Trump Considers Dropping Out Of ‘FAKE NEWS’ ABC Debate After ‘Biased’ Sen. Tom Cotton Interview

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 526 points – Trump Considers Dropping Out Of ‘FAKE NEWS’ ABC Debate After ‘Biased’ Sen. Tom Cotton Interview
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I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s(K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?

Who's surprised he's trying to chicken out?

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If he does drop out of the debate again, I bet they could get him to recommit by going all Biff Tannen on his ass:

"What's the matter McTrump? Chicken?"

He'll bristle, and say he's no chicken and agree to debate Kamala.

In all seriousness, I was surprised agreed to debate her at all, given that he has nothing to gain. Best cash scenario, he tries the same approach he used with Biden, turning his mouth into a fire hose of lies, and Biden couldn't keep up. With Kamala, she'd just laugh at his lies, and actually refute him with facts, he'd look just awful in comparison.

At this point I doubt he'll actually show up to the debate.

One of the issues he has is that ABC and the Dems want real time fact checking.

The nerve! Not allowing him to just stand there and lie without being challenged!

How would real-time fact checking even work? Would the moderators actually do their job for once and call it out, or would they just do little VH1/"Pop Up Video"-style graphics where they would highlight whether they would try to correct the record on certain things being said?

Here's my proposal.

During each candidate's first turn to speak, no fact checks are shown, but the fact checkers will use the other candidate's turn to come up with corrections. Then when it's the first candidate's turn again, the start of that their speaking time is used to read the corrections from their previous statement. If the corrections take the whole speaking slot, too bad so sad.

If corrections also rollover into the next speaking window, Donald could just do his first slot and then go golfing.

That's probably the only way to do a good job of it. Fact checking takes time.

You can't expect it to happen with any level of accuracy if you're demanding it be done before the debater stops talking.

Would the moderators actually do their job for once and call it out

That's actually not the job of moderators. This idea that moderators should do fact-checking only came about in 2016 because of Trump.

The network probably should have a team of fact-checkers. But fact checking in real time isn't easy.

I would like to have the moderators do anything at all, though, that would be nice. Like cut off a candidate who goes over time. Maybe force candidates to answer the question asked or forfeit their time.

I feel like this would be an actually valuable application of AI.

The problem with that is that AI itself is unreliable and will be confidently incorrect all the time.

Ai uses the internet, right? Especially for current stuff. Could people flood the airways with the information that they prefer and sway the bot?

Hopefully both, and there's a Lie-O-Meter that determines how truthful a statement is as its being read, and then a counter of provably false statements made

Not like a here is a one in a billion outlier so the truth is a lie. If crime is down, but up in a small, specific area, the statement "crime is down" would be true.

It'd be nice if there was some sort of objective, quantitative "score" that could be attached to each candidate's performance (or as objective as it can be). Something at the end of the night you could point to and be like, "Yeah, they're a goddamn liar-mouth." Something either candidate could point to as a "win" without resorting to just soundbites that get blasted the whole week after and people are like, "Oh snap, they said that!" Like, an actual way to tell how honest either candidate seemed during their "performance". I'm sure Trump would lie his ass off and his base would be like, "Well of course ABC is going to say Trump lied, they're owned by woke Disney!", but at the very least we'd have some sort of tracking of how much they lied during a debate.

There is no objective measurement Repubs won't ignore if it becomes an obstacle to white supremacist fascism and shoveling money into the yachts of the wealthy.

"I heard McDonalds has a new menu item now, they're calling them Chicken McTrumplets... Bawk... bawk... bawk... bawk"

When he was clearly winning against Biden, he had nothing to gain. As he loses pace in the polling, his need to do a debate increases.

Great. Give Harris the time slot for a big town hall speech and Q&A. Every 15 minutes, read a reminder to everyone watching that Trump declined to debate.

Keep the two podiums and put a wax figure of Trump in a chicken suit behind the other one. Put the camera on it with dead air for a few seconds every time it's his turn to speak.

Use cheap, low density wax and it'll slowly melt under the studio lights over to course of the program, which would be hilarious.

The chicken suit is too on the nose. And a cardboard cutout is probably way cheaper than a wax statue.

There's no such thing as "too" on the nose when it comes to needling Trump and his gaggle of dipshits.

I agree with the cardboard cutout part, though: half-assed shoddiness represents him more authentically and he deserves no better.

Have someone run in half way through to spray orange spray paint on the cardboard face, call it a touch up.

Ice sculpture so as the night progresses the sculpture gets sadder looking.

I am betting that she will be there whether he is or not. No reason to miss an opportunity like that.

Just do the debate, give his time to a ticker that just says “trump was too scared to be here, I concede the rest of my time.” For every question.

Seems fair.

Christopher Hitchens once debated himself on religion when his debate opponent didn't show up. It was pretty brilliant.

I'm trying to find the YouTube video, but I can't find it.

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Have a ticker constantly running at the bottom that #1 he backed out, #2 she only agreed to consider to debate on Fox "News" after the ABC debate which he already agreed to.

IIRC she didn't agree to fox news. They said something like any other debates would only be considered after the scheduled one.

Updated to reflect that...tnx

Now that I've woken up and thinking a bit more clearly...

Trump made some statements at his mar a lago club using the ambiguity of the word "we" to imply that Harris had agreed.

For example, "We've agreed to do a fox news debate before the ABC one. We've agreed to the ABC one subject to some details which we're still figuring out".

The implication being we as in Trump and Harris but he was referring to we as in the trump team.

The plan was, make it sound like Harris had agreed to Fox, then she doesn't show so he could make it sound like she had withdrawn, and then he could withdraw from the ABC one while kinda making it seem like Harris was the chicken.

IDK if that's still the plan or maybe he's just forgotten about that plan.

Harris and her team obviously saw the BS in what he said. he claims we agreed to the fox debate slated prior to the ABC debate. Goads her into it, then because it's fox they just lob him softball questions all night, cut off her mic or whatever games they wanna play. Make him look good so he can then sleeze out of any debates elsewhere.

Good on her and her team for not playing into his games and just watch him squirm

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I didn't expect this meme to come up again so soon. /s

It's been such a long time I need to watch it again, but did they ever get their sausages?

5 minutes Turkish!

But he wants to debate on Fox. The station that was held legally liable for lying for him. The station that has to admit to being "entertainment" not news. Yeah, that's a better choice.

Why did Donald Trump cross the road?

He was running away from a debate with Harris.

Keep running you fucking coward

I'm so glad they don't have any time to replace him. Almost every right leaning person I know is so irritable and volatile lately. They know what's coming

Republicans cannot replace Trump. He's got the party by the balls. His daughter in law is the chair of the party.

He's also funneling all donations to the party into his own pocket.

When Trump loses, the Republican party will implode under all the fraud. I'm all for it.

huh, so my original hopes are just taking longer than I thought. in 2016 I was saying that his term will be a waking-up moment for America, like a rock bottom.

I keep encouraging republicans that talk about RFK. "write him in! do it!"

Trump considers dropping out of having his dumb ass handed to him.

Make him afraid some more

St. Alia of the Knife

Fear is the mind killer, as they say. And trump doesn't have much mind so it shouldn't take much fear.

What an absolute coward. Isn't it the conservative maga "tough guy" crowd who calls everybody pussies? Is trump not being a total pussy?

He can’t do the debate because of woke. And bone spurs.

Woke is old and busted now - DEI is where they're at now. Still the same meaningless racist nonsense the way they use it though.

"What we really need is an honest debate with principled moderators on a network built on trust and seeking veracity of all claims: Fox News! Only the most Trustworthy™ will do, Sean Hannity and Laura Inbread... wait... Ingrate... No.... Ingram! Right right Ingram."

No where near enough random capitalization to make that believable.

Very true. I honestly don't think it's random though, I believe he's branding terms. It's always a name or a concept: Crooked Joe Biden, Democrat Witch Hunt, Kamala Crash, etc... when I do it I just add the "™" to make it more obvious.

I mean full words that are CAPITALIZED.

Ahhh lol yeah that's his italics for emphasis

I think literally everyone called this one.

Like, even his biggest supporters didn't expect him to not chicken out.

Wait, Don Old is dropping out of a debate (again) with Harris? Weird

Smells like his adult diapers are already full ;-)