Kayleigh McEnany and others took care of this pack of lies in short order, but the damage caused by spreading slander remains.Sometimes it does not take long to debunk fake news. This was such a case, but the fact remains: the White House had to move to counter this story. While they were adept at doing so, and while the NAMED sources, particularly John Bolton, a man not exactly well-disposed towards President Trump, took apart
The Atlantic's fake
narrative easily, the fact remains that for those who prefer to believe that Donald Trump is a foul and horrible man, they will not let go of
The Atlantic's claims and will insist they are true.
Oddly enough,
The Atlantic itself
published a piece showing this. Entitled "The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News", the subtitle claim scores the point:
Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster, and deeper into the social network than accurate information.
The magazine put this to the test with their fake news story about President Trump speaking most disrespectfully about American soldiers laid to rest in WWII cemeteries in France and Normandy.
"My mind is made up; do not try and confuse me with the facts."
This is very sad when silly season slander ramps up like this, and 2020 promises to be the craziest we have seen in modern history, and possibly, in all of American election history.
Buckle up.
Comment: While a chorus of current and former Trump staffers have called the story bogus, a Fox News reporter appeared to back up
The Atlantic's claim.
The Hill reports:
Trump shared an article late Friday from far-right outlet Breitbart News declaring that Griffin "Did Not Confirm 'Most Salacious' Part of Atlantic Story" after the reporter shared on the air that sources had confirmed to her certain key details of the magazine's story.
"All refuted by many witnesses. Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. @FoxNews is gone!" Trump declared in a tweet.
The rebuke came hours after Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, reported that sources had confirmed key details of The Atlantic's report. Griffin said sources told her that Trump had said the Vietnam War was "stupid" and anyone who fought in it was a "sucker."
Trump famously received a number of draft deferrals for the Vietnam War from a doctor who said he suffered from bone spurs.
Griffin, citing a former Trump administration official, reported that Trump "was not in a good mood" during his trip to France in 2018 and "questioned why he had to go to two cemeteries."
She also reported that Trump was adamant flags not be lowered to half-staff when the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a fierce critic of Trump, died in 2018.
Trump and a number of White House aides have fiercely denied the report, though multiple news outlets have confirmed certain details.
"If they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they're lowlifes and they're liars. And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Thursday evening.
You'd think the press might pause on punting the story when even the war-mongering Walrus himself
denies it:
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has disputed a story in The Atlantic claiming that President Donald Trump called fallen World War I soldiers "losers." Bolton told the New York Times Friday that "I was there" and "I didn't hear that."
Bolton, who has emerged as an adversary of the president since leaving the administration last fall, wrote in his tell-all book about Trump that the visit to the cemetery by helicopter had been canceled because of weather. Driving, Bolton wrote, was not an option because of the "unacceptable risk" of being stuck in traffic if an emergency arose. He criticized the media for falsely reporting that Trump skipped his visit because he was "afraid of the rain.
On Friday, Bolton confirmed his account in an interview with the Times, and added that he never heard Trump say "losers" or "suckers":
He got support from an unlikely source on Friday when John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser who has broken with him and called him unfit for office, said he was on the trip in question and never heard Mr. Trump make those remarks. "I didn't hear that," Mr. Bolton said in an interview. "I'm not saying he didn't say them later in the day or another time but I was there for that discussion."
© Donald Trump/Twitter
Comment: While a chorus of current and former Trump staffers have called the story bogus, a Fox News reporter appeared to back up The Atlantic's claim. The Hill reports: You'd think the press might pause on punting the story when even the war-mongering Walrus himself denies it: