News anchors are supposed to fact-check interviewees on the spot when they know someone is telling an untruth.
Sadly, Jake Tapper chose not to do that while interviewing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on his show and let her rant about a blatantly false claim.
Fake News is Good Ratings
These days, it seems as though AOC tells more lies than truths when he gets some airtime.
She did this repeatedly when appearing on Fox News with Brett Baier, and he let her get away with a surprising amount of false claims.
It was as though they were so happy to have her on Fox News they just allowed her to say whatever she wanted without calling her out.
Something similar happened when Baier, who I generally respect very much, had James Comey on his show.
This time, though, CNN and Jake Tapper were the culprits…
AOC just repeated the lie that President Trump called coronavirus a "hoax."
This is not true, and has been debunked by numerous fact checking sources.
This would've been a great time for a fact check, @jaketapper… https://t.co/Ps1hItAKGA pic.twitter.com/X8qQEwMthF
— Abigail Marone (@abigailmarone) March 22, 2020
AOC, wrongly, stated that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax.
This has been fact-checked numerous times and it was made clear that Trump was calling the Democrat response to the administration’s coronavirus response a hoax, not the virus itself.
Tapper, though, decided to just let it slide.
Tapper’s excuse? Trump lies so much, why bother fact-checking anyone else…
I guess that’s the problem with a politician who lies so often; while I agree that Democrats are mischaracterizing what he said, what he did say was also false so it’s tough to justify taking the time for a fact check when it’s not taking a stand defining the truth.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 22, 2020
But You Do Check Trump
Tapper was irresponsible here because the media does call out Trump every chance its gets and it is pretty extreme.
We all know politicians tend to stretch the truth, but most of the time it is harmless and let go, but not with Trump.
For instance, Trump recently stated that Mexico had put 27,000 soldiers at our southern border.
CNN rated the claim false because Mexico has stationed 15,000 soldiers on one side and 12,000 on the other.
In another instance, Trump was called a liar because he rounded up from 6.7 million to 7 million.
I would be a fool to sit here and say Trump does not let things get away from him at times and when he does that, he deserves to be fact-checked, but so does everyone else.
Tapper has taken considerable heat over this, and he should.
Translation: "I knew AOC was lying. I let her lie. Because I wanted to." https://t.co/uqiZzt0s1P
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) March 22, 2020
Just because you don’t like one person, and if you follow Tapper on Twitter, you know he despises Trump, that does not justify openly ignoring a bogus claim on your show when it is made.
