CNN White House correspondent amplifies Democratic disinformation
Dirty work.
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Just another day of establishment media types blindly amplifying a contrived left-wing talking point.
It is so weird that this keeps happening!
On Sunday, Democratic operatives pulled a Katie Couric, doctoring an interview of a Republican Senate candidate to make him appear unprepared, ignorant, and easily flummoxed.
Elena Kuhn of the Michigan Democratic Party was among the first to share the altered video, which purports to show Republican Michigan Senate candidate John James awkwardly dodging a question about how he plans to protect Michiganders with preexisting conditions. In real life, however, James gave a lengthy response to the question.
But for some in the press, seeking context is apparently not as important or valuable as the say-so of a Democratic operative.
“Revealing,” said CNN White House correspondent John Harwood as he promoted the 47-second clip shared by Kuhn with his more than 411,000 social media followers. Just a quick reminder: The Republican Party let Harwood moderate a GOP primary debate in 2016.
“Wow,” Politico magazine contributing editor Adam Wren added elsewhere.
Said Fortune magazine editor John Buysse, “This is absolutely brutal.”
The doctored video begins with James’s interviewer asking him about his plan to protect would-be constituents with preexisting conditions. The Republican candidate responds, saying: “So, here’s the thing: I’m not a politician.”
The video ends immediately after James says the word “politician.”
But James said much more than what the clip shows, as anyone with internet access can see for himself.
“I’m coming to this as somebody who has real-world experience,” says the Republican Senate candidate. “This is the two-year anniversary … of when I stood up on the debate stage with [Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan] and told her to her face that she was lying about me, I said, ‘Senator, you’re fibbing again.’”
He adds, “I will always vote to protect people with preexisting conditions. We must have a market-based, patient-centered approach that will do that. And Democrats have ignored that because it gets in the way of their narrative. I believe that creating a system where … we make the Affordable Care Act actually affordable.”
James also said, “Deductibles are such that people are rationing their care and putting themselves at higher risk, driving insurance costs up, and I would support having a legislative requirement — a legislative requirement — that protected people with preexisting conditions.”
Pushed to clarify his position on whether the Affordable Care Act ought to be repealed, James said, “I’m saying emphatically that we must not repeal coverage and protections for our seniors and people with preexisting conditions.”
He adds:
But they will continue to lie about my position on it because this is something that’s very personal to me. I have people in my family with preexisting conditions. I will always protect them. I have people who I employ who have preexisting conditions and I’m paying 85% of their healthcare premiums through our business to make sure they can continue to maintain this healthcare even through a pandemic.
[...]
I believe that people need to have choices and they need to make their own choices and not the federal government and insurance companies.
None of these remarks, by the way, are included in the video circulated by Democratic staffers and certain members of the press.
One can dispute the merits of James’s overall response, but it is a straight falsehood to claim he was caught flat-footed by the question and had nothing to say except to assert that he is not a politician. As it turns out, James had quite a lot to say on the topic.
There is no excuse for why people like Harwood would share the doctored video. They can see it originates from Democratic staffers. They know the video gives an incomplete picture of James’s response. They know there is missing context.
They just don’t care.
#Resist.