Ali Rogin:
Those untrue comments set off a firestorm on the campaign trail and had a profound impact on the residents of Springfield, Ohio. Now it’s been named Lie of the Year.
Katie Sanders is the editor in chief of PolitiFact and joins me now.
Katie, thank you so much for being here.
First of all, is there any kernel of truth to this? And, also, how does PolitiFact determine whether something is an outright and deliberate lie versus other types of untruths?
Katie Sanders, Editor in Chief, PolitiFact: When Trump and Senator J.D. Vance were asked about this lie and they were asked to defend it, as so many officials and journalists were saying there was no evidence to support it, they kept talking about reports they heard from television in Trump’s case or from constituents in the Ohio senator’s case.
And they basically said, that is enough for us to make this claim. It’s enough of a basis.
But people make reports to police and other agencies all the time. And that just prompts an investigation. That doesn’t mean that something actually happened. And Trump and Vance were circulating screenshots of allegations and police calls that were about geese, not people’s pets, that were later taken back by the people who made them, who told journalists they regretted it.
J.D. Vance even acknowledged that these reports he was hearing from his constituents might turn out to be false. But, when they did, when they turned out to be empty, he just kept defending the lie anyway, saying he could do that to bring attention to Springfield’s immigration experience.
So, when you ask what separates a lie from a false claim, we only use the word lie once a year for Lie of the Year. We avoid it most of the time because of the intentionality. It’s very hard to sort out whether people are intentionally trying to deceive with a false claim.
But I think, here, it was pointed out again and again and again that there was no evidence to support a claim that sounds truly shocking and was said on the campaign’s biggest stage. And they just continued to repeat it and defend it.
