Why the hell do I need to read a Canadian newspaper to get an accurate count of the lies Trump spouted in his “interview” with the Times? The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale counted 25 lies. The Times’ own fact checker stopped at 10. By the Star’s count, Trump will pass 1,000 lies as President before the end of the year.
A lot of writers were pretty tough on the Times for the softball character of their interview, so one would think they’d try to redeem themselves a bit by doing an exhaustive fact check. Instead, they continue to respond weakly to the biggest challenge to the legitimacy of the free press in our lifetime.
(In fairness to Team America, the Post caught 24.)
Baud
It’s almost as if the NYT were garbage.
geg6
@Baud:
Heh. All apologies to garbage, of course.
BGinCHI
I thought this would be a thread about weather.
Instead of building a lousy wall on the Mexican border, why can’t we get a thermal, well-insulated wall on the Canadian border?
wvng
@BGinCHI: and, with that, you win the internets.
Yarrow
Daniel Dale has been doing an outstanding job. His Twitter feed is well worth following.
Ohio Mom
@BGinCHI: That was my first reaction too, Canada can have this arctic blast back.
I keep checking the ten day forecast and no matter how many times I check, it is still not warming up appreciably any time soon.
Yarrow
@BGinCHI: How long before we start to hear about Canadians worrying about an influx of “illegals” across their southern border and calls to build a wall?
schrodingers_cat
Vichy Times has been instrumental in installing the Russian puppet in the WH, I wouldn’t call what they do even a weak response.
Ohio Mom
1,000 lies in a year is not even three a day. That has to be an undercount.
BGinCHI
@Yarrow: This is very true.
BGinCHI
@Ohio Mom: I’m checking the 100 day forecast just to keep sane. And it’s not even that encouraging.
BGinCHI
@Yarrow: Canadians are mostly not nationalistic enough to worry about it (except maybe Alberta). They’re also far more used to immigration as a national policy. They have it and they know it. As opposed to the US, where we’ve always been paranoid about land possession after we murdered the previous owners.
Major Major Major Major
@BGinCHI: stop trying to destroy our ally’s economy, weather is Canada’s main export.
Yarrow
The real question is why are they doing this? It’s unlikely to be out of laziness or lack of understanding of journalism. They aren’t stupid. So why do they do this? Is someone paying them to conduct “journalism” in this way? Are there previously undisclosed funding sources or business relationships with questionable people or entities? Since we’re all up on kompromat these days, is there some on the top NYT people? Maybe just the people at the top need investigating since they set the tone. Those are questions worth investigating. Perhaps another media outlet might look into it.
Another Scott
(Obligatory – Blame Canada.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Monala
Some of the LGM commenters are saying that a harder-hitting interview wouldn’t have accomplished anything, because people’s opinions about Trump are already set in stone. I keep thinking about how Katie Couric’s softball followup questions helped bring Palin down: Which newspapers do you read? / All of them. / But which ones specifically? Can you name a few? / How dare you suggest that Alaska doesn’t have newspapers?!
BGinCHI
@Major Major Major Major: Business is certainly booming right now.
Obvious Russian Troll
Daniel Dale has dealt with bullying demagogues before. The stakes were a bit lower here; Dale was doing a story on Ford’s attempt to buy park land next to his house.
Still, Donald Trump has always had a lot in common with Rob Ford. Both are not particularly bright men who inherited money from domineering fathers, who ran on simplistic platforms, who won their elections because of a weird kind of charisma that played well with the resentful, and who allegedly have immoral/illegal activities on video somewhere.
The comparison isn’t entirely fair to Ford, who at least had been a city councillor (and had been very popular in his district) before running for mayor. Ford also had fewer opportunities to profit from being mayor, and wasn’t able to take advantage of them (he was never able to buy the park land).
We can only hope that somebody tries to sell not only one but two pee hooker videos.
Yarrow
@BGinCHI: Yes, for now. If a bunch of people start streaming across their southern border it might be a different story. I expect it to happen at some point anyway given global climate change. Maybe they’ll be low key an accepting of it.
trnc
@BGinCHI: Because we don’t want to keep Canadians out?
Dulcie
@BGinCHI: I saw a news broadcast from Europe (DW.com), that showed protests at the US/Quebec border. They’ve seen an influx of asylum seekers from the US, mainly from other countries – people who are afraid the administration will send them back to their home countries. Quebecois were not having any of it.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: They were fucking cheerleading W’s Iraq war effort. This is nothing new.
aimai
@Ohio Mom: He’s not always in the public eye.
germy
tobie
@Yarrow: Bingo! The NYT coverage of Trump has been so lame since he announced his candidacy that one has to ask why they’ve had a consistent bias toward him. They are the hometown paper. They were supposed to go to the land records office and courts in NY to trace his history. They didn’t. On a more granular level: I’d also like to know what the relationship is between Michael Schmidt and Chris Ruddy, editor of Newsmax, who apparently invited Schmidt to the golf club and arranged the interview.
amygdala
Schmidt penned a piece in today’s NYT about the interview and is getting a pretty good dragging in the comments.
BGinCHI
@Yarrow: I could definitely live in the Okanagan Valley.
But seriously, the Canadians have always been open to high levels of immigration. It just doesn’t freak them out. Vancouver’s population changed a lot in the late 90s before/after the HK transfer of sovereignty. People commented on it, but there wasn’t any huge panic. Lots of examples.
aimai
@Monala: The question isn’t whether voters opinions are set–perhaps they are, for a time, but Couric’s interview question set the stage for the press to become more aggressive with Palin and to stop accepting the GOP’s assertions that she was a plausible, functional, vice presidential candidate. The NYT and the major press are still afraid to call out Trump and the GOP for their manifest unfitness to serve. The interview is just another in a long line of interview like moments which are to reporting or to politics as paste is to food–non nutritive, tasteless, unchallenging, a placeholder. To interview Trump in a non-hostile, unconfrontational way is not only utterly unlike the ways the Times has treated both Clintons and the Obamas but utterly not up to the task of handling his belligerent stupidity and incontinent incompetence. The interview parodies itself, really.
BGinCHI
@Dulcie: It’s not hard to find scared right wing Quebeckers. That’s nut picking.
germy
@Yarrow:
Someone on twitter (I don’t remember who) pointed out this fact: the NYT interviewer was there at the club as a guest of the NEWSMAX bigshot. The bigshot had no problem bringing him over to tRump for a chat. It’s almost as if he knew there’d be no risk in doing that /
So, NYT journalists socialize with the head of newsmax. Good to know.
Why on earth would they ask tough questions. Wouldn’t that make things awkward at the next friendly cocktail party or golf game.
And Maggie H., she’s basically the administrations unofficial spokeswoman. If they want something planted in the NYT, she’s the one they go to.
BGinCHI
@aimai: What’s even hard is to admit, right now, and since the middle of 2016 at least, the GOP base and Trump match up perfectly. The press would have to call the GOP base what it is, and they aren’t willing to do that.
Funny thing is that the NYT thinks that population is their readership (or something).
Baud
@germy: Liberal social media needs to learn how to express their concerns to Democrats without engaging in false broad-brushed bad-mouthing.
FlipYrWhig
@germy: Is that guy under the impression that Democrats keep voting for Trump’s agenda? Feels to me like people are starting to carp about things that _aren’t happening_.
Major Major Major Major
Wasn’t Rob Ford elected partly because a lot of people hated bike lanes?
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: Someone here yesterday was concerned that Nancy Pelosi was going to work with Paul Ryan to gut entitlements.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: BS bros love to spew BS about Ds. Its what they do.
JPL
The FBI did not open the investigation due to the dossier, so that is another lie. I assume Trump knows the truth, since he is the orange chief.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Another Scott
@BGinCHI: I’m so old that I remember when the press was telling us that the Tea Party and the Republicans were different.
Good times!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@BGinCHI: I’m aware. I was kind of joking but also kind of not. Climate change is going to produce a lot of refugees–it’s already contributing to some of the war and refugee issues we’re seeing. Despite a history of accepting refugees, that stance could change if the number of refugees becomes more than they think they can handle.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: I’m aware. Although it may not be a factor with the NYT, I think of Adam’s repetition of “penetration at all levels” when I consider issues like one of our premier papers being so journalistically timid and so worshipful of money and power. We do know that Russia plays a long game.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Ohio Mom: It’s obnoxious! Do you still have my email? I’ve mislaid yours, and I’d like to send it to Ernie P in my 2018 greetings. That’s what i would’ve written to ask if I’d found it. Please give my best to Ohio Dad!
W/r/t Ohio weather, I have a January birthday (as does Billin; same date, IIRC) and there was a 10 year stretch where the temp was not above 0F on my birthday. The worst was the -22F in 1985. Which doesn’t make the current weather feel any warmer at all.
germy
@Baud: @FlipYrWhig: southpaw said that in response to a news story about the Democratic winner in Virginia saying “it’s time for bipartisanship.”
Out of context, southpaw sounds like a BS Bro, but I don’t think he is. I could be wrong; I haven’t seen anything wilmerish in his writings.
MattF
Yeah, the Times could do a tough interview– but why? I’m guessing they feel there’s no payoff– you antagonize Trump, and there’s no story– it’s quite literally not news that Trump is a delusional and narcissistic asshole. Trump (happily!) earned that reputation in NYC ages ago. The NYT would just be dismissed as ‘the failing New York Times’ and I suspect they’re a bit sensitive about that designation.
In reality, I think that Trump has them stumped and stymied.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: It is a definite possibility.
PPCLI
@BGinCHI: Or left wing. Witness the democratic socialist Parizeau’s complaint that the referendum II was defeated by “l’argent et le vote ethnique.”
The on-other-issues-left-wing Parti Québécois was behind some awful anti-Muslim legislation and their stance may be even worse under Lisée.
Québec nationalism is uncomfortably bound up with an exclusionary image of the pur laine Québécois.
BGinCHI
@Yarrow: Probably true, sadly.
Chyron HR
@germy:
I have no idea who this person is but since they’re a holier-than-thou leftist on Twitter, odds are that they stayed home on election day and voluntarily surrendered the country to nazi plutocrats because they wouldn’t vote for the “lesser of two evils”. But yeah, Pelosi and Schumer are the ones who don’t “understand the conflict”.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Rather than just be frustrated, annoyed, angry with the NYT (which is warranted!), I think it’s more constructive to look at why they act like they do. Who owns the paper? What are its funding sources? What financial relationships do the top folks have? Who has leverage over whom? That kind of thing. Look at it a bit more analytically. They aren’t acting in a vacuum. They may even be acting in what they consider their own best interests. And what are those interests?
FlipYrWhig
@germy: Virginia has a Republican legislature. When a Virginia governor talks about bipartisanship he probably means “hey, Republicans, if you know what’s good for you you’ll work with me and stop fucking things up.”
germy
@Chyron HR: See my comment #41
He wasn’t talking about Pelosi/Schumer
A Democratic winner in Virginia says it’s time for bipartisanship
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/gov-elect-northam-rode-a-democratic-wave-but-now-hes-preaching-bipartisanship/2017/12/16/689e1074-e1b3-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.b36968cda08d
Baud
@germy: The Virginia governor needs GOP votes in the legislature. Of course he’ll say that.
ETA: And his tweet referred to “elected Democrats.”
BGinCHI
@PPCLI: Exactly.
Neldob
The nyt didn’t need to say much. T sounded demented. It was bizarre hearing Washington Week in Review talk about the interview as if it were rational.
No Drought No More
Why the hell do you need any newspaper to count Trump’s lies? The man himself is a walking, talking lie, the absolute personification of all that is dishonest, mean, and ugly in the the human spirit. Get down to brass tacks, his lies are literally impossible to calculate, such is the depth of his depravity. Indeed, the lies he speaks aloud can fairly be likened to the intermittent stench of gaseous stinks emanating from an open sewer..
germy
@Baud:
His tweet was a reply to the Virginia gov.-elect’s statement.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: Also, moderate Democrats have historically liked the concept and rhetoric of bipartisanship, and Virginia has a lot of moderate Democrats and a legacy of moderate Republicans too. In that context this strikes me as a perfectly anodyne statement. And I’m tiring of people being intent on performing their anxiety about Democrats reprising their behaviors during the 1990s and the Bush II presidency. It’s becoming the new cynical-savvy conventional wisdom and it’s based on nothing.
Baud
@germy: But his response painted with a broader brush.
Kelly
Whilst the eastern end of the country is being blasted by the arctic the Oregon Cascades snowpack is at 45%. The ski season has been lousy to nonexistent. Our weather is caused by the other side of the jet stream loop that is freezing the midwest and east out. We haven’t any prospect of proper winter weather in 10 day forecast.
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: Agree. I wonder how many of these same people called Trump weak because he said he wants to do “the bipartisan.”
Villago Delenda Est
The Twitter machine has been very active in ripping limb from limb the hactackular stenographers of the Vichy Times.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kelly: It was 60 F in Eugene yesterday.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yarrow: https://outabouter.com/2017/01/18/concerned-canada-quietly-plants-privacy-hedge-along-entire-u-s-border/
Lit3Bolt
The NYT could at least wipe their chin while “interviewing” Trump.
Kelly
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m gonna give up on skiing for a while and go back to kayaking.
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: I gave myself permission to hibernate this entire weekend. Though I did run outside this morning and it wasn’t bad at all.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: NYT sent me subscription offer in the mail. I responded by writing: “Dear Vichy Times”. Thanks for that!
NorthLeft12
@Yarrow: That has already been happening. Somalians and Haitians have felt very threatened and have been running to Canada through frigid temperatures.
FYI The “exodus” started back in February and March of this year in Manitoba and Quebec.
germy
@Kathleen: I did something similar! I wrote “Thanks No Thanks” and mailed it back on their dime. (no postage required)
Yarrow
Back to the original topic, Daniel Dale gave examples on Twitter yesterday of how good reporters can correct Trump or question him on things without derailing the interview. Here’s one example and if you click through you can see more in the thread.
The actual exchange is in an image in that tweet, along with more in other tweets. The point being that good reporters can call Trump on his lies without putting him on the defensive and shutting down the interview.
Kathleen
@Yarrow: All of what you said plus they support Fascism.
germy
@tobie:
Excellent, important point. I hadn’t seen this comment when I posted my own questions.
Yarrow
@NorthLeft12: I’ve heard about the refugees to Canada. I hadn’t heard about Canadian calls to build a wall on their southern border.
Kelly
@Villago Delenda Est: I read several articles this month about how the reduced arctic ice pack leads to the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” in the North Pacific which leads to our current weather pattern. This may be the new normal.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Major Major Major Major: I think that was part of his platform; the city has put in and removed bike lanes near me a couple of times in the last few years. The real reason Ford won, though, was that his toughest opponent (George Smitherman) was compromised by the eHealth scandal. (Doesn’t that sound familiar?)
My next door neighbor had worked underneath him somewhere and was telling people not to vote for Smitherman and didn’t realize what an idiot Ford was. At the time I couldn’t vote in Canadian elections (dual citizenship now) so I just watched with amusement; I always assumed corruption was going to bring Ford down, not crack.
Kathleen
@Another Scott: And the Tea Party people were angry (sad face) and had legitimate concerns!
Kathleen
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Did you get my email? Oh, and Happy New Year!
Yarrow
@Kathleen: And totally grassroots.
Kathleen
@Yarrow: Excellent point! I myself (unfortunately) find it too easy to get stuck in victim mode but your questions are excellent.
Kathleen
@germy: Oh, yeah! I mailed mine back, too!
Yutsano
@germy: He’s not. What he’s showing here is either horrific naïveté or a blatant misunderstanding of political reality in Virginia. The House of Delegates is split 50/50. The two parties HAVE to work together to get anything done. The fact that Southpaw spouted this off is a massive disappoint.
Gelfling 545
@Monala: I don’t believe a “hard hitting” interview would have any effect – except possibly to get him sympathy from his adherents. He has pre-programmed responses and catch phrases that he uses for all occasions and cannot focus long enough to respond appropriately. The answers are the same no matter what the questions and his fans would be riled by reporters being “mean” to him. Let him run his mouth. He does himself plenty of damage.
germy
@Yarrow: Someone found an old tweet from Maggie Haberman (April 2017) where she criticized an interviewer for not being tough enough on Susan Rice.
“Should have challenged her re: unmasking”
They’re full of shit. Wait for the next Democratic president – they’ll learn how to ask tough questions again.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Kathleen: I did and Happy New Year to you also! Yes, let’s do, and I hope I’ll remember to reply in an actual email. Alas, may be a faint hope.
Kathleen
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Ha!
TriassicSands
I submitted a comment on the Times’ site expressing my disgust with the abysmal performance of Michael Schmidt, the interviewer. I’m sure it is very difficult to interview Trump. He rambles endlessly, answers questions that weren’t asked, doesn’t answer questions that were asked, and generally sounds like a complete, mindless idiot. (In this interview, I thought he sounded much more like an idiot than someone suffering from dementia. YMMV.) But there was no excuse for Schmidt’s performance. It is possible that he was unprepared — perhaps because he didn’t expect to get to interview Trump. I’m not sure about the details of how the interview happened, but even if the interview came as a surprise, Schmidt — supposedly a professional — should have done a better job.
Bill Arnold
The fivethirtyeight link led to a classic (and convincing) 538 analysis piece,
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/, that should never be forgotten. Just for the record. (Enjoyed re-rereading it.) FWIW my gut hunch is that multiple parties that didn’t want or expect Trump to win (yes including the NYTimes and Russia) were playing “weaken a future Clinton presidency” games (or more intentional efforts) in the run-up to the election, and that they did not fully know about/accurately model each other’s efforts, or the efforts of the pro-Trump players. Then, “oops”. (I have no evidence but it seems worth an exploratory dig.)
“Rogue Waves” are a perhaps-helpful illustrative analogy:
Real world ocean rogue waves explained without the modulational instability
Dulcie
@BGinCHI: It was new to me, especially border protests and MAGA hats.
Dulcie
@PPCLI: They mentioned the rising anti Muslim sentiment in the piece I saw.
p.a.
Obviously doesn’t have the standing of the FTNYFT, but isn’t the Daily News the N.Y. go-to for all accurate things tRump?
oysuzanna
Just when I think I’m ready to start over with an NYT subscription, everything goes to hell again.
moops
It is possible that a good reporter is not the same qualifications to be a good interviewer. Daniel Dale points out the Schmidt has done good reporting before. The interview itself is passable for the fact that is was somewhat spur-of-the-moment. Normally an impromptu interview the goal is to get your subject talking. For Trump that is not difficult at all. He never shuts up. The trick is to get him to stay on a topic, or answer a question.
But the NYT should have written an article based on the interview, not just transcribed the interview.
Ruckus
@MattF:
This is quite plausible. Of course it could be that they don’t want to risk losing any support for the FNYT, not even one possible subscriber. Not that drumpf would subscribe, first he doesn’t spend his money, second it assumes he can read, which is a fact not in evidence. Besides drumpf is a billionaire and you don’t get that way without knowing something. I think I just threw up a bit over that last line.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: Isn’t it privately owned? How can one find their funding sources its not like they put out an annual report for their shareholders.
moops
I think the funding source question is a snipe hunt. It is easier to remember that news outlets have a fetish about “access”. If you have access, then you can be lazy stenographers and still manage to get copy. An interview with Trump is good for ratings. Giving nothing but fellatory interviews ensures ongoing access. We saw this in the Bush years.
Ruckus
@oysuzanna:
I don’t think FTFNYT ever changes. They have consistently been bad on politics for a long time. It is the newspaper for the obscenely wealthy. It wants the obscenely wealthy to feel like they have a friend in print. And to have everyone else jealous of the obscenely wealthy.
Ruckus
@moops:
That transcribed interview may be one of the best FTNYT things they’ve done. No way to spin it that they are lying, this is what drumpf said. No way to misinterpret his majestic bullshit. If they had done an article, do you have any idea how they would spin it so that drumpf doesn’t sound like himself? It sure wouldn’t have come off like it did.
lulymay
@BGinCHI:
I do a lot of genealogy research and because a number of my relatives came from England to Alberta, have needed to look at their census records for info.
What was most surprising in viewing these records was the sheer number of Albertans whose country of origin for their respective parents and grandparents was the United States! Both Canada and the US had a very porous border in those days, when it came to people as well as cattle.
Cheers to all, and have a very Happy New Year.
TriassicSands
OMG! I just read Michael Schmidt’s response to the the reaction he’s gotten to his Trump interview. He is soooooooo proud of himself!
Ooooh, you duh man, you duh man!!!
Note: Don’t make calls while driving, you dope. The research demonstrates that hands-free calling is not safe — it’s your brain that’s distracted, not your hand. It’s unbelievable how many people are simply ignoring the research because it doesn’t support what they want to do — that is, talk on the telephone when they are driving.
trnc
@No Drought No More:
Because it can’t repeated often enough that he lies, and it’s especially useful to have clear examples. Remember, Hillary is probably the most honest pres candidate the country has seen in a long time, and she was actually ranked as such in polls until NPR and other news outlets began insisting repeatedly that she had a trustworthiness issue.
JoeyJoeJoe Junior Shabadoo
@Yarrow: Scott Walker actually did call for that in 2015, during his campaign. Even Republican primary voters didn’t take that seriously.
MaryLou
Daniel Dale (from the Star) has been a guest on Lawrence O’Donnell fairly regularly. He’s a sharp kid, always has worthwhile observations.
Svensker
Daniel Dale is great and as an American-Canadian I am especially proud of him. He’s worth following on the twitters.
The Simp in the Suit
@Yarrow: Wellll, there’s story that the CIA/FBI/NSA has targeted the Times for infiltrations since Watergate. Pretty sure Hunter S. told me that…