THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2025
...had been conned by President Trump: For our money, it may have been the most discouraging phone call we've ever heard to C-Span's Washington Journal.
It was discouraging because the caller seemed completely sincere. She'd heard someone make a startling claim, and she'd assumed that the claim was accurate.
She may have heard the startling claim made by President Trump! Last Saturday morning, here's the way her phone call to C-Span started:
MODERATOR (8/2/25): Ally is in Albany, New York, on the line for Republicans. Good morning, Ally!
ALLIE FROM NEW YORK: I just wanted to say—Trump, with the Epstein files? Bill Clinton was at Epstein's island 28 times. Trump was never on Epstein's island.
And when Bill Clinton looked into the camera with Monica Lewinsky and said, "I never had sex with that woman," and told all the American people, lied straight-faced to the American public—
Now, what did he do on Epstein's island 28 times? Think about that one. He should be the one being investigated.
(To hear the entire call, just click here, then click ahead to 7:56 a.m.)
The caller went on from there, misstating a few other topics. We'll stick with that part of her call.
Where did the caller get the idea that Bill Clinton went to Jeffrey Epstein's private island 28 times?
In fact, there's no evidence that Bill Clinton ever went to Epstein's island at all. The same is true of Donald J. Trump—but where did this caller get the idea that Clinton had been to the island that specific number of times?
She seemed quite sure about her statement. But where did she get that idea?
Directly or indirectly, she almost surely got the idea from President Donald J. Trump! As we noted on several occasions last week, President Trump recently made that unsupported claim—a claim which is almost certainly false—on at least two separate occasions during recent televised chats with the collection of stragglers who now pose as the White House press.
On July 28, he threw the word "supposedly" in. That said, no! You aren't allowed to make a false or unfounded claim just so long as you remember to say the word "supposedly:"
PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/28/25): For years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, "Don't ever do that again." He stole people that worked for me.
I said, "Don't ever do that again." He did it again and I threw him out of the place, persona non grata. I threw him out and that was it. I'm glad I did, if you want to know the truth.
And by the way, I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times...
He made that claim at least two separate times within the course of a handful of days. We'll take a guess:
Up in Albany, that C-Span caller saw him say it. When she did, she assumed that his statement was accurate.
She assumed that what he said was true. Almost surely, it wasn't.
Shortly before Epstein's death, way back in 2019, the flight logs for his plane were unsealed as part of a lawsuit brought by one of his accusers. There is no record of either Clinton or Trump going to Epstein's island.
(For a detailed report by FactCheck.org, you can just click here.)
We do have an accurate record of this nation's sitting president aiming an apparent slander at one of his predecessors. He did it at least two times in recent weeks as he tried to shake the Epstein curse—and up in Albany, at least one citizen seems to have believed the reckless thing he said.
As we noted last week, many journalists rushed to repeat President Trump's unfounded claim about President Clinton. How bad did this behavior get?
Last week, on Tuesday, July 29, we even saw Nicolle Wallace play the tape of what Trump had said on one of these occasions.
She didn't omit the part of the statement in which the sitting president slandered Clinton (and one other prominent figure). Nor did she warn her viewers that Trump's statement about Clinton was almost surely false.
You can watch that journalistic debacle simply by clicking here. It's amazing how dumb this can get.
That woman in Albany doesn't know that she's been misinformed by Trump. How many people watching Deadline: White House were misled in the same way?
Some woman in Albany was misled by a claim made by the president, but it is Nicolle Wallace's fault? There is no evidence that Republican woman has ever watched anything on MSNBC, so how is Wallace to blame for Trump's blatant lying?
ReplyDeleteThis is how Somerby reasons.
Our Host never blamed Wallace for the caller's misapprehension. That connection is something you concocted through your own "reasoning."
DeleteHere is what Somerby said:
Delete"Last week, on Tuesday, July 29, we even saw Nicolle Wallace play the tape of what Trump had said on one of these occasions.
She didn't omit the part of the statement in which the sitting president slandered Clinton (and one other prominent figure). Nor did she warn her viewers that Trump's statement about Clinton was almost surely false.
You can watch that journalistic debacle simply by clicking here. It's amazing how dumb this can get."
Quaker, you ignore the ? at the end of my sentence. I am questioning whether Wallace should be blamed, not saying Somerby did blame her. But note how Somerby calls Wallace's show a debacle. Read up a bit and see where Somerby says that many journalists replayed Trump's lie, not just Wallace. Somerby's tone is clearly negative and he singles out Wallace for something many apparently did. I am asking why Somerby considers Wallace especially to blame for a lie that Trump himself told and should have been reliable, given that he is the president.
You need to widen your focus a bit and take in the entire argument I am making, not just nitpick a single item, such as was Somerby blaming Elly because of Wallace, something I didn't even say. No one knows where she heard the misinfo. But I really don't think it was from Wallace, so why the excessive focus on Wallace when many others did the same thing, after Trump told his lies?
And Somerby's reasoning today is crap.
If the caller doesn't say where she heard that figure (28 trips) and she could have heard it from Trump directly or from any of the others repeating it, especially on Fox News, why is it not possible she heard it on Wallace's show or anywhere else? We simply don't know. That makes Quaker's defense as unfounded as the accusation he makes against @4:21, who says merely that the claim was made by the president. Somerby, who IS clearly blaming Wallace for something, above and beyond the many others repeating the president's misinformation, distorts what @4:21 was saying, which was "why blame Wallace?"
DeleteI wish one of Somerby's defenders would try to answer the questions raised by other commenters instead of attacking them, when we all have the same right to express an opinion here.
I disagree, QIB. He did, correctly, ascribe some of the blame for the woman's mistaken beliefs to Wallace, because Wallace played tape of Trump stating the lie, and didn't tell people about the lie.
DeleteSomerby clearly blames Wallace for not correcting Trump's misinformation. We have his word that she failed to do that. I am not going to go back and check the transcript to say what the context was of her playing the clip or what she said before and afterwards. The issue is whether Somerby blamed Wallace and he is clearly blaming her, not for Elly's misinformation but for spreading that same misinformation to other viewers (unspecified because we don't know who believed or didn't believe what Trump said).
DeleteQuaker is out on a limb with his own accusation. I too want to know why Somerby has a vendetta against Wallace to the point of singling her out for something he himself admits many others have also done. And why is Quaker attacking this commenter for such an obvious question?
No limb! No limb!
DeleteYOU'RE on the limb!
Not funny. You used to be worth teading. Now you’re just another DG clone.
DeleteI thought it was funny.
DeleteWe were probably all here when the sheer outrageousness and number of Trump's lies broke the fact-checking mechanisms of all of the media. Why does Somerby expect things to be different with Trump during this 2nd term?
ReplyDeleteI would like to see Congress bring articles of impeachment against Trump for his blatant, unconstrained lying, because of the damage done to the American people when truth becomes just another opinion.
Where is Somerby's oppobrium toward this caller (on the Republican CSPAN line) who not only doesn't investigate or maintain skepticism about Trump's statements (after so many years of outright lying) but repeats his lies? Don't such callers have a responsibility to the truth too? In fact, don't we all, Somerby included?
At least Somerby correct this particular untruth, noting that neither Clinton nor Trump is listed on those flight logs as visiting Epstein's island. Of course, unlike Clinton, Epstein and trump lived within a block of each other in both NYC and Palm Beach and were frequent visitors to each others' homes. Somerby also does not make clear that Trump's claim to have broken things off with Epstein because he stole staff from Mar a Lago is also a lie. Their relationship continued for years after Epstein stole Guiffre from Trump's resort and only ended within a few weeks of Epstein's 2006 indictment for child sex trafficking. There are recordings of Trump with Epstein and saying favorable things about him during those intervening years and the Mar a Lago records should Epstein retaining his membership, so this is another Trump lie, one that Somerby does not correct.
At least Somerby is finally talking about Trump's Epstein troubles. But given Trump's transgressions and Wallace's time-limited response on air, Somerby considers Wallace the worse culprit, choosing to discuss her wrongdoing instead of Trump's. Nor does Somerby mention whether CSPAN corrected this woman Ally's on-air blunder. I hope they did.
As always, I find myself wondering why Somerby spends so much time listening to this kind of call in show, where the callers are far from representative of any group's opinions, there is little to no vetting of truth vs lies, Republicans regularly claim to be Independents in order to call in twice to every single liberal voice, and the callers are routinely undereducated and histrionic in their claims. What is the value to such a show. It isn't even a true slice of life. It comes straight from the outrage factory. So why does Somerby bother repeating this bilge here?
Trump told another big lie. No one corrected it. What else is new? Somerby has no suggestions for improving our discourse. But he repeats Trump's self-serving bilge thereby advancing right wing misinformation. How does that help anything. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Somerby has no interest in making things better in our country and his sold out to the right wing noise machine himself. Today he attack Nicolle Wallace -- one of his favorite targets, being that she is both female and a journalist. He pretends she is no longer Republican herself, when she says she is, implying that she is a deceitful hypocrite, when that seems more likely to be true of Somerby, who claims to be liberal yet tells us only what the Republican caller said, not what any liberals have ever said on CSPAN (that I can recall).
If Somerby were serious about addressing Trump's ability to lie with impunity, as he pretends to be today, he might offer a new "feature of the day" by debunking yesterday's most egregious lie of the previous day, for Howler readers who may have missed it and be taken in by bilge. The debunking is how you preserve truth, not scolding Wallace instead of Trump and his Communications liar of a spokesperson, who repeats his untruths. Why is Somerby still part of the problem and not part of the solution?
Are there now two Quakers commenting here, one with a green font and a different one with a black font to his name? Am I the last one realizing this? I am seeing that the comments of the black-font Quaker are highly similar to the nitpicks of DG and generally protecting Somerby. The other Quaker generally makes factual corrections and expresses astute ideas that contribute positively to an ongoing discussion. Are these two different people? It seems like it to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's just one Quaker who uses two different browsers--one logged into blogger.com and one not.
DeleteSee how your biases and assumptions can lead you to incorrect conclusions?
See?
DeleteSo why have you joined the Somerby defenders and adopted their methods?
DeleteWhoa Quacker, that's some Kristi Noem lizard people from space shit man.
DeleteNoticing when someone is making up stories about Our Host is not a matter of taking sides.
DeleteWe see things differently. Not making up stories.
Delete"But he repeats Trump's self-serving bilge thereby advancing right wing misinformation."
ReplyDelete1. Somerby repeatedly states (eight times, by my count) that Trump's bilge is almost certainly false. How does that "advance" the bilge?
2. How can Somerby discuss this bilge without "advancing" it?
Saying that something is false is not the same as fact-checking that info and correcting it with the truth, something Somerby never bothers to do.
DeleteFor example, Clinton is in the flight logs. Somerby might have explained why and the fact that Clinton did not take 28 trips but rather flew 28 legs (from one place to another as part of a larger trip) on far fewer trips conducted for charity purposes as a contribution to his Global Initiative. Epstein camoflaged his sex trafficking with charity events.
The way to avoid advancing the bilge is to fact-check it and contradict it with facts and links to cited sources, but that takes some effort. Among the bilge is Gutfeld routines that serve no purpose other than to malign and create negative impressions of Democrats. You counteract that by making explicit (pointing out clearly) what is being done by Gutfeld and why. We all know that a certain female host is not literally a whale or a cow, but pointing out that portraying them as such is part of the Republican propaganda against well known Democratic figures, to undermine their credibility and popularity and weaken their anti-Trump messages. Somerby never says anything like that, beyond just repeating the jokes and calling them sexist. Calling a joke about a woman sexist has the opposite effect of defusing the joke because there are young white men who pay more attention to such jokes and think they are funny, which has the effect of promoting the jokes not undermining their impact. Somerby has learned to "read the room" as a stand-up comedian so he surely knows that.
When Somerby merely repeats the same stuff as Gutfeld presents, with an ineffectual tut-tut "what a naughty boy Gutfeld is" then Somerby is doing nothing to counteract right wing misinformation or propaganda. That Somerby keeps doing this, day in and day out, with the same tired old jokes, the same lies, suggests Somerby's motive is to advance Gutfeld's material not defuse it.
I have said this before here. You debate lies with truth, not with contradictions. Is too! Is not! is not any kind of fact-checking or truth seeking. It is the way a child argues. When Somerby says Trump tells lies, that leaves the reader wondering which statements are lies, how do we know what is true, what is the truth compared to what Trump said, why did Trump say that? And so on.
Some people who heard Ally's call may remember that Clinton appears in the logs 28 times. They may not understand why it would be a lie for Trump to call that 28 trips, much less to Epstein's island. Somerby himself pointed that out a few days back, so he knows this, yet he himself failed to contradict the misinformation advanced in his own post today. He is thus guilty of the same thing as Wallace (assuming Somerby is right to have criticized her, something I have not checked myself). When someone knows they heard the figure 28 in conjunction with Clinton and then hears Trump called a liar for saying 28, will resist the simple statement that Trump is lying. They have their own experience to contradict that label applied to Trump. This is how liars who tell partial untruths get away with lying. People give them the benefit of doubt arising from their own incomplete memories.
Dogface, I doubt you are asking good faith questions, but just in case you are, I have taken time to explain how Somerby seems to be critiquing Trump without actually doing so.
"Saying that something is false is not the same as fact-checking that info and correcting it with the truth, something Somerby never bothers to do.
Delete"For example, Clinton is in the flight logs. Somerby might have explained why and the fact that Clinton did not take 28 trips but rather flew 28 legs (from one place to another as part of a larger trip) on far fewer trips conducted for charity purposes as a contribution to his Global Initiative."
Actually, that fact-checking is exactly what Somerby did on 7/25 and 7/28. (BTW, it's 26 legs, not 28.) Perhaps you need a fact-check yourself.
And when the lies are repeated, then you need not address them because you did it last month? That’s not how things work.
DeleteThe “lie” here is your statement that Somerby never fact checks. You gave the example; I provided the refutation. You can double-down if you want, but there’s a cost: your credibility.
DeleteBut I guess since you’re an Anon, you don’t have any reputation to protect.
Delete"And when the lies are repeated, then you need not address them because you did it last month? That’s not how things work."
DeleteYou may have noticed that Our Host repeats himself rather a lot. And you want more of that?
I want Somerby to tell the truth because that is essential to democracy.
DeleteThe repetition is filler and distraction.
“You may have noticed that Our Host repeats himself rather a lot.”
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed, it’s almost like his signature.
No, it is a symptom of cognitive disorder. Look at Somerby’s writing from the early 2000’s.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI get paid over $90 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless.
Heres what I've been doing.↠↠↠ www.join.money63.com