The GOP's "Unfair Debate" Narrative | The Secret Podcast

when you get into questions about like the factchecking slippery slope that view tends to say that view tends to to wind up align with the idea that the news institutions really work for the candidates and that their job is to treat the candidates fairly and I just reject that hello everyone this is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell publisher of the bwar Sarah it's Friday we've never taped this late before and sorry no it's not your fault this is everything is just off today like you had work stuff I had doctor's appointments I think I have food poisoning last night I have been under the weather I didn't even write a newsletter today oh I wrote like 3,000 words of a newsletter I knew something was missing from my day there's a hole in your day where you just you know you I just sat right in front of your email like a rat for a pellet and never came hey wait can I tell you what I did today yeah tell me uh the reason that I had to push it back was as taping the focus group pod with one Dana Bash uh which is cool because she moderated the debate with Joe Biden and Donald Trump that caused Joe Biden to drop out uh and obviously there's a lot of discussion now about the ABC uh moderation and I was excited for her take on it and if you too are excited for her take you can listen to the podast she candid was she candid with you she was wow that surprises me yeah um that surprises me a lot yeah she had she had a thought she had some thoughts and feelings I will say she asked me what I thought about it uh and so I'm interested in what you thought about it because I would say um I have had a little bit of an evolution on this uh where yeah uh because the night of when they did the first fact check which I want to say I think the first one was on the like they do not just first one was on the abortion right Trump said there are there are states where Democratic Governors let you uh kill the babies murder the babies in the eth ninth month and even after they've been born right and they said the correction was there are no States in which you were able to murder the babies after they are born yeah there there are no States in which babies may be killed after delivery that's right um so uh so I was like oh my gosh they fact checked him do my ears deceive me what could this be uh and so I was pretty amped because uh it feels good when a liar is said to be lying um and I think our our souls cry out for that in this moment and yet and yet the path on the path of factchecking Lies Peril uh not simply the reaction to it uh which obviously L because it was such a firm and complete uh devastating route of Donald Trump his synop fants had nothing to do but howl at the refs and so uh I fact check I'm sorry fact Check Yes um Byron York actually wrote the the night of the debate that it was a Triumph for Trump and that he had shown that KLA Harris was a Cate of aspirations while he was a candidate of actions oh did he Byron York man I got to tell you it takes it does take Talent it takes talent to get I mean to get your head that far up you got to do the work Byron's doing the work you don't actually it's very easy it's it's very we're going to have a whole section on Byron later on in the show okay so I'm sorry I just wanted to be S that is one of the voices enjoy I don't like your kit frog that is my I do enjoy that one oh the Glorious lost cause uh so I just I think that uh I like to play the mandelin all right are you gonna do it now or like during the Byron York part okay I may just do the whole show as Byron it's it's it's funnier if you do know what Byron sounds like in real life uh because you can see that that's a pretty good impression uh so what did you think I just I well I want to know what you finish your Evolution finish your Evolution well I do think that um if you're gonna fact check you know I you just you can't get anything even remotely a little bit a squid wrong and uh I don't think that trump it Trump was trying to push back around the FBI statistics on crime and I think I I if I were them I might have let that one be from a fact check standpoint the two fact checks that I thought were really dead on were the you shouldn't you can't no you can't kill a baby just wantedly after it is born it's not a thing that happens that's not a thing that happens uh and then two the fact that they had called right like it is an ongoing point of issue about whether or not they are eating the cats and dogs in Springfield Ohio and so the fact that they called and just were like hey this this thing real uh and we're prepared with some reporting I thought that that seemed to be the purview of of uh moderators the I think the one about crime is just a little bit great and I think there's a question about what the role of of moderators are okay and I want I would love to hear your take on this uh where is it are they meant to be in that moment because in many other in many other cases and many other times they must push back in their jobs as journalists like they is incumbent yeah upon and many of the other times they should push back right they don't always right uh but so the question is is when you are basically the standin for the voters to facilitate a conversation to illuminate uh the the back and forth like is it the role of the moderators to fact check or is it is it incumbent upon the other candidate in the debate to respond and fact check and I think there's I I would say my evolution is is that I don't think it's an unreasonable position there's a reason that the moderators as a rule do not fact check so I mean can we stipulate that there are that there is a like I know pornography when I see it aspect to this can we stipulate that that um there areel legitimate to hold right and so uh candidate X saying that that that Governor Smith has ter the worst Judgment of anybody I've ever seen is not a statement that should be fact checked because that falls under the Realms of normal political rhetoric right yes it would be it would be not helpful to fact check and say actually sir you did see this other candidate 5 years ago who was a much worse liar isn't he worse um there are normal levels of exaggeration which are part of the way that things are understood the way that normal people can understand conversations about this yes and there are the kinds of exaggerations which are murky enough that you you know could you like really fact checked something somebody says my economic plan will you know 14 economists have said it will produce the most economic growth of any PL where you yeah we could try to really litigate that and get that down but but this is sort of a nebulous claim right there are enough qualifiers behind it it's you know it is like saying uh Samy's Pizza is the best pizza in in the city yeah you can't actually fact check sami's pizza's claim on that right that's because that's subjective there are other claims which are more outlandish and are are quite easy to fact check such as um Bigfoot is standing over there in the corner of the room you people on camera just can't see it sure which would be a thing that a moderator could say no sir there Bigfoot is not there is no Sasquatch over in the corner we could p the cameras over to look at it if that helps the audience at the the root of this question I I always get down to who do the news institutions work for and the when you get into questions about like the factchecking slippery slope that view tends to say that t view tends to to wind up a line with the idea that the news institutions really work for the candidates and that their job is to treat the candidates fairly and I just reject that um I I don't think they work for the candidates treating the candidates fairly is part of a news institution's portfolio but is not in fact its job its job to the extent it has one is to help its audience clearly perceive reality that's its job is to work for the audience so so can I just so hold on because I I agree with this and I I made this argument around like the dispatch when you're doing analysis I'm asking specifically in the role of moderation yeah I believe that in moderation too yeah like me people are like oh they fact checked Trump they fact checked Trump four times I mean if if you sat there with a highlighter and the transcript a a actual fact check of trump could have been like 50 different things long right but there were there were four things he said one of which was the the abortions where he said that this is happening in the country it simply isn't there's another thing where he said this thing is happening in Springfield it isn't the thing where he said that crime is skyrocketing everywhere that I mean it just isn't and then the fourth one was about the election where he said he did win and they said no you didn't right and I think that again this is a three I would give those three but here's here's let me this is like I I know it when I see it def you so mad God oh boy make you so mad and I going make my the audience so mad she repeated one of my least favorite talking points that is not true which is that Donald Trump said there would be a blood bath uh as though it was in the context of political violence he didn't say that and they didn't fact check her on that so Absol I mean if we wanted to go 10 Rounds we could go 10 Rounds on this and I think I could probably establish that even Trump's explanation for why he said that it was taken out of context was wrong but whatever let let's just be super but but the point is on the standard of like the way that people talk about rhetoric that falls in line with the other 50 things Trump said that were incorrect that were not like Sasquatches in the corner you people just can't see him that's true I will say what again there were there were another 50 things of that that Trump when Trump said that crime is falling everywhere else in the world I'm sorry that's not true sure that is not true that crime is falling everywhere else in the world they didn't fact check that right this is you know yeah and he was wrong about I don't know whatever German energy you're right that there were things here here's let me let me just throw this at you okay so let's say that their job is also uh to make the to make it uh look not just not just the perception but to like be fair you want you want the voters because see here here's the thing and this is this it does come down to like what is the role of a moderator and to the extent that it is I don't think they are the standin to like be I don't think their job is to be uh fair to the to the candidates I think their job is to be a standin for the voters they're trying to extract information so that voters can make a good choice right or can make can make an informed choice so that they can see these candidates up close because good is completely subjective so I don't mean good uh I think if that's their role then you know it does feel a little bit like putting the thumb on the scale to do four fact checks on one person in zero on the other and I feel like the person didn't say that I know abortions were being this is what I'm saying like of course he's of course he's lying more but I it does I think different types of Lies here here's the thing I I would say one of my uh some of my revision has to do with uh I have some that I think are just objectively thinking about like what is the role of these moderators and also like um how useful not useful but like how good is factchecking even when it's well-intentioned in this particular context but my other one and maybe the one that's driving me toward my reevaluation is that you know Hugh huitt um who was a hack among hacks God is on was on Fox saying basically America's going through uh there's a flag on the play and what is he what is it called in football what is the term he used it's under so the the debate results who won who lost was under review by the American people uh and that they were going to reverse the play or reverse the call on the play uh and his his reasoning was that people felt like it was uh that the thumb was on the scale against Trump now everybody I'm sure everybody's mad listening to me say this however I think that in the swing voting voter focus groups that I did nobody thought that nobody thought that the morning after but this is one of those justifications that I watch seep into voters all the time where what they come away with actually because the dominant conversation becomes around the moderators and the fact that they fact check Trump and the fact that they didn't fact check KLA Harris the extent to which in a in a in a pretty wide swath of norish Voters there still is like an antenna up for people being unfair to Trump especially the media and I'm worried that it is negating uh that that it will ultimately end up sort of uh I don't not completely negating but in some way eroding what was a masterful uh performance because people are like yeah but the moderators now the moderators didn't make him say they're eating dogs and CS the moderators didn't make him uh you know completely meltdown and it didn't they didn't make her perform exceptionally well so I think that that the moderators is a major Dodge for what we saw don't get me wrong but I watch the way that the conversation is happening and I'm I'm wondering if it was worth it to have the moderators uh as opposed to just like a clean defeat I want to I want to push back very hard on this okay um first of all this for tell me the last time Hugh hwit analyzed any event I'm not agreeing with I'm talking Nar listen I'm going somewhere with this okay analyzed any event and said that it was probably net bad for Republicans that is not a thing he has ever done in Hugh hit UA everything is the Democrats are always about to overplay their hand the wheels are falling off the cart everybody out there in real America understands that the Republicans are winning we're going to paint wrote a whole book about this paint the map rev with the subtitle of which is you know if you if you win so big they can't cheat or something like that and this he wrote this in the midst of a period of electoral dominance the likes of which America has not seen since the aftermath of the Civil War Republicans have won one National popular majority since 1989 that's I mean it's it's just it is a stunning losing streak so Hugh Hugh is always going to say something about how everything was great and so if there had been no fact check there' just be something else there'd be some other talking point about how see well this is actually Trump did great and uh you know people and they would just repeat it over and over again so I agree with that and so at that point why not have the actual factchecking so that anybody with eyes to see there were what 67 million 68 million people who watched it can just like okay I'm sorry that it is there and if the answer is that like the discourse around it and the information Warfare waged around it uh winds up helping Donald Trump because he's got people like you hu out there just willing to just lie and say things because that's what they do that's their mode of production then like okay at least at least we're getting there with where people don't have an excuse to say well I didn't know that that wasn't true CU there's always going to be something hey Sarah there's there's more show oh there is are we still talking we have more talking we're still we're still talking the the talking goes on but that's only for the you know the the people inside the Velvet Rope the the Bor Plus members oh they got to subscribe yeah tell them to subscribe tell the people you should subscribe guys why wouldn't you subscribe you get all kinds of things you get some some extra uh me and JVL you get some extra me and George Conway you get oh you get jv's triad this is one of the best things the bull workk 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