December 9, 2024
The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria yesterday took oxygen away from the airing of President-elect Trump’s interview with Kristen Welker of NBC’S Meet the Press. The interview told us little that we didn’t already know, but it did reinforce what we can expect in the new administration.
As Tom Nichols pointed out after the interview, when Donald Trump ran for the presidency this year, he “wasn’t running to do anything. He was running to stay out of jail. The rest he doesn’t care about.”
Nichols was reacting to the exchange that began when Welker asked the president-elect: “Do you have an actual plan at this point for health care?” Trump answered: “Yes. We have concepts of a plan that would be better.” “Still just concepts? Do you have a fully developed plan?” Welker asked.
The answer, nine years after Trump first said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something cheaper and better, is still no. He went on to add, “I am the one that saved Obamacare,” although he spent his first term trying to weaken it.
Trump also reiterated his plans for revenge against those he perceives to be his enemies. He told Welker that when he is president, the Department of Justice should pursue and jail the members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, more commonly known as the January 6th Committee. He singled out committee leaders Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY).
But it was in his insistence on one specific lie that Trump was most revealing. He told Welker that there were “13,099 murderers released into our country over the last three years. They’re walking down the streets. They’re walking next to you and your family, and they’re very dangerous.”
This statement sets Trump up to be a strongman who will save America from great danger, but it is a lie that has been repeatedly debunked. It originated in a September 2024 letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Representative Tony Gonzales (R-TX) listing 13,099 people convicted of homicide as being “non-detained.”
As Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato blog explains, “non-detained” does not mean free to roam the streets; it simply means that those in prison for homicide are not currently detained by ICE. Once they have served their sentences, they go back onto ICE’s docket to be deported unless their countries of origin don’t have repatriation agreements with the U.S., a condition that affects a very small number of people. Releases of criminal migrants into the U.S. dropped during the Biden administration from the numbers released during Trump’s term. In addition, as Nowrasteh points out, the 13,099 figure covers at least 40 years.
Welker tried to correct Trump: “The thirteen thousand figure I think goes back around 40 years,” she said. “No, it doesn’t,” Trump insisted. “It’s within the three-year period. It’s during the Biden term.”
Trump was intent on making Welker and the television audience accept an egregious lie, despite the fact it has been thoroughly debunked. His insistence echoed his determination in January 2017 to make the American people accept his lie that his inauguration crowd was bigger than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, although we could see with our own eyes that he was lying. He was demanding we reject our own experience and instead let him define how we see the country.
Trump built on a history of narrative shaping that ran through the Republican Party. In 2004 a senior advisor to President George W. Bush famously told journalist Ron Suskind that people like Suskind lived in “the reality-based community,” believing that people could find solutions to problems based on their real-world observations. But such a worldview was obsolete, the aide said. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.… We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
America’s right wing has been able to shape reality in large part because of the 1996 advent of the Fox News Channel (FNC), the brainchild of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Shows on the FNC used clear, simple messaging with colorful graphics that told a story of an America overwhelmingly made up of white, rural folks who hated taxes and an intrusive government, and would do fine if they could just get the socialist Democrats to leave them alone. To spread the new channel, Murdoch initially offered ten dollars per subscriber to each cable company that carried it.
That right-wing echo chamber has expanded until it is now so strong that nearly 70% of Republicans falsely believe Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that the FNC had to pay more than $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems for defamation after it lied to viewers about that election.
Trump has built on that Republican narrative to create a fantasy world that is badly out of step with reality. It is not easy to see how he will reconcile his vision with real-world events.
He and his supporters might try simply to tell voters that they have done what they promised, and hope that story sells.
When Trump threatened to put a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico until Mexico stopped undocumented migrants from crossing the border, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum told Trump that "encounters at the Mexico–United States border have decreased by 75 percent between December 2023 and November 2024.” Trump then simply told reporters that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border,” and his supporters trumpeted on social media that Trump had closed the border with one phone call.
But convincing people of an alternative reality might be harder with issues closer to home.
Trump has vowed to place a tariff wall around the U.S., for example, at the same time he has promised to bring down the price of consumer goods. “Economists of all stripes say that ultimately, consumers pay the price of tariffs,” Welker told him on Sunday. “I don’t believe that,” Trump answered. He might not believe it, but producers do: car manufacturers as well as major shopping chains have warned that tariffs will force them to raise prices.
On other issues, Trump will have a vocal and established opposition. After his threat to go after the members of the January 6th committee, former representative Liz Cheney said in a statement: “There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting.“
“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power. He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building, and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave. This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”
Cheney called for the release of the evidence and grand jury material special counsel Jack Smith assembled “so all Americans can see Donald Trump for who he genuinely is and fully understand his role in this terrible period in our nation’s history.”
Nobel laureates generally try to stay out of politics, but today more than 75 of them in medicine, chemistry, economics, and physics wrote a letter to senators urging them not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services. They object to Kennedy’s stand against the scientists and agencies he would oversee. They noted that he has no credentials or relevant experience and that he has opposed life-saving vaccines, promoted conspiracy theories, and attacked the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
Putting him in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, they write, “would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences, in both the public and commercial sectors.”
There is also the chance that the Fox media empire will not effectively push a right-wing narrative much longer. The Murdoch family is in a struggle over control of that empire after the death of the 93-year-old Rupert. He and his eldest son, Lachlan, want to lock the company into its current political slant, but at least two of the three of Murdoch’s other children who are set to inherit the company do not share their father and brother’s politics.
Rupert has been trying to change the terms of the family trust to cement Lachlan’s control of the empire, but today a commissioner in Nevada ruled against him. Edward Helmore of The Guardian noted that the decision likely means that even if the children do not take the media empire in a different direction, divided leadership will weaken the right-wing message.
Almost 30 years after the Fox News Channel began to shape American politics with a fictional narrative, a different Fox media empire would almost certainly disrupt the right-wing bubble. A lawyer for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch said they will appeal the decision.
Finally, Pennsylvania law enforcement officials today arrested a “strong person of interest” in the shooting of United Healthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson. Tonight a court document shows 26-year-old Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder.
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Notes:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/know-person-interest-uhc-shooting-rcna183496
https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/12/09/dc/trump-liz-cheney-go-to-jail/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/08/us/politics/trump-nbc-interview-fact-check.html
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/29/politics/fact-check-trump-harris-immigrants-homicide/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/politics/obamacare-trump-administration/index.html
Ron Suskind, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush,” New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004.
Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan, “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (August 2007): 1187–1234.
https://www.newsweek.com/claudia-sheinbaum-pens-fiery-letter-trump-over-mexico-tariffs-1992306
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89v4w51dzyo
https://www.newsweek.com/cars-are-about-get-even-more-expensive-thanks-trumps-tariffs-1992278
https://mailchi.mp/greattask/cheney-response-to-trump-lies-about-the-jan-6-committee?e=c115cd0614
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/09/health/rfkltr.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/health/kennedy-hhs-nobel-laureates.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/business/media/rupert-lachlan-murdoch-family-trust.html
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/09/murdoch-succession-case-rightwing-legacy
X:
https://x.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1865854629738647668
Bluesky:
acyn.bsky.social/post/3lcsn2o3uc22t
acyn.bsky.social/post/3lcsjmrqtgg2c
HEATHER, PLEASE READ THIS.
In your Dec. 7 letter about Obama's speech, you highlighted his statement, a "media landscape that would shatter into a million disparate voices." You noted "Media companies have played to extremes." Many have written how mainstream media is not covering each "side" fairly. With corporations' consolidated ownership of visual media and hedge funds buying and destroying newspapers, the American people have not been getting a straight or balanced story for decades. This didn't just start with Bezos and Wall Street Journal deciding not to endorse Harris. Nate Cohn of NYTimes was predicting all along that Trump would win and in parallel would "support" that prediction with a photo of Biden with glassy eyes and droopy mouth alongside a smug smiling Trump. The owners want the Republican ideology to win.
So, back to the shattered media. Many of us are reading you, Joyce Vance, Marc Elias, Politico, Aaron Rupar, Robert Reich, Timothy Snyder... the list goes on and on and on. I joined your letters early on because you were one of the first to put what was happening into perspective. I am a small business person who believes in paying for things that deliver value and the $50/year I paid to you, I felt was worth it. I have commented on occasion. I wanted to comment one night on Joyce Vance and that is when I learned that one must pay to comment. I paid $6 to do it, then cancelled my subscription. We cannot afford to pay individually for each Substack subscription and each of the shattered media.
I feel helpless. I suspect I could have said "we feel helpless." We need those of you with some power to work together and DO SOMETHING, not just write about all the problems and ideas how to solve them. HELP! SOLVE THEM. Marc Elias wants $120/year. Timothy Snyder wants us to read “Handmaid’s Tale;” I will pass and trust that we already know enough about it from you valued journalists. I understand you are now making over $500,000 per year on your letters. I'm sure Obama is much richer now having been president. You have a lot of older readership, but many of us still work. Those of us "working class" cannot afford to go to Washington to march. We elect leaders so they can be our voices and advocates. Look how that has turned out. Money is running everything.
Another good example, right after the Citizens United decision, David Cobb formed Move to Amend to work towards fixing that wrong. Then Bernie Sanders got his own idea of how to do it. There was a third prominent player that I don't recall, maybe Indivisible. But none of them worked together. Do these leaders, do our leaders need the power and control to be "the boss" and to the point where nothing is accomplished?
How is it that we are ready to turn our government over to an administration led by a felon that openly admits all the ways they want to break our democracy and our country – install an authoritarian, be guided by billionaires, rob and pillage our Treasury, give more tax cuts to the rich, take away the rights of the marginalized. They have been waiting decades to cut social security, Medicare, Medicaid – that we ARE entitled to – that we have paid into all our lives – a long-term, separately funded program. When will the Democrats decide enough is enough? If there was ever a time to not have a peaceful transfer of power, this is it. I advocate for NOT allowing the transition of government to an administration that is UNQUALIFIED to run it. The majority of the people that elected Trump were brainwashed and lied to by fragmented, disparate "media," and marketing. They did not intend to elect what Trump stands for. They did not intend to elect Project 2025. The election was stolen from us. Those in red states who have been helped by the Biden administration do not understand because their politicians are lying to them as well.
I agree with those that think Harris should not have shifted to the middle, and that "Obama's 'centrist liberalism' [is] inadequate to address the real problems of inequality." Everything that progressives advocate for will help the ignorant right, if the message could get through to them.
The two basic things that need to be solved that will benefit all sides of America are truth in media and closing the wealth gap. If people have more security, it will be much easier for them to talk to each other to solve secondary problems and special interests.
It feels like our lives are being wished away in two- and four-year buckets. Everything depends on the next election. Many of the "writers" note that "wrongs" eventually get "righted." We don't have time to wait twenty years for social security to be re-established after it is taken away from us because we will be prematurely dead by then. We will never get back the decades of lost wealth and security that could allow us a more comfortable life and more meaningful retirement – or a retirement at all. Many of us have already been waiting forty+ years for the changes enacted during the Reagan years to be rectified, and Biden is the first to make any progress, despite what might have looked promising about an Obama presidency. Thankfully we got the ACA from Obama.
There, I just took an hour and a half off work to write this, without pay. And I waited up, Eastern time, to be one of the first to comment so that I might be read. As Joyce says, we may all be in this together, but it doesn't feel that way when it is so hard and costly in time or money to be heard. I guess I could add that I feel bitter, too.
Thank you for writing about Trump‘s insistence that his reality is the real reality. I do not know if any mainstream news organization is up to the challenge of helping the American people understand what they’re up against. Meet The Press certainly isn’t!
But there is an online news show that is… Five Minute News hosted by Anthony Davis. Over the weekend, he spent an hour and a half interviewing an expert in cult psychology who detailed how Trump has managed to Brainwash (though he also used the word hypnotize) millions of Americans. It was a very sophisticated conversation and I recommended to all who want to better understand the psychological warfare we are up against. Here’s the link…
https://youtu.be/xYf7F66AwDo?si=dg3L6SmvfG4uN7lD