Why Trump, battling media hostility, is declaring war on fact-checkers

As the negative media onslaught against Donald Trump grows louder, he is taking on the fact-checkers.

What’s fascinating in the coverage is that the journalists and organizations that do this are treated like prophets handing down the tablets from Mount Olympus. There is no hint, not a whiff, that they might sometimes be wrong or engaging in overkill.

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In a new Gallup poll, 36 percent said they had “no trust at all” in the media, while just 31 percent said they found the media to be fair and accurate a “great deal” or “fair amount.” The distrust was far higher among Republicans than Democrats.

Now skeptics will say that Trump tells a lot of falsehoods, some decisions are clear-cut, and it’s worth trying to hold him accountable. I know these folks work hard, having done a lot of it myself, but sometimes the fact checks are contentious in gray areas, or even over something Trump said jokingly at a rally.

I don’t even have to make the argument that Kamala Harris draws overwhelmingly favorable coverage. Now that she’s come out of her cocoon in the light of slipping polls, sitting down today with Fox’s Bret Baier, she has a short period of time to break through after walling herself off. With Democrats in panic mode, she is also ramping up her rhetoric against the former president. And we’re seeing an explosion of columns and segments on what Harris needs to do to turn her campaign around – free advice from the media.

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As the Washington Post notes, Trump complained about fact-checking by ABC in his debate with Harris (when it did seem like 3 against 1). And in turning down “60 Minutes,” he cited the program’s tradition of fact checking. (He also drew flak from CNBC yesterday after backing out of an interview.)

Trump visits the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 in Chicago, IL. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

If there’s one moment that crystallizes the media opposition to Trump, it’s his appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists. The opening question was a diatribe about how he was a horrible racist, building up to why any Black voters should support him. The Harris appearance, by contrast, was practically a lovefest.

Behind the scenes, there was a tense, hour-long impasse in which Trump was refusing to take the stage if there would be fact-checking. When he finally took the stage, the group lied and blamed the entire delay on audio problems.

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How is it that Trump says things that trigger journalistic outrage, sometimes with incendiary language, but raise no doubts among many Republicans? The New York Times offers this explanation: 

“One of the more peculiar aspects of Donald J. Trump’s political appeal is this: A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will…

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on the campus of East Carolina University on October 13, 2024 in Greenville, North Carolina. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“It’s how they rationalize his rhetoric, by affording him a reverse benefit of the doubt.” 

A 40-year-old Detroit publisher was quoted as saying he didn’t believe Trump would purge the federal government and hire only election deniers: “It could just be for publicity, just riling up the news.”

Whether Trump wins or loses, he will have the support of roughly half the country. In 2020, that amounted to 73 million voters.

And yet most of the mainstream media, with some exceptions, have never really understood the unshakable bond between Trump and his supporters. Most tend to travel in circles where allowing him to be a “danger to democracy” is unthinkable. He has made inroads among Black voters, especially Black men, some of whom say the Democrats make promises at election time and then forget about their community.

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In fact, some pundits have unloaded on Trump supporters as being dummies or racist yahoos. That “basket of deplorables” approach means they are failing to grasp how much of the country feels and what their legitimate grievances might be.  That would seem to call for a sweeping reassessment of their views about America if Trump wins a second term, except the media aren’t big on self-reflection.