A despondent Stephanie Ruhe lamented to Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast on Friday’s edition of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour that President Joe Biden’s “weak performance” at Thursday’s debate obscured “Donald Trump’s content” of “over 30” lies.
Ruhle began by alleging, “Molly, Donald Trump’s content, remember, the actual content is important. As expected, it was chock-full of lies. Over 30 were counted,” before wondering, “Is any of that going to break through given President Biden’s weak performance?”
The 30 figure comes from Daniel Dale and his CNN colleagues and it is highly questionable. For instance, Dale and Chandelis Duster claim Trump is wrong to call the Charlottesville/“Fine People” controversy a “hoax,” while Snopes gave the “false” label to Trump’s critics. Snopes also added an editor’s note to their story, defending themselves against criticism they received for the rating.
The high number also raises questions about what CNN considers a lie or mistruth. For comparison, PolitiFact, which was not kind to Trump, gave him 16 false statements.
As for Jong-Fast, she naturally didn’t care about any of that, “Well, it wasn’t even lies. It was insane stuff. We had ‘H2O.’ The winner of this debate was Donald Trump, because somehow no one noticed some of the stuff he was saying. I mean, it was crazy, crazy stuff.”
She also tried to blame CNN, “Donald Trump has this, he’s so in this right-wing media bubble that he gives these little speeches that don’t at all relate to the question, and because of the way this panel was set up, this debate was moderated, it really was an ability for him to just go into a right-wing talking point and not even really ever come out. I mean, it was just like malpractice.”
Ruhle was not prepared to let Biden off that easily, “But Molly, but malpractice on whose part? Donald Trump has been doing this from the moment he entered politics and President Biden’s team agreed to these terms. So, for us to say ‘Oh my gosh, it’s malpractice, what was CNN doing?’ They were doing what they said they would do and the onus was on President Biden to counter Donald Trump’s lies and for the most part, he didn’t.”
Ironically, one would be hard-pressed to find a bigger Biden booster in the media than Stephanie Ruhle. Biden once boasted to her that his age isn’t a problem because “I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom. I know more than the vast majority of people.”
Here is a transcript for the June 28 show:
MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle
6/28/2024
11:06 PM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Molly, Donald Trump’s content, remember, the actual content is important.
MOLLY JONG-FAST: Right.
RUHLE: As expected, it was chock-full of lies. Over 30 were counted. But is any of that going to break through given President Biden’s weak performance?
JONG-FAST: Well, it wasn’t even lies. It was insane stuff. We had “H2O.” The winner of this debate was Donald Trump, because somehow no one noticed some of the stuff he was saying. I mean, it was crazy, crazy stuff, and I actually thought, as much as there was definitely a lot of questioning, handwringing, anxiety, it was also — Donald Trump has this, he’s so in this right-wing media bubble that he gives these little speeches that don’t at all relate to the question, and because of the way this panel was set up, this debate was moderated, it really was an ability for him to just go into a right-wing talking point—
RUHLE: Okay.
JONG-FAST: — and not even really ever come out. I mean, it was just like malpractice.
RUHLE: But Molly, but malpractice on whose part? Donald Trump has been doing this from the moment—
JONG-FAST: Right.
RUHLE: — he entered politics and President Biden’s team agreed to these terms.
JONG-FAST: Right.
RUHLE: So, for us to say “oh my gosh, it’s malpractice, what was CNN doing?” They were doing what they said they would do and the onus was on President Biden to counter Donald Trump’s lies and for the most part, he didn’t.