A "Quick Side Project" That Lasted a Decade
Few journalists can say a small assignment turned into a defining career, but that is roughly how Dale describes it. He says he began tracking Trump's statements when the then-candidate looked like a long shot. Nobody seemed to be checking his claims, so Dale figured a few weeks of work would cover it.
That plan did not survive the 2016 election. Dale writes that he was convinced Trump would lose, and that he "was very wrong." In his telling, Trump's misstatements did not stop after the win. They continued across what he calls a dizzying variety of topics for the next ten years.
What a Decade of Fact-Checking Taught Him
In his CNN.com piece, Dale says the job gave him a close look at how Trump lies, how the public receives those claims, and how the press covers them. He then lays out several takeaways from following the president so closely.
The first is his most striking. Dale grants that Washington has never been known as a capital of straight talk, but says nobody there compares to Trump. He points to how often the falsehoods come, how obvious they are, and how many subjects they cover. He calls Trump a rare political liar, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime one.
More Trouble, More Falsehoods
Dale also says he has noticed a pattern. When Trump is under pressure, the false statements increase. According to Dale, the president turns up the dishonesty when he gets in trouble, even in cases where dishonesty helped cause the trouble.
The Small Lies Stand Out Most
Oddly, Dale finds the smallest falsehoods the most revealing. He cites a phone call from the Boy Scouts that never happened, a "Man of the Year" award from Michigan that Trump claimed to have won years ago but never did, and denials that there were empty seats at events where the empty seats were plainly visible.
None of these matters much, Dale says, and yet Trump felt the need to invent stories about them anyway. He jokes that this is a special trait of Trump's.
The Same Claims, Over and Over
Dale's last point concerns repetition. Trump, he says, tells the same untrue stories again and again. Checking a claim the first time can take a while. By the tenth or hundredth time, Dale says he could recite the debunking half-asleep. For some of Trump's claims, he adds, there really has been a hundredth time.
A Tense Backdrop
Dale's reflection comes amid strained relations between Trump and the press. Trump was recently filmed snapping at a reporter, and it was reported that he had banned CNN from the White House.
Comments
Post a Comment