Congressional Republicans, all the time keen to indicate that they put pleasing Donald Trump far forward of doing something productive for his or her constituents, are calling for an investigation into the debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump misplaced that debate badly. That loss is mirrored in post-debate polls the place Harris has seen a lift from a efficiency during which she was reassuringly calm whereas baiting Trump into dozens of unforced errors—together with his baseless claims about immigrants consuming pets.
However Republicans at the moment are claiming that ABC Information, which hosted the talk, offered Harris with questions prematurely and promised to fact-check Trump whereas leaving Harris unhindered. They’re additionally claiming that there’s a “whistleblower” keen to element how ABC helped Harris—although they will’t appear to resolve if that whistleblower is lifeless or alive.
Trump’s actual downside is that he’s a loser who by no means needs to confess he misplaced. That was true in 2020, and it’s nonetheless true at this time. To cowl up his shedding, Trump employs a three-part plan: insist prematurely that his opponents will cheat, declare to have gained irrespective of how badly he misplaced, and then unfold conspiracy theories about why he misplaced.
That actually suits the sample for the talk. Days earlier than Harris and Trump met, Trump was already pushing his declare that ABC was going to supply Harris with the questions prematurely.
When Trump was shellacked on stage, he got here all the way down to the spin room to toss out a collection of clearly made-up numbers claiming that polls confirmed he had gained. “It was the best debate, personally, that I have ever had,” Trump mentioned. “Polls are indicating that we got 90 percent, 60 percent, 72 percent, 71 percent and 89 percent.”
Throughout that look, Trump railed towards ABC for fact-checking 55 lies he advised through the debate. By the morning after the talk, Trump was calling for the community to be punished.
“They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” Trump advised Fox Information.
By the next day, this had grow to be a full-bore conspiracy idea with Trump boosting claims made by “Leading Report,” a conspiracy web site created by a automotive wash proprietor and finest identified for spreading false claims about COVID-19.
There seems to be completely no proof for this declare, or for the existence of this whistleblower, outdoors of some posts on Twitter. The claims originated from a Twitter account of an acknowledged MAGA supporter who wrote “I will probably be releasing an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower concerning the talk. I’ve simply signed a non-disclosure settlement with the lawyer of the whistleblower.” This declare was picked up and repeated by accounts with over 1 million followers.
On Friday, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall referred to as for a congressional investigation and mentioned he would demand “all correspondence, records, and potential coordination” between ABC and Harris forward of the talk.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, all the time close to the bleeding fringe of any conspiracy idea, was fast to pile on in a collection of tweets culminating with a Sunday declare that this unknown whistleblower had died in a mysterious accident.
Greene then needed to stroll again her declare after it grew to become clear that the story she had cited got here from a pretend information web site stuffed with tales written utilizing AI—a web site that additionally tried to unfold a virus to anybody who adopted the hyperlink.
However even when the whistleblower isn’t lifeless, there’s apparently no proof that they’ve something to do with ABC or any information in regards to the debate, or exist. ABC has denied the veracity of the right-wing claims.
The identical account that mentioned it was in contact with the whistleblower launched a portion of the claimed affidavit on Sunday. The affidavit consists of claims that Harris was unfairly supplied with a podium “significantly smaller than that used by Donald Trump” to make her look higher and that there was an settlement to not ask her about “her brother-in-law, Tony West, who faces allegations of embezzling billions.”
Tony West is the chief authorized officer at Uber who previously negotiated a $13 billion JPMorgan Chase settlement over unhealthy mortgage practices. The one claims that West has been accused of embezzlement got here from different unverified excessive MAGA accounts on Twitter. That declare has not been picked up by any information group, not even Fox or Newsmax.
As well as, the purported affidavit is riddled with typos and misspellings, has no place for the signature of an lawyer, and has completely no info that reveals the writer has any information of actions inside ABC.
Your complete affidavit seems to be a poorly disguised try and get the false claims about West into the media.
However don’t count on that to cease Republicans from utilizing this excuse to fill that Hunter Biden laptop-shaped gap of their hearts.
