I was totally against the war in Iraq
from where you can look at Esquire
magazine from oh four you can look at
before that and I was against the war in
Iraq
so you're moderating a forum with a
candidate for president of the United
States and you get hit with a couple
statements that are presented as truth
the crux of the answer is that he Donald
Trump never supported the invasion of
Iraq in 2003 this part you can check
pretty easily
Trump's referring to this article in
which he doesn't so much explicitly
state his opposition to the war as say
what a mess it is and that he would
never have handled it that way also
Trump's repeated claim is that he
opposed the war from the beginning which
was a year before this article was
published in August 2004 right at the
moment by the way when public opinion
was changing on the war from positive to
negative in fact Esquire felt so
strongly that Trump had misrepresented
his position in the peace particularly
in this major foreign policy speech from
August I was an opponent of the Iraq war
from the beginning that they added an
editor's note correcting him at the top
of the article being a well informed and
prepared moderator you would of course
know all these things that Trump's
opposition to the war a cornerstone of
his foreign policy credentials is
questionable at best and he would also
know this which was said on the same
stage to you less than an hour before
now my opponent was for the war in Iraq
he says he wasn't you can you can go
back and look at the record he supported
he told Howard Stern he supported it are
you for invading Iraq yeah I guess so
so now's your chance to push back on a
statement that you know is a lie a lie
about an issue that was decisive in
Hillary Clinton's defeat by Barack Obama
in 2008 a lie this candidate used to
separate himself from his primary
opponents just a [ __ ] lie correcting
that sort of deceit is what a journalist
is trained to do or you could just move
on people talk about you and
commander-in-chief and not just
Secretary Clinton but some of your
Republican opponents in the primary
season and they wonder about your temp
we shouldn't be too harsh on Matt Lauer
alone fact-checking in the 2016 election
has proven to be a gargantuan and
uniquely difficult task in the face of
two candidates with shaky relationships
to the truth I mean there are no
shortage of clip compilations on YouTube
showing
Clinton being less than honest just a
few weeks ago for example she said this
I'm the only candidate who ran in either
the democratic or the Republican primary
who said from the very beginning I will
not raise taxes on the middle class
which is kind of odd considering that 15
out of 17 GOP candidates for president
actually signed a written pledge
agreeing to no tax hikes not just on the
middle class on everyone
I found that live pretty easily with the
help of politifact.com
one of the largest online fact-checking
sites in the world and the Internet has
been at the forefront of dedicated
fact-checking operations since the early
2000 in 2016 the Duke reporters lab
found 96 active fact-checking projects
in 37 different countries and these
organizations do great work collecting
dubious political statements and judging
their accuracy on nuanced rating scales
but there's one problem mr. Trump let's
stay on this issue of immigration you
have been very critical of Mark
Zuckerberg of Facebook who has wanted to
increase the number of these h-1b was
not at all critical of him where did I
read this and come up with this that you
were probably I don't know you people
write this stuff I don't know what the
problem is that television is still the
number one source of information for
American voters and on television
politicians who lie often get a free
pass in the clip we just saw that
moderator went on to apologize for her
mistake that's pretty unbelievable
considering that the article she
mentioned with Trump's criticism of Mark
Zuckerberg not only existed it existed
on Trump's home website that's
unpreparedness to the extreme but it
goes further than that because even when
you are aggressive and prepared
Trump has a way of wriggling out of the
truth like when he lied and said that he
saw Arabs cheering in Jersey City on
9/11 you know the police say that didn't
happen and all those rumors have been on
the internet for some time so did you
mix Mississippi I saw it it was all out
of your own eyes George there were
people that were cheering in the other
side of New Jersey where you have large
Arab populations they were cheering as
the world reg that it came down we have
three extremely important presidential
debates coming up those moderators have
a huge task
taking on candidates as shameless as
Trump and
calculated as Clinton but their focus
should be on the audience and on what
works and what works on TV is imagery
graphics I mean one of the most
effective fact checks this election
season was by Fox News who not only
called Trump out on his lives but
rejected the actual facts onto the
screen for the audience to see your
numbers don't add up Maya
the second thing network should do is
fact check in real time on Chiron's
as was pointed out to me by master fact
checker Alexios months our lease over at
the pointer institute CNN experimented
with fact-checking chi runs earlier this
election season now it's unclear if it
was a mistake but for God's sake it was
awesome
a huge problem with lies on TV news is
that they tend to be repeated or shown
without any clear indication that
they're false in fact I did that at the
beginning of this video
in 2012 the New America Foundation found
that the more familiar a claim becomes
the more likely we are to think it's
true even after we've heard a correction
so instead of that completely stupid
audience reaction ohmmeter networks
carrying the debates could throw up a
Chiron that refutes patently false
claims in real time TV networks by and
large have steered clear of these
measures perhaps out of some vague
notion of neutrality one debate
moderator has already said that he
doesn't feel like it's his job to be a
truth squad what do you do if they make
assertions that you know to be untrue
that's not my job that's not I do not
believe that it's my job to be a truth
squad but what are news organizations if
not truth squads free people the world
over still care about facts and we look
to our news media to sort through
[ __ ] and lies to find them the fact
is that neutrality doesn't mean
equivalency Hillary Clinton lies more
than she should and it's important for
fact checkers to call her and every
other politician on it you talk about
leveling with the American people have
you always told the truth I've always
tried to always always
some people are going to call that
wiggle room but let's be honest Donald
Trump exists in a totally different
category lies and [ __ ] are his
political currency what do I know about
it all I know is what's on the Internet
you may not be able to get through to
Donald Trump but good journalism can get
through to the rest of us so if you get
a chance to speak to any of our leaders
in a public forum make sure you're well
prepared and aggressive and if you
understand what the facts are let us
know there is a new nerdwriter video
every Wednesday so if you go right there
and click that you'll subscribe to this
channel and get all the videos I really
have to thank Alexios men sir Elise who
is the director of the International
back checking network at the pointer
Institute who collaborated with me on
this project and whose work has been
invaluable and the research of it I'm
going to put everything he's ever
written on this in the description below
it's all really great stuff you should
definitely check it out I'm gonna put
his Twitter handle right below me too
thank you very much Alexios you're
awesome anyway I'll see you guys next
Wednesday
[Music]