CBS Radically Twists Trump Quote, Then Their Own Video Proves They're Frauds
President Donald Trump’s interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” aired Sunday, which means that — of course — the network is making sure that it’s treating what he said with nuance and absolutely no needless sensationalism.
Or they’re pulling one quote out of context and splashing it everywhere, one or the other.
As you may have heard, Trump was asked about Christine Blasey Ford — the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault during his confirmation process — and said, “It doesn’t matter. We won.”
That’s the media’s “oh my God, can you believe he said that?” moment. (“I can’t believe he said that. Stay tuned to every single show on our network to hear us talk about how we can’t even believe he said that.”)
And, like a lot of those moments, what’s being touted as true isn’t necessarily so. For instance, take a look at this tweet from CBS News and pay particular attention to the context in which it claims the comment was made. Tump was being asked about his comments at a campaign rally in Mississippi on Oct. 2.
Pres. Trump on his treatment of Christine Blasey Ford at rally: "It doesn't matter. We won." https://t.co/D5lpo4sUcB pic.twitter.com/jxfvFbOTYd
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 15, 2018
Wow, that sounds pretty bad. It’s almost as if he’ll do anything to make other people look bad. What kind of entity would do something like that?
You'll be shocked to learn that this is not an honest paraphrase of the exchange.
It's really not that hard to report honestly and let viewers judge for themselves, but the media just refuses to do it. https://t.co/sD0uyoZC5N
— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 15, 2018
Oh, yes, the media. The media would do something like that.
The issue here is the wording of when Trump says that quote. It had a lot more to do with his unwillingness to discuss whether he thought Ford had lied in her testimony than it did with gloating about a Supreme Court nomination “win.”
Here’s the video:
While it was in a line of questioning where Trump’s remarks at the rally were brought up, he wasn’t talking about the rally itself.
“Well, I think she was treated with great respect, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump told “60 Minutes” interviewer Lesley Stahl.
“Do you think you treated her with respect?” Stahl asked.
“I think so, yeah,” Trump said. “I did.”
“But you seem to be saying that she lied,” Stahl responded.
“You know what? I’m not going to get into it, because we won,” Trump said. “It doesn’t matter. We won.”
Here is the actual transcript. You will notice that:
1) The quote CBS cites was in response to Stahl trying to fram it as Trump accusing Ford of lying.
2) On his actual treatment of Ford, Trump claims he treated her with respect. pic.twitter.com/nzveycyTLL
— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 15, 2018
While this may not be fantastic phrasing, Trump is clearly saying it isn’t worth discussing whether or not Ford lied, which is a completely separate question from how she was treated by Republicans. (And that, considering the circumstances, was very well indeed).
In fact, Trump’s response was probably the proper answer at this point.
Why on earth would we want to culturally relitigate everything Kavanaugh-related mere weeks after we culturally litigated it?
Most importantly, it has nothing to do with Trump’s comments about Ford at the rally. It certainly isn’t the president telling Stahl that it doesn’t matter what he said about her since he won. If anyone watches that clip and claims to come away with that impression, I’d like to put them under a polygraph.
There are also a few people at CBS News I think could probably use a lie detector test, while I’m at it.
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