October 11, 2018

The Washington Post fact-checked an op-ed written by Donald Trump published in USA TODAY and found that almost every sentence carried a misleading statement or a falsehood (lie).

The Internet was buzzing over the USATODAY printing an article written by Donald Trump without fact-checking any of these claims.

This is the President of the United States, not a conservative pundit riffing on an opinion.

USA TODAY's actions were scurrilous to the extreme and don't meet the basic standards of accountability for any newspaper.

Here's one example:

“As a candidate, I promised that we would protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions and create new health care insurance options that would lower premiums. I have kept that promise, and we are now seeing health insurance premiums coming down.”

Trump made this promise but broke it. He supported Republican plans that would have weakened protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. His administration also has refused to defend the Affordable Care Act against a lawsuit that would undermine those protections. In effect, the Trump administration no longer supports a provision of the ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare, that makes it possible for people to buy insurance if they have preexisting health conditions. (We labeled this as a flip-flop.)

The number of lies is staggering in the article, but Trump has no shame. USA TODAY editorial page editor Bill Sternberg tried to defend their actions by saying all writers are welcome to supply their own facts regardless of the truth.

Making assertions based on lies is not an opinion piece, it is a pack of lies.

Read the whole piece here.

UPDATE: Watch the video above from tonight's All In with Chris Hayes where he and Jonathan Cohn shred the lies Republicans are telling about their "support" for pre-existing conditions.

UPDATE 2: Check out the lame response from Bill Sternberg, editorial page editor, via Jay Rosen:

Wow, Bill. If that's fact-checking, you should get out of the damn news business.

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