We have never witnessed anything quite like this: a presidential candidate who refuses to participate in interviews unless they agree not to fact-check his statements.
The Washington Post reported on Trump’s strong insistence that he should not be fact-checked. Vance now echoes the same sentiment. They do not want to be held accountable for their lies.
The Post has a dedicated fact-checker, Glen Kessler, who revealed that Trump made 30,573 false or misleading statements during his four-year term in office. That amounts to an average of 21 lies per day.
What is your opinion on political candidates who believe it is unfair to be corrected for lying?
Donald Trump and his campaign have been actively opposing fact-checking in recent months, pressuring TV networks, journalism organizations, and others to refrain from fact-checking if they want to engage with Trump.
Trump almost pulled out of an August interview with a group of Black journalists upon learning they intended to fact-check his claims. The following month, he and his supporters repeatedly criticized the fact-checking that took place during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, lambasting journalists and news executives during the televised debate.
And this month, Trump declined an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” because he objected to the show’s fact-checking policy, according to the show.
Campaign advisers also specifically requested CBS News not to fact-check during the vice-presidential debate with Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance – who then complained on air when a moderator corrected him.
These actions are just the latest examples of Trump’s long-standing resistance to being held accountable for his falsehoods, which have been a cornerstone of his political message for years. In recent weeks, Trump has spread false stories about migrants eating pets and Venezuelan gangs taking over cities to promote his anti-immigration stance as he vies for a second term in office…
In August, Trump had agreed to participate in a National Association of Black Journalists event, where three members of the group would interview him. However, when Trump’s team realized he would be fact-checked in real-time, they said he would not take the stage.
NABJ president Ken Lemon described a tense backstage scene as Trump’s team objected to any fact-checking during the interview, with discussions lasting over an hour. Lemon said a Trump aide told him, “If you guys are going to fact-check, he’s not going to take the stage.” “They were adamant that he would not take the stage if we fact-checked.”
Lemon said he spoke with three Trump aides – who even consulted with someone not present at the event – about their opposition to fact-checking as the audience waited.
At one point, Lemon was convinced Trump would ultimately withdraw from the interview due to fact-checking concerns, so he prepared remarks to announce the cancellation to the audience. However, Trump eventually participated in the interview, grabbing headlines by falsely claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris had recently decided to identify as Black.
“It was a revealing moment where we got to hear his responses, and we were surprised by some of the answers,” Lemon said.
Trump’s team blamed the delay in taking the stage on technical audio issues.
“Here’s the truth: President Trump initially couldn’t take the stage because of audio issues. Once the audio issues were resolved, President Trump took the stage and participated in the discussion, and fact-checking still took place,” stated Karoline Leavitt, a Trump spokeswoman.
Harris, too, has been cautious in her interviews, avoiding tough policy questions and having her advisers sometimes attempt to screen questions beforehand. This week, she engaged in unscripted media appearances with friendly interviewers, including Howard Stern of Sirius XM, CBS’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast. During Harris’s NABJ event, the interviewers were less confrontational than with Trump, and during the ABC presidential debate with Trump, the moderators did not fact-check her as rigorously.
One Trump adviser, speaking anonymously to describe the campaign’s mindset, argued that Trump faces harsher treatment than others. “Every candidate is against fact-checking to some extent, but if you’re Trump, you know they will always come after you harder,” the adviser remarked.
However, Harris does not regularly distort the truth like Trump does, and she has not objected to being fact-checked. Unlike Trump, she sat down for an extensive interview on “60 Minutes” that aired last week.
As part of Harris’s interview, the show took the unusual step of explaining why they did not air a similar segment with Trump, who had initially agreed to an interview before changing his mind.
“A week ago, Trump withdrew,” CBS correspondent Scott Pelley explained. “The campaign provided varying explanations. Initially, they complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. Later, Trump demanded an apology for his 2020 interview.” Pelley went on to clarify that the incident for which Trump requested an apology never actually occurred…
During the debate between Trump and Biden, CNN publicly announced in advance that the moderators would not fact-check, leaving that responsibility to the candidates.
Prior to the second debate, Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, claimed that an ABC journalist informed the team that, similar to the CNN debate, there would be no fact-checking by the moderators. However, a copy of the ABC News debate rules, obtained by The Post, did not impose any restrictions on fact-checking.
Nevertheless, Trump and his allies were incensed with ABC for fact-checking him live during the debate with Harris. At one point, after Trump falsely asserted that some Democrats endorse executing babies after birth, moderator Linsey Davis pointed out, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
At another instance – after Trump reiterated the false and baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets – moderator David Muir intervened, stating that ABC News had contacted the city manager, who confirmed there were no credible reports of pets being harmed by individuals in the immigrant community.
Trump’s advisers – including Chris LaCivita and Miller – erupted at ABC executives and journalists during the debate, imploring the network to cease fact-checking for the remainder of the event, claiming it had breached its agreement. Susie Wiles, the campaign’s top aide, even called the president of ABC News. At least one Trump adviser demanded to speak with the moderators during the debate.
The network declined to comment.
“Everyone who watched the ABC debate agreed that it was a 3-on-1 battle with 2 moderators who incorrectly ‘fact-checked’ President Trump multiple times, but did not fact-check Kamala Harris ONCE, even though she spouted multiple lies on the debate stage,” Leavitt stated in her release. “The ABC debate was widely regarded as one of the worst-moderated debates in history, yet President Trump still emerged victorious.”
Harris spokesman Kevin Munoz responded: “You have to lie to be fact-checked, and only one person on that stage was telling lie after lie.”