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Zorro

(15,691 posts)
Wed Sep 16, 2020, 10:41 AM Sep 2020

Trump's ABC News town hall: Four Pinocchios, over and over again

At the ABC News town hall Tuesday night, President Trump was challenged by ordinary voters in ways that he rarely experiences in the safe spaces of Fox News, where he regularly answers questions. But he still retreated to false or misleading talking points that he offers in his usual venues. Here’s a quick tour through 24 claims made at the Philadelphia town hall, in the order in which he answered questions.

“We’re very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we’re within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it.”

Most experts believe a scientifically credible vaccine for the novel coronavirus will not be available until at least early 2021, and vaccine manufacturers insist they will not be rushed for political considerations. In any case, it will take months to make a safe vaccine available to most Americans. Trump has no basis to claim the Obama administration would have been slower, given how poorly the Trump administration ramped up coronavirus testing.

“If you look at what we’ve done compared to other countries, with the excess mortality, the excess mortality rate, we’ve done very, very well.”

Trump can cherry-pick whatever numbers he wants, but as moderator George Stephanopoulos pointed out, the United States ranks poorly compared to its peers on most measures of the coronavirus.

“We were short on ventilators because the cupboards were bare when we took it over.”

This is a Four-Pinocchio claim. When the new coronavirus emerged, the Strategic National Stockpile held 16,660 working ventilators, which turned out to be enough to deal with the initial surge of the pandemic, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Almost 11,000 were distributed to states.) HHS said that the number available in March 2020 was essentially the same number as of January 2017, when President Barack Obama left office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/15/trumps-abc-news-town-hall-four-pinocchios-over-over-again/

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Trump's ABC News town hall: Four Pinocchios, over and over again (Original Post) Zorro Sep 2020 OP
ABC is going to give equal air-time to Biden, yes? cp Sep 2020 #1
It's ABC, so probably yes. All broadcast media are held to the equal time standard. maxsolomon Sep 2020 #2
There is no equal time standard ramapo Sep 2020 #5
The "Fairness Doctrine" it was called... SergeStorms Sep 2020 #6
Not even during Presidential campaigns? maxsolomon Sep 2020 #9
If Trump was Pinocchio, the tip of his nose would reach Uranus. lagomorph777 Sep 2020 #3
Great Post...Thanks for posting.. Stuart G Sep 2020 #4
I am getting sick and tired DENVERPOPS Sep 2020 #7
Have you read DU's Terms of Service? PJMcK Sep 2020 #8
Thank you for your information DENVERPOPS Sep 2020 #10

maxsolomon

(32,992 posts)
2. It's ABC, so probably yes. All broadcast media are held to the equal time standard.
Reply to cp (Reply #1)
Wed Sep 16, 2020, 02:29 PM
Sep 2020

Did you read something different?

ramapo

(4,585 posts)
5. There is no equal time standard
Wed Sep 16, 2020, 11:38 PM
Sep 2020

That was an artifact of the past. I believe it went away during the Reagan years. There was also a limit on how many Media outlets a single company could own... also long gone.

SergeStorms

(18,903 posts)
6. The "Fairness Doctrine" it was called...
Wed Sep 16, 2020, 11:57 PM
Sep 2020

and yes, it was established in 1949 and shit-canned in 1987 by Ronnie Rayguns. After that conservative hate radio took over the air waves and the rest, as they say, is history.

maxsolomon

(32,992 posts)
9. Not even during Presidential campaigns?
Thu Sep 17, 2020, 12:41 PM
Sep 2020

I thought that had still been retained.

Biden has a CNN event tonight. I suppose that's "balance"...

DENVERPOPS

(8,679 posts)
7. I am getting sick and tired
Thu Sep 17, 2020, 12:36 AM
Sep 2020

of incomplete articles that refer us to a different website with a pay wall.

I would guess a lot of them are under RepubliCON ownership, but to ALL of them, how greedy can you get, given what is going on in the news and world............................

PJMcK

(21,921 posts)
8. Have you read DU's Terms of Service?
Thu Sep 17, 2020, 08:20 AM
Sep 2020

In order to prevent violations of copyright laws, DU limits posts to about 4 paragraphs of quoted material.

The Washington Post is a respectable news outlet and if you don't want to pay them, sorry but it's their content.

Incidentally, there are several ways to get around paywalls that are not illegal. Do a little research to find them.

Many news sites have paywalls: The NY Times, The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones are but a few and none of those are "RepubliCON" owned.

Basically, these sites are in business and need to charge for their content. The costs are quite modest if you consider the time one spends reading the news. Did you ever buy a newspaper or a magazine? You had to pay for it, right?

Although DU is a free site, if you throw them a few bucks, you'll enjoy the experience a bit more without the ads and such.

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