How Do You Tame A Volcano?
Of all the reactions to last night's CNN town hall with Donald Trump, the most interesting came from Michael Fanone, a former D.C. police officer who was attacked and almost killed by the mob of violent insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. His take on Trump's CNN performance: "It's worse than I could have ever imagined. It's an absolute disaster. There's no way to fact-check this guy in real time. He's a volcano of bullshit."
That's a rather poignant image, you've got to admit. Of course, volcanoes are natural features and only spew lava and noxious gasses, whereas bovine excrement has to be distributed by machines known as "manure spreaders" (which are indeed poignantly and, one assumes, pungently impressive to behold in action). In either case, however, it is the unstoppable nature and overwhelming volume of ejecta that poses the conundrum: how should a reputable news organization handle this?
Many are saying that news organizations should handle it by refusing to allow it to happen. CNN unleashed a torrent of such criticism last night, as America was once again reminded of the fact that Donald Trump is just never going to change his tune or ever admit he's done anything even slightly wrong. We were all reminded once again that Trump will try to out-shout anyone by continuing to talk over them and ignoring roughly 90 percent of what they are saying to him at any given time. We were all reminded that Trump lives in his own fantasy world where established facts and reality do not intrude. And we were also reminded that there is a large segment of the Republican Party that is just fine with all of that as well.
But what is a news organization to do? Banish Trump from their airwaves for the entirety of the 2024 presidential campaign? That would be the smart and prudent thing to do, except for one thing: Trump is leading the GOP field. Not just leading it but crushing it, currently. He is the Republican frontrunner for the nomination. So while a television network might easily refuse to hold a town hall with Nikki Haley or Vivek Ramaswamy, due to their utter lack of support from Republican voters, that just isn't the case with Trump. At this point the safe bet is that Trump will waltz to the GOP nomination, so it is impossible to ignore him or ban him from the airwaves.
Likewise, CNN was criticized for the audience, which was made up of Republican voters and Republican "leaners," with nary a Democrat in sight. Many were appalled when the audience either laughed along with Trump or applauded him at seemingly-inappropriate times. But again, what is a television network supposed to do? Trump is currently only running for the Republican nomination, after all. He's got to get through the primaries, and the only people who will be voting in GOP primaries (in most states) are GOP voters. They are the target audience, and while it is jarring for some to see, roughly half of them were not just fine but loudly supportive of just about everything Trump said (the crowd shots were interesting, because you could see how much of the audience was not laughing or clapping but instead sitting in stony silence). But the ones applauding reflected a truth that many in the media don't seem to want to admit: Trump's MAGA base exists -- and there are a lot of them.
However, there's got to be a better way of handling him than what we saw last night. To give credit where it is due, the moderator of the town hall, Kaitlan Collins, did a reasonable job of trying to deny Trump the ability to lie completely unchecked. She did so with varying degrees of urgency throughout the night, pushing back on the most egregious falsehoods coming out of Trump's mouth. But even if she had been more successful in getting him to acknowledge that objective reality does in fact exist, she still simply could not keep up with the volcano. Trump would spew a paragraph with four or five blatant falsehoods in it, Collins would choose one and press Trump about it, which meant that the others got away unchallenged. In other words, she did about as good a job as she could have, given the circumstances, but she just could not keep up. The volcano was too prolific.
What it all comes down to is that Fanone may be right -- it may actually be impossible to fact-check Donald Trump in real time. So here's my proposed solution to this seemingly-insoluble problem: don't even try to do it in real time. Just like some live television programs, instead institute a built-in delay to the broadcast. For outbursts of profanity, most shows use a delay of only seven seconds -- long enough for an engineer to recognize it and then hold down a "bleep" button when it airs, seconds later. This wouldn't be adequate to the task of fact-checking Trump, though. A delay of two or three minutes might be what is needed.
Even with a couple of minutes, it'd be a tough thing to actually accomplish. The network would have to assign teams to do a sort of relay or tag-team approach to fact-checking Trump. If Trump made multiple questionable claims in a single statement, the first such team would take the first one, the second would handle the next, and so on down the line. Each team would be responsible for one fact-check and then when they finished they'd go back to the end of the line and wait for their next turn. Obviously, with Trump, you'd have to have enough teams to cover all the lies within the two-minute window (or whatever delay they used). So maybe 15 or 20 teams?
Trump would make a statement, such as what he said about his own actions with the documents found at his Florida golf club: "I had every right to under the Presidential Records Act. You have the Presidential Records Act. I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified."
There are two falsehoods contained within that statement, and one good chance for a follow-up question as well ("You took what you took? So what exactly did you take?"). Fact-checking Team One would take the first sentence and check the Presidential Records Act and then type out something like: "This is false: The Presidential Records Act does not say presidents can take anything they want, it actually clearly says the documents are all the property of the United States government." Fact-checking Team Two would handle the "it gets declassified" part ("This is highly questionable: Declassification of classified documents has a process that must be followed, and there is zero evidence any of this process was followed for any of these documents"). Then they'd both wait until their next turn to jump into the fray.
Obviously, to have this happen even in a two-minute window, the network would have to do a lot of preparation in advance. Since they know ahead of time what questions their host will ask and what questions get cleared from the audience, they'd know what Trump is likely to say about the subjects (from what he's said previously). So they'd have the lion's share of the fact-checks all ready to go (which saves time searching and reading).
The fact-checks would have to appear on the screen either below Trump's image (in a scroll, maybe) or as a split-screen with Trump on one side and a continuous list of fact checks as they happen on the other side. Or perhaps on a giant screen on stage with Trump, so that he could see them as they appeared (that would likely spur some reaction from him, which might be worthwhile to see).
Whatever the technical layout, something like this might actually be workable. Again, I have no idea how long a delay might be needed (perhaps as short as 30 or 45 seconds would suffice?), and no matter what delay there is, at least a few lies would almost certainly escape scrutiny (if Trump lied about something new or otherwise unexpected, then the fact-checkers might not have the time to adequately research what the truth was). But it would be an improvement over last night.
Of course, my first thought on how to improve things was a little more dramatic. I would go with the Family Feud "X" and their signature loud buzzer ("BZZZZT!"). Perhaps with the word "LIE" prominently placed over or under the "X". But while amusing, that'd be a little rude, even I have to admit.
The real question in all of this is whether Trump himself would agree to any of it. Trump's right about one thing -- he is ratings gold on television. The numbers aren't in yet (as of this writing), but I'd bet CNN pulled in a rather large audience last night. So while most political candidates are downright desperate for such free media attention, Trump can afford to be a little more choosy. He can make demands of the networks when they approach him. And it's hard to see him agreeing to appear with a delay and almost-real-time fact checkers. The only way this plan would work is if all the non-rightwing television networks agreed to only offer Trump exactly the same terms to appear on their airwaves. That would relegate Trump to the usual far-right echo chamber if he refused, and he obviously enjoys reaching out beyond that core audience of his (otherwise he wouldn't have given CNN the time of day when they asked him).
This question is going to arise again. It will also be a problem during the debates, as Trump's debate style is to shout over everyone else (unless his microphone is shut off) and spew forth a volcano of bovine excrement. The flood of lies is so enormous that no debate opponent can be expected to keep up in real time. The only way anyone could manage to is if they could shout louder than Trump and quickly counter his moosepoop with some hard truth (this is why we would love to see Chris Christie get in the race, personally).
As for solo town halls, we have all now seen the limits of what even a well-intentioned and well-prepared moderator can accomplish against the Trumpian volcano. Collins did an admirable job of attempting to quell the flow, but a lot of times she was just buried by all his bluster. There's got to be a better way to handle all this. Rotating teams of fact-checkers and a long enough delay for them to be able to effectively work seems like the best idea for how to change things for the better.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
... how should a reputable news organization handle this?
Well, for starters, it could ignore all of the nonsense and concentrate on the vacuousness of his, ah, policy prescriptions. Oh, yeah, and stop giving him a platform to erupt on.
Also, a reputable news organization with actual journos who are worth their own salt would focus less on him and more on the Republican cult of economic failure Of course, this would mean treating their viewing audiences and readership with the intelligence most deserve.
I think that would be a good start but I ain't holding my breath. The news media so loves their shiny objects exploding volcanoes. Ahem.
The CNN moderator last night succeeded in making herself look pretty foolish, not surprisingly.
Caitlin would have done better just to laugh off his idiotic spewage and mock him at every opportunity. That is to say, give it back to him as good or better than he gave.
But, that would have taken A LOT more preparation and study than any journo at CNN is willing and/or capable of putting into a night's work, obviously.
Even with a couple of minutes, it'd be a tough thing to actually accomplish. The network would have to assign teams to do a sort of relay or tag-team approach to fact-checking Trump. If Trump made multiple questionable claims in a single statement, the first such team would take the first one, the second would handle the next, and so on down the line. Each team would be responsible for one fact-check and then when they finished they'd go back to the end of the line and wait for their next turn. Obviously, with Trump, you'd have to have enough teams to cover all the lies within the two-minute window (or whatever delay they used). So maybe 15 or 20 teams?
I am at a complete loss to imagine what this act of futility would accomplish. Other than to embolden Trump and his base and turn off much of the rest of the electorate as being a total waste of time and energy.
What the moderator should have done is just let Trump be Trump, spewing as much idiocy as is humanly possible and letting the audience do ALL of the questioning.
Meanwhile the journos could actually delve into some substance and figure out just what the Republican cult of economic failure is all about, among other avenues of research, anyways. In other words, do their damn jobs!
As for solo town halls, we have all now seen the limits of what even a well-intentioned and well-prepared moderator can accomplish against the Trumpian volcano.
If that's what's called even an inkling of well-prepared, let alone well-intentioned moderation, then Trump should be a very happy camper.
So i guess we're stuck with Joe vs the volcano II
Can I copyright that? ;)
“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”
-Meg Ryan, Joe vs the volcano
Sorry for this demonstration of bad attitude but I have had it with Trump and all the damn attention he gets. Just because the megalomaniac with distinct neo-fascist tendencies may be the next Republican nominee for president, let alone next occupant of the WH, doesn't mean that he needs to dominate presidential election coverage.
And, certainly not with the kind of coverage he's been getting for the last seven plus years.
Joshua[8],
Heh.
Every couple of minutes, say, "We're going into a commercial," and then instead of a commercial, have a fact-check.
@Liz,
I think that title has legs
@cw,
You have my full permission to refer to the upcoming presidential election as Joe vs the volcano 2, but i want credit! ;)
It just might. It's better than what the media has had on offer up to now, that is for sure!
@chris ... you also have permission to use Republican cult of economic failure at every possible opportunity, too...I am sure that David Fiderer would be honoured!
CW
That's a rather poignant image, you've got to admit.
Yes, sir. Reminds me of "bullshit mountain" except with fits of eruption.
Of course, volcanoes are natural features and only spew lava and noxious gasses, whereas bovine excrement has to be distributed by machines known as "manure spreaders" (which are indeed poignantly and, one assumes, pungently impressive to behold in action).
I know, right? That's a stench that's definitely going to linger.
But don't take our word for it that Trump is a prolific spewer of excrement when even he refers to himself as a "very stable genius," and you don't have to be very much of a genius to know that a stable is full of horseshit.
CW
In either case, however, it is the unstoppable nature and overwhelming volume of ejecta that poses the conundrum: how should a reputable news organization handle this?
Put it out to pasture... as many times as necessary. :)
CW
Trump would make a statement, such as what he said about his own actions with the documents found at his Florida golf club: "I had every right to under the Presidential Records Act. You have the Presidential Records Act. I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified."
There are two falsehoods contained within that statement...
And also, the documents were found at Mar-a-Lago, which is not a golf club. :)
nypoet22
6
So i guess we're stuck with Joe vs the volcano II
Heh. :)
The thing about the Republican cult of economic failure is that it means Republican administrations, one after the other, Trump or no Trump, are destined to leave economic messes on the order of magnitude of the Augean Stables, ahem, for Democratic administrations to clean up. This is history. And, history is prologue.
This is also the way to a second Biden term.
The thing about the Republican cult of economic failure is that it means Republican administrations, one after the other, Trump or no Trump, are destined to leave economic messes on the order of magnitude of the Augean Stables…
And that only counts the spectacular messes Dubya and Trumpy left behind.
The worst thing is still how fifty trillion dollars worth of wealth has been transferred from the middle class to the top one percent thanks to Reaganomic tax cuts for forty years.
Caddy,
The Republican cult of economic failure actually began with and may even predate David Stockton and Reaganomics even if David Fiderer only coined it during the Bush II years. :)
CW
Whatever the technical layout, something like this might actually be workable. Again, I have no idea how long a delay might be needed (perhaps as short as 30 or 45 seconds would suffice?)
Being that his repertoire of horseshit is fairly stable, it does not take much time at all to have answers at the ready. The questions are generally worked out in advance, and so should be the responses.
When he denies asking the Georgia Secretary of State to find votes like he did yesterday, cue the audio you already have ready while displaying a visual on the large screen overhead like you suggested and wherein the audience can read along:
*
The questioner continues: In fact, you placed a phone call on January 2nd to Brad Raffensberger and his counsel that lasted about an hour where you put pressure on them on multiple occasions to "find" you votes.
Followup question for you: Interestingly, the number of votes you requested the Secretary of State "find" for you was 11,780, which was the margin of your loss plus one as determined after multiple recounts. So you were aware at that time there had already been three recounts performed by the Secretary of State's office and the results already certified?
_____________________
Many of the questions are prepared in advance; have the proof ready to show on a screen like you suggested and roll audio tape right along with it where applicable.
_____________________
Final questions of the night: Mr. Trump, as demonstrated via multiple audio recordings and video footage, you've either misremembered some things or -- let's be factual -- fabricated them so why should a voter believe you now?
You've been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation with malice yet continue to defame the woman as well as other accusers so why should any woman trust you now when you outwardly have contempt for them?
Why should a young girl, a woman, or a mother and all their families trust the government to make medical reproduction decisions for them if you're at the head of that government?
Thoughts to ponder. :)
Elizabeth Miller
19
This is the way. Good form. :)
MtnCaddy
20
Yes, sir. And just today, the House voted for restarting construction of the border wall and Customs and Border Protection to hire 22,000 new agents.
They "demand" that Biden cut all kinds of other things they won't name, while they (still) have no budget to speak of whatsoever, and... build the wall.
No mention of Mexico paying for it, though.
Does that sound like Republicans concerned about spending?
GMADB!
We are over eight months away from the first primary and that’s why this was of marriage of convenience for both parties, indeed, but unimportant it turned it. What Republicans show up on a Wednesday night political event involving Trump other than, well, Trumpanzies? This was always destined to be a shit show indoor Trump rally.
I was more interested in the crowd. It reminded me that Hillary used the phrase deplorables and that’s what this mean crowd was. Cruelty seems to be the point.
Ms. Collins acquitted herself quite well and did what she could. I think we will hear from her again as it’s a bit much to expect her to ask such a ballsy question now, when it doesn’t matter.
I like your fact check delay idea. Since the slightest of delays is no better than a two minute delay to get on top of the bullshit, so you may as well build in adequate time to handle it.
Heck, put ChatGPT on it and everybody could kick back with the popcorn…
And if’n ChatGPT doesn’t work out and they need someone from Weigantia on their fact check team I nominate Kick.
[24]
Kick
So maybe it’s not to late for my swell idea for House Democrats — propose legislation that sets up an Escrow account to accept wall payments from Mexico? C’mon, if Trump really won than maybe Mexico’s gonna come through.
Sigh.
It definitely is too late for this one from back in the Ed Schultz days: remember when mandatory pre-abortion trans vaginal wanding was a thing in red Wisconsin, I think? Well who’d have thunk that that’s what Republicans meant when they were chanting “Drill, Baby Drill?”
Get it, Honey, get it?
What? Keep my day job?
Honey, Don’t You Want a Man Like Me? (4:11)
In a while they off
To where the music was soft
The candles were drippy
They saw a real hippy,
Who delivered their dinner.
The rice was brown
And soon they found
That the crowd around
That had jammed the room
Well it seemed to be getting thinner…
In a while they went off
To where the music was soft…
CW,
Per your idea for real-time fact-checking the former president as he bullshits his way to the presidency, you suggest that:
"The fact-checks would have to appear on the screen either below Trump's image (in a scroll, maybe) or as a split-screen with Trump on one side and a continuous list of fact checks as they happen on the other side."
I suggest that the first rule of TV is: what you hear and see takes precedence over what you read on the screen.
Many people do not read fast or well but hear spoken language just fine. In short, I think your idea requires that an identifiable authority deliver the fact checks in the form of a talking head on the screen speaking the corrections and rebuttals to the BS. In short, the town hall format would become a debate between the ex-president and the show's producers, equal-time and all. Don't forget to cut off the star's microphone while the rebuttals are on air, so he can't speak over them.
It's beginning to sound like good TV and excellent journalism to me - but of course, that would guarantee that the former chief executive would absolutely refuse to participate in such a format.
It's beginning to sound like good TV and excellent journalism to me - but of course, that would guarantee that the former chief executive would absolutely refuse to participate in such a format.
That's assuming we have excellent journalism now, in general. Which we don't. If journalists would do their jobs and actually inform the people instead of running around from one shiny object to the next, then they wouldn't even have to entertain the idiotic thought of giving someone like Trump the stage.
MtnCaddy
27
So maybe it’s not to late for my swell idea for House Democrats — propose legislation that sets up an Escrow account to accept wall payments from Mexico?
Heh.
C’mon, if Trump really won than maybe Mexico’s gonna come through.
No need, really. Trump said he finished the wall in the town hall on CNN.
*
First off, it's a dang border fence and not a "wall," and it's been there for decades. It's a lie that Trump finished it; he simply replaced portions of the old fence with new fence. US Customs and Border Protection put out an official report two days after Trump left office that stated around 458 miles of wall had been completed but about 280 more miles remained to be completed. Get this: There were only 52 miles of new fence that had been constructed.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: That dang border fence was already there. There are so many of Trump's cult who are clueless that the fence already existed, but, yes, it was replaced with a more sturdy fence except in multiple places where it blew over in gusts of wind... and still you just need a tall ladder to cross over it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liJ5U-fAt5k
It's also easy to cut through with a tool you can purchase at most any hardware store.