Trump’s Oval Office Address: Fact-Checkers on a Mission

On Tuesday night, amidst a government shutdown, President Trump delivered his first prime time Oval Office address to the nation, followed by a response by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. But what truly made this, otherwise ordinary thing that every President does, mind-blowing was the media’s treatment of the event.

In short, The President’s address was great. He was sharp, disciplined, on point, and without many (if any) distractions. He was clear in explaining what illegal immigration does to the people and the country, how much it costs, and how dangerous the trek is for anyone who attempts it. All of that makes sense to anyone with half a brain and common sense (regardless of party affiliation.) Walls work. I know it. You know it. Everyone on a gut level knows it, even if they don’t want to admit it because they want to assume the kumbaya moral high ground.

Leading up to the President’s address, however, the media completely lost their marbles. TV networks debated whether or not to even give the President airtime. If they did, they argued, they would be complicit in the dissemination of misleading information, hatred, malice, and such nonsense. The other debate was, even if they did grant him the right to have his address aired in primetime, they would do so only with the presence of live fact-checkers included in the chyron, or even a split screen with fact-checkers. When was the last time we heard such deliberations about a sitting President delivering his address to the nation? Oh, that’s right. Never. Obama hit the screens multiple times every year. And I’m old enough to remember him saying things like “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” which we know did not pass the lie detector test.

The media was so scared of Trump addressing the nation directly that they couldn’t stop convincing each other how they shouldn’t cover it. That’s why when they decided that they don’t have another option, they released plan B – the “fact-checkers.”

Don Lemon demanded a live fact-check component and even a delay in broadcasting because, in his own words, the president will be promoting propaganda. Brian Stelter also contributed to the CNN freakout by also demanding a 10-minute delay so that the networks could pick and choose what to air.  

The morning leading up to the speech, the media already tried to prepare us by telling us how overworked their fact checkers would be, gasping for air almost, because the upcoming speech would be lie after lie after lie, and they would have to translate those lies for us, the stupid simpletons. TIME magazine released an article just several hours prior to the beginning of the address by giving us an explanation of all the lies we should be prepared to hear and what to make of them when we hear them. But trust me, they are definitely not scared of Trump’s effectiveness when he talks directly to the people, they are just looking out for you. 

So let’s take a look at what some of the so-called fact-checkers released immediately after the speech. Here’s what The New York Times fact-checkers were able to scramble. You can tell they reeeally tried hard. I remember when they did the same with Obama, said no one ever. 

1. When the President said that CBP encounters “thousands” of illegals trying to enter the country every day, The New York Times’s rebuttal is a referral to November’s numbers, which constitute only 2,000 per day, not thousands, as the President says. Wooooow, amazing journalisming from the New York Times. See, it’s not thousands, it’s just a measly 2,000. They are just looking out for us. 2,000 per day is a nothing burger, right?
2. When the President said the government is currently shut down because Democrats won’t allow for funding of the wall, which is factually correct, The New York Times comes back at him by saying that the government is shut down because Republicans won’t give up on their border wall, which the Democrats don’t want to fund. So profound, definitely needs professional fact-checking by the professional fact-checkers.
3. The President said that Chuck Schumer has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past. NYT claims that this needs context and proceeds to explain how…Chuck Schumer supported a physical barrier along the wall. Thanks, NYT, for manipulating us into thinking the President is lying and then agreeing with the President. Watch Chuck Schumer talk about illegal immigration and read his stance on the effectiveness of a border wall, which he now calls “ineffective” and “unnecessary.”
4. The President says that every week 300 Americans die from heroin overdose and 90% of drugs, including fentanyl, come through the Southern border. New York Times’s rebuttal is that even though the majority of drugs does come from the Southern border, there’s a lot of fentanyl that comes from China. Should I cry or should I laugh at this? Yes, we know that there’s fentanyl that comes from China through regular mail. Everyone and their mother knows that. And Trump has addressed this a million times already. What does this have to do with what you just agreed with? Namely, that the majority of drugs are smuggled through the Southern border!
5. Ooh, this is a good one! The President says that over the past two years, ICE has arrested 266,000 aliens with criminal records. New York Times lectures us that in 2017 and 2018 ICE has arrested 210,876 aliens with criminal convictions and 55,233 aliens with pending criminal charges. When you add that up, that makes 266,109, so the President is not wrong there. But the NYT continues “But it should be noted that these criminal convictions covered a range of offenses, including many that were nonviolent.” Ok, you see they are not JUST murderers. There’s ALL KINDS of criminals in the bunch! I mean, sure, there’s 266,000 criminals, but there’s such diversity in the crimes committed, like drug trafficking, rape, robbery, etc. It’s not just the measly 4,000 murderers, which is a number that he mentions in the speech. We shouldn’t let Trump be so full of lies and “malice”, to use Nancy’s term.
6. The President assures the American people that the wall would quickly pay for itself, since it would cost the budget $5.7 billion, and currently drugs pouring through the border cost taxpayers $500 billion per year. NYT claps back by claiming it is $193 billion. Okay. Let’s assume Trump got this number wrong, it’s $193B, and not $500B. Now compare that to $5.7B… Exactly.
7. Lastly, the Mexico will pay for it claim. Now, I don’t like it when the President uses that primarily because this just provides Democrats with unnecessary ammunition to slap a FALSE claim when their incel fact-checkers start typing in how Mexico will not pay for the wall. In the address on Tuesday, President Trump mentioned that Mexico will indirectly finance the wall through the tariffs negotiated in the new trade deal with Mexico. That may not be a bad thing to include in the speech but it did provide ammo for the NYT fact-checker to claim that the statement is false when juxtaposed to the campaign promise that Mexico will finance the wall.

There you go, folks. The New York Times state-of-the-art fact-checkers who worked overtime to produce this staggering evidence that the President is a baseless racist liar whom the networks shouldn’t have granted primetime. Oh, and walls don’t work at all. That was also touted every 5 minutes, just so you don’t forget that walls don’t work, like ever.

In and of itself, is holding the President to a higher standard and fact-checking him a good thing? Of course it is. Politicians should be held accountable at all times. They work for us, not the other way around. However, that same attitude should be applied across the board in an unbiased, objective manner. At this point, the media is not even attempting to hide their agenda and whose interests they are trying to push forward. They are reaching so bad that they end up with such garbage as the one I just talked about and they pass this as “fact-checking” or “news” or “reporting.” I wish they would come for Democrat candidates and politicians the same way they do for Republicans. But they never do, and they never will.