| It's often said that there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies and statistics. But after the latest dustup in the ongoing saga over how the media is supposed to deal with our president-elect, maybe we need a fourth category: Trump lies. And, well, maybe a fifth: How the media determines the truth. |
| Find that, plus a smattering of Trump tweets and congressional first-day jitters, in today's For the Record: |
| WHAT'S A LIE IF WE CAN'T AGREE ON THE TRUTH? |
| Does Donald Trump lie? If you read the fact checks conducted by a growing number of major media outlets, you bet. Like, all the time. And not just little stretches of the truth. |
| Just over half the Trump statements checked by Politifact's Truth-o-Meter were classified as false or pants-on-fire false, for example, while The Washington Post's fact checker gave a four Pinocchio rating (its highest falsehood) to nearly 65 percent of the Trump claims it checked. |
| But what if we can't agree on the facts? How do you determine "truth?" And if there is no agreement, is it still OK for the mainstream media to call them lies? Chuck Todd asked Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker as much on "Meet the Press", and Baker's response sort of broke the Internet. |
| "I'd be careful about using the word 'lie.' 'Lie' implies much more than just saying something that's false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead. I think it's perfectly -- when Donald Trump says thousands of people were on the rooftops of New Jersey on 9/11 celebrating, thousands of Muslims were there celebrating, I think it's right to investigate that claim, to report what we found, which is that nobody found any evidence of that whatsoever, and to say that. |
| "I think it's then up to the reader to make up their own mind to say, 'This is what Donald Trump says. This is what a reliable, trustworthy news organization reports. And you know what? I don't think that's true.' I think if you start ascribing a moral intent, as it were, to someone by saying that they've lied, I think you run the risk that you look like you are, like you're not being objective." |
| Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent shot back that of course the media has an obligation to call out Trump's lies - and use the word lies - because Trump continues to repeat falsehoods even after they have been debunked. He's a new kind of political animal, Sargent argued, and the media is utterly unprepared to cover his presidency. |
| The takeaway? It's going to be a long four years for the press, and this debate has only just begun. |
| LATEST COMPANY TO UNWITTINGLY CROSS TRUMP: GM |
| ... Crap. It now occurs to us that maybe we shouldn't have led with the debate over how the media should cover Trump, because now you're going to wonder whether everything else in this newsletter is just a bunch of unicorns and fairy dust. Well, don't worry. This one was on Twitter, so it has to be true. |
| Donald Trump used his favorite mode of mass communication to throw another multinational American company under the bus. "General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border," Trump tweeted. "Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax!" |
| We probably should have seen this coming, given a string of tweets Trump made in December promising a 35 percent tax on companies that produce products - including "cars, A.C. units, etc." - in Mexico and sell them in the U.S. via NAFTA, the trade agreement Trump wants to blow up. |
| The president-elect has not been shy about criticizing companies or taking credit for their jobs announcements. Ford - a frequent Trump target - announced Tuesday that it had canceled plans to build a Mexico plant and would invest the cash in Michigan instead. Trump quickly retweeted the story. |
| Oh, and for the record (since we're all about fact checking in this issue, apparently, and FTR is in our name), GM says the only Cruze version currently made in Mexico is the hatchback, and less than 4,500 of them were sold in the U.S. last year. |
| ALSO IN TRUMP'S SIGHTS: CONGRESS |
| The new Congress was sworn in Tuesday, and Trump wasted no time in criticizing his Republican compatriots (via Twitter, where else?) for spending their first hours trying to gut an independent ethics watchdog office that was created after an investment scandal sent three lawmakers to prison. The plan, which the House later scrapped, would have made the office subject to a House ethics committee, barred it from investigating anonymous complaints and required it turn over potential criminal acts to the House committee or law enforcement. A spokesman later clarified that Trump wasn't saying yay or nay to the plan - just to the priority of it over other things. |
| "With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority," Trump tweeted. "Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!" |
| MORE FROM THE TRANSITION |
| • | Also in the Ford announcement: The company is making a huge investment in electric vehicles (Detroit Free Press) | | • | Yes, Hillary Clinton will attend Trump's inauguration, probably flashing that smile actors use on camera when they don't win the Oscar (USA TODAY) | | • | Malware on a Vermont electric company laptop is from the same Russian group believed to have hacked the election. Time to worry? (Burlington Free Press) | | • | The number of Christians in Congress continues to drop but is still far higher than the rest of America (USA TODAY) | | • | What Trump's plans could mean for carbon emissions, fracking and other environmental issues (The [Bergen County, N.J.] Record) | | • | Frequent Trump nemesis Megyn Kelly leaves Fox News for NBC (USA TODAY) | |
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| WHAT'S ON THE CONGRESSIONAL TO-DO LIST? |
| Republicans control Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade, which has watchers excited (or nervous, depending on their political leanings) that sweeping changes could be made. The GOP has a long to-do list: Pass a budget quickly, confirm Trump's Cabinet nominees, roll back regulations, rebuke the United Nations over Israel - and, oh yeah, repeal Obamacare. Its first day included the above-mentioned ethics flop and a smattering of new rules, including fines for members who broadcast from the floor. What else can we expect? |
| Most observers expect some (OK, maybe more than some) dissension in the ranks. Even so, Politico predicts swift approval for Trump's Cabinet (even controversial Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson), while The Washington Post prognosticates that any Obamacare repeal will be slower and far less sweeping than initially promised. |
| *Actual results may vary |
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