Trump Exposes Biden’s ‘Unpardonable’ Blunder—And The Guardian Goes Ballistic

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by Jeff Childers

Yesterday, an outraged Guardian ran a frantic “somebody said something” story headlined, “Trump suggests it was a mistake for Biden not to pardon himself.” Apparently, corporate media has switched itself back to the “government watchdog” setting and is getting up to its Trump 1.0 tricks. Let’s take a closer look at this story to learn more about how fake news works.

The real story should have been about how Trump is already giving media interviews —in this case, with Fox’s Sean Hannity— whereas Joe Biden only gave about two interviews in four years, both of which were heavily stage-managed. Instead of noticing that remarkable contrast between the two presidents, the Guardian cherry-picked an inflammatory but meaningless statement to report as “news.”

Media scraped up more outrage over what Trump told Sean about Joe Biden: “This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him.”

The Guardian’s clear implication was that Trump slyly threatened to prosecute Joe—even though he never said that. You have to read Trump’s mind, like the Guardian, or Kreskin. Just like you have to read Elon Musk’s mind to discover his true Nazi sympathies.

The truth was, in context, Trump’s remark was completely unremarkable. The two men were talking about Trump, who declined to pardon himself when he left office in 2021. In hindsight, it would have spared him a great deal of inconvenience. But he didn’t know that at the time. Just riffing, Trump added, “Joe Biden has very bad advisers. Somebody advised Joe Biden to give pardons to everybody but him.”

In other words, Trump was being mildy sympathetic. It’s true that he was also pointing out that the one cabbage who masterminded the Crime Family Business was the only cabbage that didn’t get a pardon. So he could still be made into prosecutorial slaw, if he doesn’t die first.

But that clearly wasn’t Trump’s main point. So the Guardian spinning his comment into any kind of threat was just a fabricated, motive-imputing narrative.

This story illustrates a cheap type of fake news that I call “somebody said something.” In other words, there’s no news about something happening, like a bill being signed, or a meeting taking place, or a declaration of war or even peace. Words can sometimes have meaning, like real threats, or interesting opinions that someone powerful holds.

But this type of story is just about something the media thinks will make some group angry. And it’s almost always a short soundbite, usually taken out of context, devoid of explanation, and requiring readers to assume bad motives.

Perhaps the best (or worst) example was the “fine people” hoax, when media widely reported that, after the Charlottesville terrorist attack, Trump said there were “fine people on both sides” — even though a loud group of Neo-nazis had attended the event. The media’s false implication was that Trump was endorsing Neo-nazism —he did a Nazi salute!— even though Trump expressly condemned the Neo-nazis in a different part of his speech. Which, of course, the media didn’t mention, since it negated the entire motive-imputing pretext.

Boy, are they literally obsessed with Nazis, or what? Are swastikas all they dream about? But I digress.

The first two words of yesterday’s Guardian headline were a perfect example of the red flag that gives away this type of fake news: “Trump suggests…” The Guardian’s headline didn’t even claim Trump said something; he only suggested it. That’s the whole story! Trump suggesting something. So dumb.

This is not news; it’s propaganda. And in this “somebody said something” case, it was bad propaganda. Which, as the Charlottesville example proves, doesn’t mean they won’t chew the fake news bone until it dissolves into chalk.

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Well, I hope he meant it was a mistake not to pardon himself, because he should be prosecuted for stealing classified documents, storing them improperly and sharing them with people that have no security clearance.

I say the gloves are OFF.

The way that ol boy is looking he would be dead before any conviction.