Trump VS Mainstream Media Pushing Opinion As "Fact Checking"
President Donald Trump gave an oval office address last night discussing immigration and border security. Afterward several mainstream outlets "fact checked him." However much of this fact checking was just opinion masquerading as fact. It was actually just more fake newsTo make it worse many mainstream news outlets didn't even agree with each others "facts"The one fact that most people agree on, however, is that Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer's response to the president was creepy and weird. Typically democrats don't respond to republican's in this way and vice versa.
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yesterday, President Trump addressed the nation on the issue of illegal immigration and border security.
It was his first address from the Oval Office.
He kept it kind of short, mostly stuck to the facts, but his opinions were in there.
Afterwards, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer responded, which is kind of strange because typically the opposition doesn't respond to an Oval Office address.
But Pelosi and Schumer mostly just gave their opinions.
And that's not my opinion.
Various news organizations were fact-checking what Trump said, and they were also fact-checking Schumer and Pelosi, but they didn't actually have much to fact-check, so most of the articles don't have anything from them.
But these articles highlight a much bigger problem.
See, my goal today was to fact-check the fact-check, and to try and figure out what was true and what's really going on with the border wall and the southern border.
Unfortunately, most of these mainstream organizations, like NPR, CNN, The New York Times, they don't agree with each other.
They fact-checked Donald Trump and gave different answers to what was true and what was false.
So how is anyone supposed to know what the hell is actually going on?
There is one column, however, from the Washington Post saying that straight up, Donald Trump took the night.
And I gotta admit, Nancy Pelosi and Schumer looked kind of creepy.
So today, let's take a look at what was said during the Oval Office address, how Chuck Schumer and Pelosi came out, and whether or not anything was true or false, because I gotta say, It's mostly just opinion from all these news organizations.
But before we get started, please head over to TimCast.com forward slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There's a monthly donation option, I accept cryptocurrency, I have a physical address, and there's even a shop where you can purchase clothing I've designed myself.
I first want to highlight this article from the Washington Post.
Trump won the night, Schumer and Pelosi lost.
Now a lot of conservatives believe this is a direct statement from the Washington Post.
No.
This is one column from one person's opinion, and the Washington Post just publishes this.
It's not the Washington Post's editorial stance.
Mark A. Thiessen says, He says the president did not unilaterally declare a
national emergency.
Instead, he called for compromise and said, He was, in short, presidential.
Democrats insisted on equal time, which is highly unusual for presidential addresses other than the State of the Union.
It was a mistake.
In contrast to Trump, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came across as small and intransigent.
A lot of people found that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi were weird and creepy.
Even Jake Tapper just tweeted out this image with no statement or context.
But many people kind of took it to understand there was something weird about what Pelosi and Schumer were doing.
Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange tweeted, and I wonder why people believe in lizard people in a rather facetious tone.
Many others just responded with the image of American Gothic, and there were a lot of references to the Munsters or the Addams Family, with people posting images of Lurch, because the whole thing did look kind of creepy.
But probably my favorite response, if you're not familiar with the movie They Live, it's about this guy here, Rowdy Rowdy Piper, finds some sunglasses, and when he puts them on, he can actually see who is and isn't an alien.
So here you have him with the glasses off, he puts them on, and then there's the image of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
And if you've not seen the movie, this is what he sees when he puts them on.
This is what the aliens actually look like.
A lot of people were kind of making this reference.
Now, obviously, this is mostly tribal.
A lot of people who aren't really necessarily left or right were still criticizing how weird Pelosi and Schumer looked.
But for the most part, you've got people who don't like the Democrats making images like this.
But let's move beyond our feelings.
I'm not trying to be overly disrespectful to Schumer and Pelosi, but I thought it was important to point out the criticism as to how weird what they did was.
Normally, they don't respond to an Oval Office address, and they kind of looked strange doing it.
Well, let's highlight what's going on with fact-checking.
This is from CNN Politics.
Fact-checking Trump's immigration speech.
This, in my opinion, is mostly just an op-ed.
These aren't facts.
First, Donald Trump said, quote, And CNN says, But you can't really say it's a false claim.
trade deal we have made with Mexico.
And CNN says this is a false claim.
But you can't really say it's a false claim.
Trump said indirectly this is a semantic argument from CNN, not a true or false issue.
Now it is true that Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall.
And many people assumed this meant Mexico will literally hand over cash to build the
wall.
the wall.
Sure, I think it's fair to make that assumption, but Trump never really explained how they would pay for it.
Aside from that, Trump said they will indirectly pay for it because the new trade deal with Mexico will generate tax revenue, which will easily cover the cost of the wall.
But CNN then conflates this with earmarking money for that wall.
This is not fact-checking, okay?
This is them saying there's nothing that's going to directly cover the cost of the wall related to the trade deal.
What Trump said indirectly.
All we can say here is that Trump's statement is... it's a semantic argument.
Now, they do mention that Trump overstated the amount of illegal immigrants being encountered by CBP, and this is fair.
Trump said thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter the country are stopped by border patrol every day, but the reality is it's only about a thousand or maybe fourteen hundred, so certainly not thousands.
But I'm also going to point out Trump is just being hyperbolic.
Hyperbole is a normal part of political discourse, And I don't really care.
I know there are a lot of people who don't like Trump who want to nitpick literally everything he says to make sure everything's literally true.
But Trump was just being hyperbolic.
That's just a part of language.
So, sure, Trump, as I mentioned, does kind of speak in this way.
He exaggerates.
But there's a difference between exaggerating or being hyperbolic and just lying.
But this is where it gets more interesting.
Because this is the first example where we can see discrepancy in fact-checking from various news organizations.
Trump said, all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal immigration.
They say, CNN, it's very difficult to know whether or how much or little undocumented immigrants cost the United States.
Many experts contest the notion that undocumented immigrants are a strain on the economy.
A 2017 analysis noted that undocumented immigrants make considerable tax contributions, for example.
So they're not saying it's true or false, but they're saying we don't know if there's actually any problems.
However, NPR, which is a left-wing publication, said, The effect of illegal immigration on wages has been studied
extensively and conclusions vary quite a bit.
Because of the underground nature of the problem, hard evidence can be hard to come by.
Some evidence exists that because illegal immigrants tend to be low-skilled,
they compete with native-born workers and can lower wages for those at the bottom of the income scale.
It would seem that NPR is being a bit more fair than CNN is.
But CNN also engages in another manipulative tactic, whether on purpose or just because they're bad at their jobs.
The second paragraph in their fact check is a non-sequitur.
They say, A 2018 study by the Libertarian Cato Institute, which reviewed criminal conviction data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, found that immigrants, legal or illegal, are less likely than native-born Americans to be convicted of crimes.
Throughout the country, there is also generally a decrease in the number of violent crimes, according to the FBI.
I don't know what this statement has to do with what Trump said.
Trump said all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal immigration.
For the most part, it's kind of an opinion.
Saying all Americans is a bit absolute, so it's not necessarily untrue.
But what CNN did here has nothing to do with what Trump said.
Even if illegal immigrants are committing less crime, some of them still commit crime and are still hurting Americans.
And if there is a cost associated with the crimes committed by illegal immigrants, you could say, yes, all immigrants are being hurt by that.
This is a common thing done by the left and by people in media, which I find rather frustrating.
If you stop illegal immigrants, you will also stop the illegal immigrants who have committed crime.
Crime will go down.
The Associated Press did something similar when they tweeted,
Trump claims illegal immigration needs to be stopped to prevent violent crime,
but multiple studies have found that people here illegally are less likely to be arrested.
likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens.
But what does that have to do with the fact that there are illegal immigrants committing
crimes?
Let's try an analogy.
We need to stop drug dealers to prevent violent crime because a lot of violent crime happens
in drug deals.
However, we found that on average, American citizens commit more crime than drug dealers
Therefore, it's pointless to stop the drug dealers.
No, that doesn't quite make sense.
They're two completely different things.
Obviously, I'm being hyperbolic.
The point I'm trying to make is, if an illegal immigrant commits a crime and kills a police officer like we saw recently, Preventing that illegal immigrant from entering the country would have prevented that crime.
It has nothing to do with whether or not illegal immigrants are committing more or less crime, simply that we should stop criminals, period.
I'll tell you what.
If you think American citizens are committing more crime, at least according to the studies they say it's true, okay.
After we deal with those, we'll deal with these.
It's a non sequitur.
The second sentence has nothing to do with the first, but it creates the impression that for some reason Trump's wrong when they're just conflating what Trump said with something totally unrelated.
Probably the most egregious example of media bias comes from the New York Times, which is surprising to me because you'd assume CNN would be worse.
The New York Times ran a story, Trump's speech to the nation, fact checks and background.
The first quote from Trump, The federal government remains shut down for one reason and
one reason only, because Democrats will not fund border security. They say
false. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion in funding for border security measures like
enhanced surveillance and fortified fencing.
They do not support Mr. Trump's border wall. At a meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer
in December, Mr. Trump took responsibility for the partial government shutdown.
I will take the mantle.
I will be the one to shut it down.
I'm not going to blame you for it, he said.
The New York Times has rated this false.
However, the Associated Press said, Which one do you pick?
Is the New York Times right?
Is the Associated Press right?
They're both considered to be reputable sources, so what do you do?
In my opinion, just because Trump said he's taking the mantle on this, once again being hyperbolic, doesn't mean it's literally his fault.
It is an issue of Trump saying we need the money and the Democrats saying they don't.
Trump's statement blaming the Democrats is his personal opinion that it's a Democrat's fault.
It's not necessarily true or false.
It's two factions arguing.
There really are two sides to this.
What gets even more frustrating about the New York Times is that instead of saying what Trump said is true, they just say this needs context twice.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Chuck Schumer, who you will be hearing from later tonight, has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with other Democrats.
This doesn't need context.
It's a factually true statement.
Chuck Schumer did support the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
Why is this, this needs context and not just true, while instead of saying, this needs context, they call it false?
This is something we typically see in media.
We get it.
You don't like the president.
I don't care about your opinion.
I'm trying to understand what's actually happening in this world.
And there are certain people who are just going to read this and say Trump lied yet again.
However, instead of saying true or false, they just say it needs context or it's false.
What about the true statements?
It's ridiculously frustrating.
What is true?
What is false?
Honestly, I have no idea at this point.
Trump has said repeatedly that CBP has requested a wall.
So I said, okay, I'm going to fact check that claim that Customs and Border Patrol actually do want a physical barrier, be it a concrete wall, steel sled, whatever.
Do they really want it?
And I found this article from the Washington Times.
Border Patrol agents overwhelmingly support Trump's wall in a new survey.
Well, the Washington Times is considered to be a conservative outlet, but they say, in a survey conducted by the National Border Patrol Council, Well, that seems pretty cut and dry, right?
Except the New York Times ran this story only a few weeks earlier, what border agents say they want.
It's not a wall.
their ability to nab or deter would be illegal immigrants.
Well, that seems pretty cut and dry, right?
Except the New York Times ran this story only a few weeks earlier.
What border agents say they want. It's not a wall.
According to the New York Times, a report concluded that less than one half of one percent
of the agents' suggestions to secure the southwest border mentioned the need for a wall.
I have no idea what's actually going on because if you've got the New York Times, CNN, AP, NPR disagreeing with each other, injecting their opinions, well then what is true?
I don't know.
Does CBP really want a border wall?
I have no idea.
The Washington Times is conservative.
The New York Times is considered liberal.
So pick one.
Who do you trust?
And that's what ends up happening.
It is a tribal battle.
They're giving you opinion pieces.
The Washington Post gave us an opinion piece.
Who really won the night?
In my opinion, I think Trump did a much better job of being presidential, of being professional, and presenting the facts with some hyperbole behind it.
Could it have been better?
I think so.
But he did what he did.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer came off really creepy.
There's one famous, one viral tweet going around right now where someone said that they like Pelosi and Schumer, but they need to do better to not come off like a comic book or Bond villains.
It was creepy.
But more importantly, Schumer and Pelosi just spouted opinions about how they don't like Trump and how they feel.
They didn't present a good argument as to why we don't need a border wall.
All we end up seeing is non-sequitur arguments.
Where they say, oh, well, illegal immigrants commit crimes less than other people.
That doesn't change the fact that they commit crimes.
So if a border wall works, and we've seen it work in other places, you haven't done anything to convince me, a person who's kind of in the middle, leaning left, why I should agree with you.
The amount of money Trump is requesting is a tiny fraction of the national fiscal budget.
Why should I be concerned about that?
What argument are you actually presenting other than, I'm gonna say it, orange man bad?
Pelosi and Schumer complained that Trump was holding America hostage.
What does that mean?
They complained he was pounding on the table.
I don't know what that means!
You haven't presented me with a real argument as to why this amount of money is too much when we give more in foreign aid to other governments.
Nothing was presented to me.
And when I tried going in to look at the fact-checking, it was all different.
And it was opinion.
But people who actually oppose the President will just believe what they hear from this news organization, and the people who support President Trump will just not believe mainstream media, and finding out what's actually going on is a goddamn nightmare.
But you know what?
You let me know what you think is happening.
Because I've done my best!
I've done my best.
But we'll keep the conversation going in the comments.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned, I'll have more videos on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCastNews, starting at 6pm.
