We missed Time’s September 11 cover story “How Kamala Harris Knocked Donald Trump Off Course.” The story is credited to three reporters: Brian Bennett, Eric Cortelessa, and Phillip Elliott, with additional reporting by a fourth. The story reported that during the September 10 presidential debate:
The former President repeated a baseless Internet rumor that migrant invaders were killing and eating pet dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, and claimed that Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.”
The Springfield story deserves a Time cover in its own right. How is it that some 20,000 Haitians landed in an Ohio town of 58,000 (as of 2020) under the Biden-Harris administration? Do tell.
Following the debate, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took to X to condemn the press for overlooking evidence that supported the tenor of Trump’s statement.
There’s a recorded police call from a witness who saw immigrants capturing geese for food in Springfield. Citizens testified to City Council. These people would be competent witnesses in court. Why does the media find a carefully worded City Hall press release better evidence?
In any event, later the same day that Time published the cover story, Time appended a correction to it:
Correction, Sept. 11
The original version of this story mischaracterized as false Donald Trump’s statement accusing Kamala Harris of supporting “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison” As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris filled out a questionnaire saying she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition treatment for detained immigrants.
Here is how it looks. Query whether it made it into the hard copy of the story.
This is one of the greatest corrections in history, from @TIME magazine:https://t.co/LV2won82DI pic.twitter.com/bl8mUKXgHC
— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) September 11, 2024
On September 10 we had covered Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants in “That wacky Kamala.” Our post was based on Andrew Kaczynski’s September 9 CNN/KFile story (the link in the Time correction is to the September 9 KFile story). I’m not sure how three Time reporters could have overlooked it. It was all over X. The Time reporters could even have “rolled the tape.”
Tax-funded gender surgeries in prisons is so crazy that they think WE made it up
Roll the tape… pic.twitter.com/zqu3QAHfPa
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 12, 2024
The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser also overlooked the KFile story. She called Trump’s recitation of about Springfield and Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgery for detained illegals Trump’s “too-crazy moment.” I think that should be corrected to acknowledge that Harris is actually too crazy.
This is actually a historic moment in the history of journalism. The New Yorker supposedly has an obsession with rigorous fact checking. But the social-media community is now successfully fact-checking the lords of fact-checking. pic.twitter.com/WDnOKq2qyt
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) September 12, 2024
Trump has now declared he will not debate Harris again. Is there any chance persuadable voters will learn that Harris is (to borrow Susan Glaser’s formulation) “too crazy”?
UPDATE: The goose story looks like a wild goose chase.
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