ABC’s Tom Llamas Lets Trump Lie About Loan His Father Gave To Him

ABC’s Tom Llamas failed to fact-check Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s lies that his father loaned him a “small amount of money” to start his business and that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s statement that the loan from Trump’s father was actually $14 million was “wrong.” Indeed, “Clinton is right about Trump’s … $14 million loan,” according to Politico.

During the September 26 presidential debate, Clinton claimed that Trump “started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father.” Trump responded that Clinton was wrong, saying, “My father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars.”

A real-time Politico fact check found Clinton’s claim to be true. Politico linked to The Wall Street Journal, which “tracked down a 1985 casino-license disclosure that showed Trump’s father lent him $14 million.”

Yet when Llamas interviewed Trump after the debate, he let Trump falsely claim that “the number [that Clinton said during the debate] was actually the wrong number”:

TOM LLAMAS: Mr. Trump, [Hillary Clinton] attacked that loan you got, received from your father and then she also attacked some of the things you said about women. Do you feel that was fair for this presidential debate or were those cheap shots?

DONALD TRUMP: I thought it was very cheap. You know, first of all, my father gave me a very small amount of money, relative to what I built. I built a massive company and a great company. But I learned so much from my father. I learned tremendous from my father Fred, who was my best friend. But the number was actually the wrong number, number one, and number two -- and it wasn't -- even that wasn't a big number compared to what I did. But I thought that was fair, except the number was wrong.

Trump has a startling penchant for lying, and fact-checking is a must for journalists and reporters covering him.