How do you fact check a presidential debate? | Power & Politics

former president Donald Trump said yesterday that he would not be participating in another US presidential debate with vice president Kamala Harris the two face off on Tuesday in their first ever debate and it was heated she has a plan to confiscate everybody's gun Tim Walls and I are both gun owners we're not taking anybody's guns away so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out she hates Israel she wouldn't even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech if Donald Trump were President Putin would be sitting in ke right now people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom people don't leave my rallies we have the biggest rallies we have millions of people pouring into our country they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats you talk about extreme Daniel Dale is a reporter for CNN and he fact checked to Tuesday's debate and he joins us now Daniel Dale welcome to power in politics thank you very much let's talk about what you did on the night of the debate you counted 33 lies as you called them by Donald Trump over the 90-minute debate on Tuesday give us some context on that how do you get to that number and and how does that compare to what you've seen in the past uh I'll take the second one first it is similar to what we've seen in the past every debate that I fact checked involving Donald Trump has involved a huge disparity in terms of the number of false claims he has made versus the number his opponent has made so this uh disparity was bigger than the one we saw at the debate between him and Biden uh Biden I think I counted at least nine false claims uh but Trump's 30 plus number was common for him how do we get to it well thankfully at CNN uh we have uh resources in The Newsroom and we assemble a big team so it's not just me it's a bunch of beat reporters with expertise and everything from National Security to immigration to the environment and we're frantically typing sometimes frantic reaching out to experts on debate night and doing what reporters do trying to assess whether the claims were true or not something that helps with Donald Trump is that he makes the same false claims over and over and over again um and so many of them I had basically or literally pre-written you know because I'd run these exact same fact checks over sometimes years okay because that's interesting because I I know when I first became aware of you as the Donald Trump fact Checker you were still working for the Toronto Star and you're doing it by yourself in real time sort of on Twitter and now here you are at the face of it on on one of the biggest news organizations in the world but you've got the backing of a whole team like I mean how how many people are we talking about here that it takes to be able to mount this realtime factchecking on such a big stage on such a big election it's it's a bunch I don't even know the exact number I think we had more than a dozen people involved they're all're all critical I think especially with the the person involved who's not Donald Trump so I think the team will be especially instrumental when we get to the VP debate because I don't have a big database of fact checks on Tim walls or JD Vance with Trump uh I have a massive database because I've been doing this since 2016 and I just wrote a piece the other week literally Trump has been telling some of the same lies since 2016 many of them since 2020 almost word for word and so it's very hard to do it in real time when he introduces a claim because of course you have to research it you can't get it wrong but when he tells it for literally the 100 time or you know eight years later uh it's pretty pretty easy to do it fast okay so 33 for Donald Trump I I think when saw you initially on debating it was just one I think for kamla Harris is is that where the final tally was where are we I said I said at least one I think i' I'd now say uh at least two and I think you could you could argue maybe three I'd probably put it at at at least two okay so you she's doubled the amount of false claims I I mean but like you know in politics Daniel there's Spin and there's misrepresentation and then there's an outright lie so like yeah how do you categorize those because I've seen you come out and say this is a lie you you call what sometimes you use big adjectives how do you decide to grade them all and rank them all it's let's be honest there's some subjectivity here so for example with vice president Harris I would say at least two false claims but there were some other statements I'd call misleading others I'd say lacking in context I think um I try to be generous to everyone I fact check uh Trump critics might not say uh sorry Trump supporters might not say I'm especially generous to him but I feel like I am um if if there is some doubt about whether you know maybe perhaps there's some uh defense of some claim even if most people are saying it's nonsense well you could frame it this way or that way I might not call it false I might say misleading or lacking in context and so I'm constantly trying to uh hold political leaders accountable but also um give them the benefit of the doubt think I have kind of a devil's advocate in my head thinking how would a smart critic attack uh this fact check if I called it false and kind of responding to that that imaginary person as I go about this work that makes a ton of sense especially with some that are sort of in that gray area whether it's an exaggeration or an outright lie but Daniel what what goes through your head when he says they're eating the cats they're eating the dogs they're eating the pets in Springfield uh I think you know when you're in the moment I like I just I would just like I prepared for that uh I think my thought was okay he he did it and I have an item for this um and so uh a lot of what I do in advance of the debate is trying to kind of uh uh conduct an imaginary debate in my head okay what are these candidates likely to say and I realized I forget if it was the morning of the debate or the night before hey Trump is probably gonna mention the cats thing um and he did I think actually my one of my thoughts in the moment was oh goodness he introduced dogs to this because the whole nonsense you know rumor that started on Facebook the whole discussion was about cats uh one thing we see with Donald Trump is that he's usually not content to repeat other people's uh exaggeration or false claim he has to make it bigger so if someone is saying I don't know uh we have near record inflation he'll say uh it's record inflation it's the worst in a hundred years you know and so he he made it bigger in typical form so you know this is obviously it's an important function it's a difficult thing to do in real time but also with this extremely polarized and uh political environment especially in the US increasingly here in Canada and and more and more Daniel people are living kind of in their own reality that's that's built by social media there's a lot of push back when someone comes in and says this is a lie this isn't true and and I would imagine you get some some pretty tough responses to it I mean how difficult is it in the current US political environment to be so public in such a role where you got to call these balls and Strikes and people won't like the UMP I I think it's fine I've I've come to find it fine I think one thing about the criticism these days is that you know in the old days the newsrooms people used to get nasty letters like in the actual mail and kind of became nasty emails where they pop up in your inbox now it's mostly nasty tweets and I found that if you if you don't check them it's like they don't they don't exist I know that some reporters don't have the luxury of it uh you know they're getting actual threats or truly disgusting things but if if 5 hundreds of people just being like you're you know you're biased or sometimes even go home to Canada uh it doesn't bother me you know I'm I'm confident in my judgment I you know again we have a team I've been doing you know extensive research on this stuff for a long time uh sometimes there's good faith criticism get an email or even a tweet saying you got this wrong and here's why and I'll listen to that I'm not like pigheaded about this thinking I have all the answers or I'm going to be perfect but I think for the most part the the toxic nonsense my advice to fellow journalists would be you know just ignore it as much as you can and sometimes it's like it's not happening at all I think increasingly Daniel there's an appetite in the public for more of what you do like certainly us here at the CBC CTV Global everybody in Canada want to see more sort of real-time factchecking more debunking of misinformation it is resources intensive as you say and and like we're a big organization but we're not CNN right in terms of size and scale how important do you think it is though with the way the social media misinformation ecosystem is is growing right now that more and more resources are just dedicated to this kind of thing I I think it's critical and and kind of my my mini uh something I say whenever I do talks about this stuff or interviews is that um it's great that I have a job as like the fact check guy it's cool to be at CNN as a Canadian but I don't think that news organizations need to have you know a dedicated fact Checker to do factchecking and I don't think that factchecking should be treated as kind of like a a Super Bowl model where like you do fat checking on the big debate night uh and then the rest of the year you don't I think uh it should be treated as a core part of every reporter every anchor every journalist Mission you know this is part of what you do every day so any story you know when you're quoting a politician if something in that quote is wrong if you have to include it you should be pointing that out and and something else I I try to emphasize is that I don't think that's bias you're going to get people calling you bias but I think a a core part of our job is to inform people and to tell people what's true and not and so you can do that in in a news story and it doesn't mean you you have to be a jerk a jerk about it you know you don't have to grandstand you don't have to call attention to yourself they are very you know subtle polite professional respectful ways of pointing out that that things are not true and so I I really encourage people in any country you know if you're a reporter you're an anchor whatever like make this part of your day-to-day Mission but but that's a key final point and a good spot to to end on because that you are accused of bias increasingly not you I mean the our profession you're accused of bias you're accused of having an agenda you're accused of being partisan and there's a reluctance baked into to a lot of people particularly younger reporters maybe and less experienced reporters to do it because they don't want to be put in the crosshairs by the people they factchecking any last bits of advice on on how people should approach that it's it's it's hard I mean especially an era of like you know social media is important to young people uh people on social media have the ability to kind of gang up on you and flood your flood your mentions um I think that uh unfortunately being a reporter has often required having a thick skin uh and and that's manifested itself in various different ways now it's often a thick skin about criticism so don't don't tune out criticism completely because it'll make you better you will get things wrong but um as long as you're doing the research you're you're putting the work in you're making sure you're being fair to all sides um you know trust your own gut trust your own voice and if people are calling your names that's that's not especially important Daniel appreciate the time I counted zero false statements in our conversation so so good for you getting through it that's CNN repor CNN reporter fact Checker and good Canadian boy Daniel Dale thanks so much man good to talk to you too we have millions of people pouring into our country they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats you talk about extreme okay so Donald Trump repeated that bizarre piece of misinformation at this week's US presidential debate saying Haitian immigrants have been haunting and eating pet cats and dogs in Springfield Ohio Springfield's a Midwestern Town that's become the center of a misinformation campaign about immigrants in America home to operads of about 20,000 Haitians who have arrived in recent years at least according to City officials the false claims were quickly Amplified with AI generated memes it's a misinformation campaign that's had a nasty Fallout for a visible and vulnerable population depicting Haitian immigrants as those who are uh consuming or eating pets dogs or cats are not only false but they are racist despicable and dangerous I have a pet I love my Bella and so you sit there and you say this is what my country my American country has become just today two elementary schools in Springfield were closed because of bomb threats prompting President Biden to speak out Community that's under attack in our country right now simply wrong there's no place in America this has to stop what he's doing Miriam Jordan is a national immigration correspondent for the New York Times and has been closely following the story of Springfield Ohio long before it became a topic in the debate Miriam it's good to meet you thank you for joining us here thank you for having me you've been in Springfield covering immigration there like well before the petting comments even became a thing I mean how did Springfield Ohio come to the center of such a politicized debate in America well uh Springfield Ohio is a small town um in the middle of America that had been struggling to fill jobs after it managed to attract new business businesses to the area and word got out to the Immigrant Community um especially Haitians that there were jobs um housing that was affordable and you know that they would be trained and welcome there so they went in very large numbers um starting after the pandemic and have continued to arrive since then so so they arrived in large numbers somewhere between 12 and 20,000 I think is the range that that I saw in in your reporting but you know based on what you're telling us and and and and PBS and others who have gone there they've showed up they've taken jobs in factories they're doing sort of those workingclass jobs where there was a shortage of skilled workers there they are not a problem in the community beyond the fact that the surge in population growth kind of overwhelms some of the social and housing infrastructure in the community is that a fair assessment of the Haitian role in Springfield Ohio yeah yes I mean the truth is that at the same time as the patients have helped Revitalize the city and the community they have also um somewhat overwhelmed um certain services for instance the publicly subsidized health clinic in town you know that allotted on average 15 minutes per um appointment is now seeing appointments stretch to 45 minutes or so because of the language barriers it's had to invest in interpreters and uh you know this has made it difficult to um serve all the clientele that's seeking Medical Care um rents have gone up because when you have four individual Haitian men renting a two-bedroom apartment they can probably pay more than a single American family with one bread winner right for four people earning money versus one person so there have been these kind of growing pains and there has been some resentment building among some of the Springfield residents about the influx as a result okay so we're going through a similar thing in Canada where immigration numbers have been high there's not enough doctors there aren't necessarily enough jobs and there's certainly not enough housing and and has led to like shocks through the economy but where did this notion that Haitians are stealing and eating being household pets or geese from a park I mean where did that even come from let alone end up in a US presidential debate right that's that was like kind of the strange and huge turning point that happened basically in the last few days um you know it's it's hard to to know exactly where and how it started but from what I have gathered from my reporting um you know someone stood up at City commission meeting in Springfield and said something to the effect of you know Haitians stealing um you know animals um and eating them and um you know someone else found video of some woman in another Ohio city who was not even a Haitian who had gotten in trouble because she um supposedly you know slaughtered a cat for consumption and and before we knew it uh this was being picked up by right-wing media and um you know swirling on um social networks and landed in the laps of politicians like JD Vance the vice presidential running mate of Donald Trump and even Donald Trump's campaign itself right because because we saw JD Vance tweeting about it uh we saw him talking about it after Trump said it in the debate I watched on CNN as he doubl down on it and said that people in his constituency were calling him and telling him about these reports but you've been there I mean did this ever come AC did you ever come across this when you were reporting on the reality of Springfield Ohio I I mean what what can you tell us about your experience there um I mean during the days when I visited Springfield Ohio I did not hear or see anything um that would suggest that Haitians are engaging in um you know uh pet snatch um activities um to consume them for you know lunch or dinner um I you know I I I met people who were very appreciative of the Haitians and the contributions that they're making to the economy uh enriching the culture helping bolster enrollment in the schools um and I met you know many Haitians who are who are very successful there now um who are themselves buying homes Etc yeah it's interesting because look the memes are out there post the debate and we all kind of laugh at the absurdity of it and the fact that it's Springfield and the town in The Simpsons is Springfield um you know it lends itself to a lot of online material but there's a real dark consequence to this right Miriam like we're seeing bomb threats we're seeing schools shut down I know there's a lot of Haitian kids in the schools now because of the population Surge and we should point out these are people who are here legally this is not like border jumping migrants these are people who are in the united states with legal status to work but I mean what are the consequences of the former president his campaign and this right-wing ecosystem fueling these false rumors on on a visible and vulnerable population like the Haitians in Springfield well as the mayor of Springfield told me just yesterday his city is really hurting and you know the level of disruption has only um intensified um since you know the the Trump and the van campaigns began you know um repeating these debunked rumors these baseless rumors uh about the eating of the pets and you know people like Ted Cruz right the Texas uh Senator know mocking uh mocking this whole situation um on the ground I'm hearing from you know uh City officials I'm hearing from you know resident students and you know everybody is very concerned they are you know today was the second consecutive day in which there were school closures following bomb threats that arrived by email and we don't know where this is going to end I mean is it is it going to really explode um or is it just going to die down but for now it's it's it's gotten worse there's one other point just to touch on with you Mir and before before we let you go and I I've got a 10-year-old boy I've got a seven-year-old boy and I've been reading in your reporting about Nathan Clark who's 11-year-old boy Aiden Clark was killed August of 2023 I believe it was uh when his school bus uh it was a car accident a van driven by a Haitian immigrant on his way to work it says he was blinded by the sun collided with the bus and and Aiden died uh in the accident this is a little over a year ago um it is an accident even though there was prosecution for um involuntary manslaughter I believe it was the president and JD Vance have been have been using this they've been politicizing this and the father Nathan Clark has had to come in and say leave my son out of this he he doesn't blame the Haitian Community for this I mean how is that fitting in to this whole D because that seems to have been a flasho where people started to get angry or or some resentment was directed towards the Haitian population right that's exactly right um about a year ago on the first day of school um a Haitian immigrant uh who was driving a minivan um rammed into the school bus the school bus tipped over and um this boy Aiden Clark was ejected from the bus and died um at the scene um and that I think sort of triggered um a lot of pent up um anger or resentment to come to the four so you know people might have been noticing this large influx and not been particularly comfortable with it um suddenly you know the city is you know has descended into this grief and you know people start to speak out and Heir these you know grievances that they've had and a lot of ugly rhetoric um comes out of it yeah and and I think JD Vance said that this immigrant murdered this boy and and Nathan Clark has had to say just just stop talking about it Aiden's father um felt compelled to attend the most recent commission meeting in Springfield to express his dismay that his son was being used as or that his son's death was being used as like a political tool um by politicians to score points okay uh Miriam Jordan uh excellent reporting for there I read a lot of it today I want to thank you for joining us uh here on Power and politics this Miriam Jordan with the New York Times thank you so much you're welcome e