President Trump held a press conference Monday to announce a federal takeover of D.C. police, and CNN unfurled its usual fury, starting with Canadian “fact checker” Daniel Dale lamenting “there was a lot of deception.” But was there?
Dale — who almost exclusively “checks”/corrects Trump — hemmed and hawed over Trump’s framing of crime stats, while allowing that D.C. is a high-crime city.
“There is no doubt that D.C. has for decades been a high-crime city,” Dale acknowleged. “It is among the U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates, though there are a bunch of other big cities that are worse and D.C. did indeed have a big crime spike in 2023, which is the year the President kept citing.” It’s not “deception” to harp on 2023.
Dale also insisted “even in 2023, D.C. did not have an all-time high in murder. It was way worse during the crack crisis of the 80s and early 90s.” Even then, when the mayor was Marion Barry, it was a question of incompetence or liberal neglect of crime. That mayor was then found smoking crack. Dale also argued “the President was just flat wrong when he said, it’s getting worse now, not getting better.” There was no mention that last month, a D.C. police commander was suspended for manipulating crime statistics.
CNN reporter Eva McKend smelled racism on Trump: “He has always felt that American cities, especially those with large black populations like Washington, D.C., are crime ridden and run by incompetent leadership, as he repeated today.” So you can never criticize an incompetent black mayor, then.
CNN anchor Dana Bash felt compelled to drag in January 6: “As we go to break, I should note that the most violent moment in recent history in D.C. was January 6, and it was an attack on the United States Capitol by a lot of people who were doing it in the name of Donald Trump. And it included the people who were hurt, included members of law enforcement.” Curtis Houck pointed out that in the D.C. riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, “13 people were dead and more than 900 businesses were damaged.”
In addition to Daniel Dale, we discuss the anti-Trump aggression of PolitiFact and how Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler refuses to admit error on Biden “cheapfake” videos showing his mental decline. CNN’s Bash was also guilty of puffing up socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday’s State of the Union show.
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
