MSNBC: Fact-checking Trump and his extremism during debate is an “essential task on the part of moderators”
John Heilemann: Trump is laying out “the invalidation of the election, which in the context of January 6 is a threat. ... So is that not at the very top of a sane, sensible, serious, responsible journalist head as you walk into that debate?”
Published
Citation From the September 9, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe
JOHN HEILEMANN (NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST): I have said a couple times in the last week, you know, how much I was troubled going into the CNN debate, with all due respect to Jake [Tapper] and Dana [Bash], that they announced before that debate they were not going to fact-check -- make any effort to fact-check Donald Trump in that debate. And as we all know, because of Joe Biden's performance and all of the consequences of that, CNN didn't really have to live with the kind of criticism they might have received on that front. I thought those two hosted a fair debate, but they did not do something I think, in Donald Trump's case, is an essential task on the part of moderators. David Muir and Linsey Davis, who are going to be moderating this debate on Tuesday night. We saw Rick Klein, the political director at ABC News say over the weekend in a story that I read that they did not -- he did not say what David Chalian at CNN had said before that debate, which is that they would not fact check. He said, “We don't have an official policy on fact-checking, we're not going to fact-check everything. But we're not saying we're not going to fact-check anything.” So we'll see what happens. But I think that it's not just a matter of fact-checking. To your point, it's a matter of what are the kinds of questions that Donald Trump is asked?
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He [Trump] is laying out, and also in the context as we said a few minutes ago, of the invalidation of the election, which in the context of January 6 is a threat. The notion of, if I don't win, this is a crooked election. Now, it's not like this is a thing without precedent. We saw what happened last time. So we know that there is an implied threat in that as we head toward this election. All of those things are autocratic strongman behaviors. They are things we've never seen before in the history of American politics before from any other presidential nominee in any party since the birth of the republic. So is that not at the very top of a sane, sensible, serious, responsible journalist head as you walk into that debate? It's not a question that can be asked to Kamala Harris, and I think it must be asked to him, along with the fact-checking questions.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): Fact-checking.
HEILEMANN: There's a lot on the line for those ABC News moderators and for the country. Not just fact-checking.
JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): You talk about a fair debate, you talk about a fair debate. Yeah, a fair debate. Not where there's false moral equivalence, but a fair debate. What have you been talking about over the past week -- over the past two weeks? Donald Trump has been talking about violence. He's been talking about throwing his political opponents in jail. He's been talking about bloodying up immigrants. He's been talking about pardoning the rioters that beat the hell out of cops. I mean, these are things he just talked about.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): Right.
SCARBOROUGH: So if you're a moderator, how do you, how do you -- where is the moral equivocation between that and, oh, Kamala Harris, she's not letting a lot of mainstream media people interview her right now. Because if you turn to certain channels, there is that moral equivocation. And I just wonder, again we've seen it time and again with Donald Trump, where moderators just, again, they pretend he is Bob Dole.
BRZEZINSKI: Let things go by.
SCARBOROUGH: And here, they don't even -- you know, if the moderators -- and I don't know who the moderators are going to be, so I don't know who I'm talking -- I don't know who I'm talking to here, so, but if Donald Trump had said this during the primary, I could see him saying, OK, well, he said it during the primary, he had to get through the primary. He's saying it now, in the homestretch of a presidential election.
BRZEZINSKI: In the wake of January 6.
SCARBOROUGH: Talking about violence, praising January 6, praising the rioters of January the 6, telling cops to intimidate voters, telling immigrants they're going to be bloodied and beaten and dragged out of the country. I mean, that's what he's saying now. And so I hope they will start with the first question, the key question, and that is about January 6.
BRZEZINSKI: And I'm sorry, John, I just think that when disinformation starts to spew, he needs to be stopped.
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BRZEZINSKI: If Kamala Harris said something equally as crazy as Donald Trump, any of the things that he is going to say on that debate stage.
SCARBOROUGH: Any.
BRZEZINSKI: Like let's say, and I'll keep it clean, this debate is not on ABC. It's on CBS and you CBS people are not fair. Well, the moderator would say, Madam Vice President, you are wrong. This is on ABC. They would correct her. Why would they correct her? Because it'd be so shocking she would say something so rude and such a lie. But why won't they correct him? Are they inured to him? Are they afraid? Can they not keep up with all the lies? Turn the mic off.