitutes terrorism and whether it's exclusive to Muslims might have been more informative than this drivel.
As for me, I'll just let Professor Jay Rosen's tweets speak my mind.
