White House reporter Brian J. Karem of CNN retweeted a video of colleague Jim Acosta verbally sparring with Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany over fact-checking from One America News Network anchor Alex Salvi. In his post, Karem accused the Trump White House of lying often.
“The WH lies. Purposefully. Maliciously. Frequently and with impunity. @realDonaldTrump,” wrote Karem.
During a White House press briefing on Thursday, McEnany took a question from Acosta regarding Twitter and its recent fact-check warning that the popular social media platform placed on President Donald Trump’s tweets about mail-in voting. The reporter noted that The Washington Post credited Trump with at least 18,000 false or misleading statements. He asked McEnany if the White House was trying to silence fact-checking by going after Twitter.
McEnany fired back with her disagreement, claiming that the mainstream media needed fact-checking more than anything else, and she gave several specific examples. However, Acosta noted that news outlets occasionally make mistakes and that they own up to them and offer corrections. He pointed out that Trump never owns up when he makes a false or misleading statement.
Acosta went on to remind McEnany that she pledged to never lie to American people, and asked her if the president had ever lied. The press secretary said that Trump’s intent is always to be truthful, and then she read off a few headlines where the media did not correct its misleading headlines.
. @PressSec spars with Jim Acosta over fact checking:
“There is no one that should be fact checked more than the mainstream media that has been continually wrong about a number of things.” pic.twitter.com/stkkvjFlZB
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 28, 2020
“The whataboutism is strong with this one. Best of luck to you, Sir… keep up the good fight!” replied one Twitter user who felt the press secretary had used a logical fallacy to answer Acosta’s questions.
“In other words, it’s Thursday as usual at the WH,” a second user wrote.
Karem also tweeted out a shorter version of the clip from Thursday’s briefing, pointing out that he felt McEnany’s answer about Trump’s intent to give the American people truthful information was a lie from the press secretary.
On Wednesday, McEnany alerted reporters that Trump intended to sign an executive order regarding social media, but she did not indicate what the order would say or do. Earlier Thursday, the president also tweeted about social media fairness without providing any detail about what he had planned.
However, CNBC reported that Trump signed an executive order targeting “censorship” by social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and others. Many people felt that the president’s move looked like retaliation against Twitter for saying that his claims that mail-in ballots would cause a “rigged elections” were unsubstantiated.
