Donald J. Trump, the first U.S. president to become a felon, excoriated prosecutors and the judge in his criminal case and ran through a litany of false statements as he spoke to reporters and a small crowd of vetted supporters at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
Why did they say “false statement” when “lie” is much more efficient?
Best guess? Just avoiding being sued. Something being a false statement is a matter of fact that’s easily proven. Something being a lie requires proving state of mind. In the US I can’t imagine actually winning such a suit, but its still safer to cover asses.
Honestly even that much is a big step for the New York Times. I’m a little surprised they’re not trying to “both sides” it.
the news on regular tv last night was totally lopsided. tons of ‘reaction’ from the right and far-right, hardly anything from anyone else.
The news on regular TV is almost all bought and paid for by Sinclair / Fox / whatever other explicit propaganda outlet. The people reading that bullshit may hate it a lot more than you do, but they may be contractually obligated to go up and say it. It’s real fucked up.
To call something a lie, the media outlet has to know, 100%, that the speaker knows it’s a lie. It’s difficult to impossible to meet that threshold in pretty much all cases.
A false statement is an untruth — a lie that could have resulted from a honest mistake, poor fact-checking, negligence, or just plain bad luck / stupidity.
If a media outlet directly calls something someone says a lie, they’re going to get sued. People may be say something that is known to them as the truth, but not necessarily the objective truth as known by others. In that case, they would be making unwitting false claims.
Basically it comes down to liability. And Cheeto is a walking SLAAP lawsuit.
He won’t sue. If he sues they can subpoena and reveal that in private communications he admits the truth.
I mean, a smart person wouldn’t sue in that scenario. But this is Trump we’re talking about, lol, so I’m less convinced.
Yes, but that would sink him if he did.
I would throw a few bucks in for their defense fund.