close
close
cegivel

Trump lies so much that Republicans are left playing defense

Monicel
Trump lies so much that Republicans are left playing defense

It would be easier for Republicans to claim media bias in fact-checking if Donald Trump didn’t lie so much.

to play

With Election Day less than a month away, the Republican Party finds itself in an interesting situation. Their politicians keep telling lies, and when those lies are checked against them, instead of discussing the lie or changing the message, they cry bias.

Media bias against conservatives is a problem, but when voters feel the GOP excuses their lies by deflecting to how Democrats are treated, they don’t hear an answer for all the lies, just excuses.

It would be a lot easier for Republicans to cry bias if they would just stop making it easy for the media to lie all the time for no apparent reason.

Republicans can’t stop lying about things that hurt them

Lying is not new in politics. It’s Washington’s oldest tradition. However, for being a supposed political oddball, no one abuses the truth more than former President Donald Trump. As a result of their full embrace of Trump, the GOP has been forced to follow suit.

The most profound of these lies are the lies about the 2020 election. I’m becoming a broken record on this one, but if the Republicans had nominated any other candidate, they could have finally changed the message about the results of the last presidential election, simply calling it unfair rather than stealing it by fraud.

However, Trump won’t allow it, and the GOP is forced to dodge this line of questioning or outright lies about it so as not to bruise their fragile egos.

Opinion: Trump lied about voting by mail. Now the GOP is spending millions to fix their mess.

Most recently, Trump aired claims of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. As a result, GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance was forced to continue lying about it despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The same was true when Vance was asked about the 2020 election during the debate with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Instead of going on the political offensive against Harris, Republicans are playing defense of Trump’s lies.

When the GOP has to constantly cover for Trump’s lies, it naturally overshadows the typical politicians’ lies that Democrats say are on a different level than lying about the outcome of an election.

The GOP blames the referees instead of playing their own game

The GOP’s point of view is this: The media is biased against conservative candidates and therefore fact-checks Republicans more than Democrats.

While I’m sympathetic to the point of media bias against conservatives, not accepting that answer is essentially admitting to the audience that you were being lied to.

During the vice presidential debate, Vance applauded the moderators’ fact-checking against him despite his promise not to, and instead left that role to the candidates themselves.

Opinion: Biden’s economic policies are bad. Trump’s tariff obsession isn’t much better.

While I think Vance was right to call out the moderators, the optics of the outburst were not beneficial to him because it did little to explain the actual statement that was verified.

Viewers saw Vance, when confronted with a check against what he said, yelling at the moderators to hold him accountable. Instead of discussing the lie, Vance took more offense at being called out on it. It just reminds voters that he was probably lying.

A more effective response would be to provide actual evidence. However, Republicans often cannot do this because there is no evidence, as is the case with the various election conspiracies the GOP has falsely propagated since 2020.

Republicans use bias as an excuse to avoid talking to Americans

A long tradition of presidential campaigns has been for candidates to be interviewed by CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Since 1968, the presidential candidate of a major party has been interviewed on “60 Minutes,” usually around this time in the election cycle.

However, as with most rules in this race, Trump threw tradition to the wind and declined. CBS News said part of the reason Trump chose not to be was because the campaign didn’t want the facts checked.

It’s probably a wise move for Trump to stay out of adversarial interviews like this at this point in the race, especially given that “60 Minutes” took time to edit out some of Harris’ answers. However, as a voter, I can’t help but feel disappointed that a major party candidate wants to sit out, given the show’s huge audience.

I thought it was a huge disservice in the 2020 election when Joe Biden severely limited his media appearances under the guise of COVID-19 caution, and I think it’s a disservice to Trump now to jump- se to any difficult interviews for fear of falling in the polls.

The American people deserve to hear from their candidates. If Trump is adamant about eschewing traditional outlets for this compromise, I would have liked him to bring an alternative to the table.

Instead, Americans see Trump as breaking from a tradition that every candidate has participated in for more than half a century, and wonder why he is so determined to hide from the country.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Related Posts