CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta and fact-checker Daniel Dale white knighted for Kamala Harris on Tuesday as the pair reacted to a Donald Trump forum where Trump called Harris a “Marxist” and “lazy as hell.” Acosta thought such comments were “incoherent,” while Dale claimed they proved that the two candidates cannot be credibly viewed as equally truthful.
Acosta began by cutting the sound from Trump’s event and opining, “And that is former President Donald Trump holding what is being described as a Latino roundtable in Miami, although, as you just heard a few moments ago, it was sort of a rambling, incoherent string of consciousness or something close to that from the former president.”
He proceeded to claim, “He went on a variety of tangents during that rant a few moments ago. He described Kamala Harris as – quote, ‘lazy as hell,’ saying she is a Marxist. She's not a Marxist. Obviously, she's not lazy as hell. She was a district attorney in San Francisco, attorney general in California, senator from California, and vice president. Can't really be lazy as hell if you're doing all of those things.”
Those aren’t fact-checks. Those are “I don’t like what he said” lamentations. Trump’s “lazy as hell” comments were almost certainly a response to the Harris campaign lobbing the same criticism against him, but Acosta would never say Trump holding a roundtable was proof that he wasn’t lazy or exhausted.
As it was, Acosta then introduced Dale with another compliant he had against Trump, “During the Trump administration, the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Donald Trump's four years in office, that according to the New York Times.
What Acosta left out was the Times adding, “The most significant change the Trump administration made in the treatment guidelines after it took over was the addition of the word ‘necessary,’ which created a higher but not insurmountable barrier to federally funded surgeries.”
Trump adviser Brian Hughes also told the Times, “Kamala Harris has forcefully advocated for transgender inmates to be able to get transition surgeries, President Trump never has.”
Still, Acosta wondered, “There were a number of falsehoods, typical Trump stretching of the truth, bending of the truth, attacking the truth, but your thoughts? What did you pick up on?”
Dale began by agreeing with Acosta on transgender prisoners and Harris not being lazy, “Yeah, I mean, that one about prisons and transgender people stood out to me. He claimed that Vice President Harris is off today. She is off the campaign trail in terms of rallies, also taping two pretty high-profile interviews, so she's not like she's not on the beach.”
He also attacked Trump for talking “about how Harris is a huge liar. The New York Times did a side-by-side analysis of one speech from each of them, I think it was last week. They found something like 23 false claims from Trump, 15 or 16 misleading, 15 or 16 exaggerations. They found from Harris, it was like one false, one misleading, one exaggeration. I might quibble with the specific numbers, but we're dealing with that kind of huge disparity, so I think important to point out.”
One reason for Trump’s number is that it includes claims about when Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary, while part of the reason Harris’s number is lower is because her speeches are full of political clichés.
Acosta then recalled, “I mean, when Donald Trump was in office, correct me if I'm wrong, or if you have got the numbers handy, that's great, but the Washington Post found well over 30,000 lies, I think, uttered by Donald Trump when he was in office.”
That itself is misleading, but Dale cleaned it up a little bit, “Yeah, it was 30,000 false or misleading claims. I counted false claims in particular. I had like 7,000-plus from Trump.”
If one were to count every time a Democrat compared Republicans to Jim Crow or the Nazis, you would end up with some mind-bogglingly large number too, but Democrats don’t get fact-checked on such claims.
Here is a transcript for the October 22 show:
CNN Newsroom
10/22/2024
11:30 PM ET
JIM ACOSTA: And that is former President Donald Trump holding what is being described as a Latino roundtable in Miami, although, as you just heard a few moments ago, it was sort of a rambling, incoherent string of consciousness or something close to that from the former president.
He went on a variety of tangents during that rant a few moments ago. He described Kamala Harris as – quote, "lazy as hell," saying she is a Marxist. She's not a Marxist. Obviously, she's not lazy as hell. She was a district attorney in San Francisco, attorney general in California, senator from California, and vice president. Can't really be lazy as hell if you're doing all of those things.
And, Daniel Dale, I want to bring you in because you're a fact-checker. One of the things that we heard from the former president a few moments ago, he was talking about how she was in favor of sex changes for prisoners.
One thing that we should note is that, during the Trump administration, the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Donald Trump's four years in office, that according to the New York Times.
But, Daniel, there were a number of falsehoods, typical Trump stretching of the truth, bending of the truth, attacking the truth, but your thoughts? What did you pick up on?
DANIEL DALE: Yeah, I mean, that one about prisons and transgender people stood out to me. He claimed that Vice President Harris is off today. She is off the campaign trail in terms of rallies, also taping two pretty high-profile interviews, so she's not like—
ACOSTA: She's not off.
DALE: She's not on the beach and then I think -- I fact-check both of these candidates, but I have fact-checked Donald Trump for eight-plus -- eight-plus years now. That's right. And I think any objective analysis of the level of lying done by these two candidates will find that Trump does way more.
You know, he spoke for a couple of minutes there about how Harris is a huge liar. The New York Times did a side-by-side analysis of one speech from each of them, I think it was last week. They found something like 23 false claims from Trump, 15 or 16 misleading, 15 or 16 exaggerations. They found from Harris, it was like one false, one misleading, one exaggeration.
I might quibble with the specific numbers, but we're dealing with that kind of huge disparity, so I think important to point out.
ACOSTA: And, Daniel, we should also -- I mean, when Donald Trump was in office, correct me if I'm wrong, or if you have got the numbers handy, that's great, but the Washington Post found well over 30,000 lies, I think, uttered by Donald Trump when he was in office.
DALE: Yeah, it was 30,000 false or misleading claims. I counted false claims in particular. I had like 7,000-plus from Trump.
