There’s a lot of nutty junk news websites on the Internet, and BeforeItsNews.com is one of them. But that didn’t stop Donald Trump from using a graphic from the crackpot conspiracy/pseudoscience site at one of his rallies.
On this Sunday’s edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter confronted Trump spokesman Jason Miller on the GOP nominee’s usage of questionable data.
Read a transcript of the exchange below (scroll down for video):
Stelter: “Let me ask you about Trump holding up charts at his rallies. He says he’s a chart guy now — I love that line from him. This is an example. He was holding up a chart here, in some cases they’re printouts of Fox News graphics, but this one, this is actually from a fringe right wing website. He’s holding up a chart here that shows alleged donations from Middle Eastern countries to the Clinton Foundation. But if you look at this website, BeforeItsNews.com. This is a crazy website to be honest with you. It’s got alien stories, conspiracy theories, UFO stories, stuff like that. Anybody can post to that site. Who checks this data ahead of time to make sure the sources are accurate and reliable?”
Miller: “Brian, on this particular chart, I haven’t seen that particular chart before, so I can’t comment on that.”
Stelter: “So who on the campaign gave it to him? Somebody printed it out, put it in his hands, and sent him up on that stage.”
Miller: “Two things here. Number one, on that particular chart, I have not seen that, these are usually produced with our policy department. But again, going to the point of what Mr. Trump is talking about, is how the American economy is going down and is not doing well under President Obama…”
Stelter: “We can’t start with the facts. If he’s going to hold up made-up articles or made-up charts from fringe websites, how can we believe what he’s actually saying?”
Miller: “Brian, again, are you saying that our economic growth right now is going in the right direction? Are you saying that American homeownership is in a good place right now?”
Stelter: “I’m saying that I want every presidential candidate — Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, every other candidate — to hold up charts that are accurate and that are well-sourced. I prefer for them to not rip them off the internet from creepy websites.”
Miller: “Brian, what I’d like to see is a chart from Hillary Clinton showing where those emails went. That’s what I would like to see.”
Watch the video below, via Media Matters:
Leave a Reply