Wow, Philadelphia Inquirer calls out MSM...

[Joinfortmill]

Last edited Sun Sep 8, 2024, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.alternet.org/trump-debate-questions/

'You never take responsibility': Top PA newspaper issues list of debate questions 'to hold Trump accountable'

'It's not Trump or Harris who face "the biggest challenge on Tuesday" the editors submit, but it's ABC News' Linsey Davis and David Muir face, as the pair have a responsibility to "press Trump to give substantive responses to their questions."

My words: Below are the list of questions the Board thinks Davis and Muir should ask

'Federal investigators received classified intelligence that suggested the president of Egypt gave you a $10 million 'cash bribe,' but your attorney general blocked the probe, according to the Washington Post. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee last week asked you to provide the funding source of a $10 million donation you gave your campaign around the same time and how it was repaid. Will you make that documentation public?

You have flip-flopped your position on abortion over the years, including saying you were 'very pro-choice' and later claiming women who get abortions should be punished. Last month, you gave two different answers within 24 hours regarding Florida’s six-week abortion ban. Can you clarify your position and whether you support a national abortion ban?

You called for prosecuting President Joe Biden, executing your former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and jailing former Rep. Liz Cheney. If elected, will you follow through on any of these threats or go after other political enemies?

You use faulty claims to criticize Biden and Harris for not doing more about the border. But you worked to kill a bipartisan bill Biden and Harris supported that included the toughest immigration reforms ever. So, is your stance on immigration aimed at scoring political points or finding real solutions?

You have criticized Biden’s efforts to negotiate a cease-fire regarding Israel’s war in Gaza. But the Wall Street Journal said you don’t have a plan. What would you do differently than Biden? And did you urge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay a cease-fire deal until after the election?

You claim to 'know nothing' about Project 2025, yet you support initiatives in the plan to fire thousands of federal civil service workers, curtail the U.S. Justice Department’s independence, and abolish the U.S. Education Department. So, how does your position differ from these same plans spelled out in Project 2025?

If Harris is as radical as you claim, why would more than 200 Republicans who previously worked for former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain, or Sen. Mitt Romney endorse her?

Why are so many of your own cabinet members not endorsing you, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and former national security adviser John Bolton?

Your campaign centers on criticizing your opponent and blaming others. Can you give some specific details — and not just slogans — as to how you will improve the country?

You boasted that you “did nothing” about guns while you were president. Indeed, gun violence spiked during your tenure. Have the frequent school shootings, mass killings, or the assassination attempt on your life caused you to rethink your position on gun safety?

You constantly criticize Biden’s economic policies. Yet, he added more jobs during his term than you did — even after excluding the losses during the pandemic. The stock market has reached record levels under Biden, and economists predict your tariffs and other policies will lead to higher prices, increased inflation, and possibly a recession. Even Goldman Sachs expects better economic growth if Harris wins. How will your economic plans help people?

You watched the insurrection unfold on TV for hours and did nothing. Do you wish you had done more to quell the violent attack at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021?

Why do you continue to bow down to Russia even as it commits war crimes in Ukraine?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said you told him you plan to cut off aid to Ukraine if elected. Is that true?

If elected, will you withdraw the United States from NATO and again abandon the Paris Agreement?

During your first term, you left the country the most divided since the Civil War. Do you have any specific plans to unite the nation?

You never take responsibility. Any time you get investigated, indicted, impeached, convicted, accused of sexual harassment, or faced a civil judgment, you claim it is fake news, a hoax, or blame someone else. Have you ever owned up to a mistake or apologized for a failure?'

[Funtatlaguy]

1. I'd be happy if they asked even one of those.

Won’t happen.

[Magoo48]

19. Great questions.

He wouldn’t answer any of them even if he had the intellect to understand them or the language skills to respond.

And the corrupt, corporate media asking them? Not a chance.

[chicoescuela]

28. Questions won't be asked nor will they ever be substantially answered

Nice try

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

51. I couldn't hear his answers over the tap dancing.

We already know what form his replies will take. Attack, attack, attack. Attack Harris. Attack the MSM. Attack the moderators. Attack anyone who has ever displeased him, or tried to hold him responsible for anything he's done, even when we all saw it happening in real time (Jan. 6).

The Repugs will praise him as the new Messiah, and criticize her for every detail, right down to the height of her high heels (platforms were prohibited!).

The election is between democracy and a dictatorship, and it's alarming that half of our country -- including my sister-in-law -- is perfectly accepting of having a sociopath run their lives, even to having control of our nuclear arsenal.

One day more...

[Tetrachloride]

2. what about your bone spurs and your likely dementia

[Tesha]

3. Could you publish these questions in an open forum?

Please?

I would love to be able to post these to my R-centric fb pages

[ancianita]

20. All you have to do is click on the link, then highlight/copy the URL, then paste it anywhere on FB.

Click on this instead of DU's URL, then copy/paste it to FB.

https://www.alternet.org/trump-debate-questions/

[Tesha]

38. I'm sorry, I misunderstood whe you said "my words"

I thought the following text was your commenting.
Got it, thank you.

[usonian]

4. The AlterNet article is pretty pointed on Trunk's mental decline.

Last edited Sun Sep 8, 2024, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

But now that Trump is facing a much younger and more vibrant and vigorous opponent, questions about how his age and mental acuity affect the viability of his candidacy have become increasingly more frequent. Author Timothy O'Brien, who wrote the book "TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald," posited that the same accusations of being too old to occupy the White House are now dogging Trump. One unnamed European leader even reportedly mentioned to a Democratic U.S. senator during this summer's NATO summit that they were perplexed about how Trump's rants haven't been discussed more by political journalists.

“The reason he’s now offering these convoluted explanations of his speech patterns in his public appearances is because he’s hyper-aware that people have noted that he’s making even less sense than he used to,” O'Brien told the Guardian. “What we’re seeing now is a reflection of someone who’s very troubled and very desperate.”

...

SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah likened Trump's comments on child care to a "dementia clinic." And political commentator Digby said the ex-president "sounds like a 4th grader who didn’t read the book." And Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell noted that she "can’t even find a complete sentence" when reading the transcript of his comments.

As I mentioned in "The Tipping Point" ( https://democraticunderground.com/100219427348 )
(an OP, not a book by Malcom Gladwell), maybe, JUST MAYBE, perhaps

with the public meltdowns, the vilest of the vile dancing on the graves of fallen heroes, and so many other crimes and dishonors that could no longer be normalized, the klaxon (abandon ship alert) sounded.

So-called journalists, actually clickbait lovers of his streams of bilge and bile, might start taking notice.
THEIR jobs declined from honest reporting to bottom-seeking (and that's a UUUUUUUGE bottom) and AI will replace them in a week or two, because AI excels at finding crap.

With no Edward R. Murrow in sight, I'm putting out a call for SOMEONE with some cred left to turn the tide from this concrete enema of fawning and giving a hall pass to the guy who can't hold his verbal poop.


The Inquirer article is a start.
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/debate-philadelphia-trump-harris-questions-election-20240908.html

[DallasNE]

5. Without Real Time Fact Checking

These questions will not matter because Trump's word-salad answer will mean the question remains unanswered.

A tactic that might work would be to play a clip of a previously asked question and answer then say that some of us are unsure the question was adequately answered. Would you like to rephrase your response to this vital question for millions of Americans? One such clip would be the Q/A on relief for daycare.

[Fichefinder]

6. "Why didn't you wear a condom when you raped that 13 year old girl?"

[lostnfound]

47. Yes, questions that are PRE-LOADED with the truth....

Questions that presume the voters already know the facts and have already drawn the commonsense implications.

When billionaire Leon Musk visited Mar a Lago in March, did you discuss either Saudi money OR his buddy Peter Thiel’s pet politician JD Vance?

Speaking of Saudi money, how much did your son-in law Jared Kushner earn off of their $2 billion moved to his investment firm right after you left office? Did the Saudis owe you any favors?

Which of the top secret classified documents that you kept after leaving office was Russia or Putin most interested in? How about Saudi Arabia and MBS?

Brag a little now, Donald. How much money did the trump family collect from billionaires and foreign powers and is it stored mostly in bit coin or foreign bank accounts?

When you die, where at Bedminster do you want your body buried, and do you expect your soul will go to heaven?

[erronis]

7. Your title is not about what is presented in the body which is listing questions to be asked of trump

I agree with the questions but the text you presented does not call out the MSM. It only suggests these questions for the ABC moderators.

But thanks for this, anyhoo!

[Jmb 4 Harris-Walz]

27. In a roundabout way it does as the implication is that MSM won't have the balls to ask the most pertinent questions!

[dlk]

8. More print news media should have the courage to do the same

The general coverage of Trump has been propaganda central since Day 1.

[Mme. Defarge]

9. If only. . .

[birdographer]

10. How about asking him if his age is a detriment?

Bring it home to him and everyone watching that he is OLD.

I agree that lack of real-time fact checking via chyron is a free pass for him. Harris needs to have someone doing it and posting in real time on her website, and let that be known at the start of the debate.

Those questions have (a) too many words with (b) too many syllables for him to process. Also, they all force him to defend himself, which he cannot do other than blaming someone else. He is "not responsible."

[peggysue2]

11. This is why I re-upped my subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer

I dropped my subscription when we moved from our temporary residence in Delaware Co., PA and moved across state lines (5 houses across) into Delaware.

The editorial board at the Philadelphia Inquirer is squarely pro-democracy which is a personal baseline requirement. The Washington Post and NYTs failed that metric, so I took advantage of a subscription offer and jumped back to the Inquirer.

I like having at least one reliable newspaper. Plus, I enjoy Will Bunch's columns.

This list of questions will never be used by the moderators which only underscores how the larger media platforms have utterly failed the American public.

[mtairyguy]

33. I did too.

Recent editorial content at the Inquirer caused me to renew my subscription as well.

[DownriverDem]

12. The MSM

is corp owned and controlled. They want trump to win. We see it all the time.

[cutroot]

14. May the biggest spender win

They don’t really care about the fate of our country. They just want them to throw away ridiculous sums of money

[Magoo48]

44. Yes. And my hope is: the MSM takes a huge fall toward its final demise as a failed entity.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread Joinfortmill

[EllisWhy]

15. "In your own words, describe how tariffs work."

Seriously...the kid gloves the media uses when dealing with Trump is not only pathetic, it's antithetical to the media's primary goal of keeping the public informed.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

40. Exactly! Really, the same question could be

adapted to multiple topics he likes to pretend he knows something about. Ask him anything a kid who watched Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" would know. He will just toss a giant word salad.

He is an utter moron on everything except blatant BS.

[COL Mustard]

16. I just wonder what will be his

“Stand back and stand by” moment in this debate.

I also wonder what will be Kamala’s “Will you just shut up” moment. I hope she has a blistering retort ready for him.

I want her to mop the floor with him.

[BattleRow]

36. Head for a mop ..

That would be a very thin mop,however ,plenty of butt for a broom.

[Cirsium]

17. Just imagine

Just imagine if a Democratic party candidate had done any of those things. Those questions would be asked nonstop by every of those "journalists" who dominate the national political discussion.

[angrychair]

18. MSM calling out MSM

Is peak gaslighting.
Started to see and hear this a lot from the news media, interestingly enough while still doing the very thing they just condemned.
Like some MSNBC personalities condemning mass media not holding TSF accountable when their own network does it every damn day, even on their own shows sometimes.

I despise the news media for this and I despise them most because it's just so overtly intellectually dishonest.
CNN/CNN Politics is the worst offender then maybe Politico and NPR and most newspapers.
He would ramble about Hannibal Lector and jailing his enemies and leaving NATO and the news media would be completely silent to complementary on his speech.
Outside of Republicans and news media we all think he is dangerous and unhinged, batshit crazy but the news media keeps trying to reframe him as normal. This, more than anything, frustrates me so damn much I could scream and think maybe I'm the problem. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations and TSF is normal and I'm wrong. I just don't know anymore. I expect this shit from Fox and others but when it's literally every single media outlet, even the so-called "liberal" NPR, it's really makes you question your own sanity.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

41. I'm a pretty pessimistic person, but even I never

imagined a POTUS could be such an obvious idiot and an insurrectionist and still have the press normalize it all.

The M$M has become so corporatized they don't gaf about anything but their own profits. And while one might expect the majority of the population to figure this out, far too many have no clue what's true.

The worst part is, the armies of Trump humpers are basically brainwashed and will never believe anything bad about their Dear Leader, no matter how well proven.

[GoodRaisin]

43. It has become so easy and natural to broadcast lies.

They even throw out that the first amendment protects lying, as if that makes it okay for them to normalize his behavior and treat him as if he is a serious person.

[GoodRaisin]

42. I must have heard "he's a good debater" repeated at least a dozen times

this week on various M$M networks including MSNBC.

Yeah, good - if non-stop lying is considered good debating. But of course the lying wasn’t mentioned when his debating was being praised. What fucking bullshit.

[BoRaGard]

21. Corporate Debate Moderators, Inc.: Kamala's outfit was a disappointment

"How do your feel about that, Mr. Trump?"

[senseandsensibility]

22. I have absolutely no faith in the corporate media to ask any of these excellent

questions, but I think Harris's team should use them as part of their debate prep. Harris could ask some of them herself, or refer to them in her answers. I think it would freak him out.

[BattleRow]

35. I thought the same thing

SHE can weave in some references to issues she wants discussed,in her answers..effectively baiting him.

Hell,he does stream of unconsciousness rambling,just chum that whale and reel him in.

[mdbl]

23. I don't watch debates where one is a convicted felon, misogynist, dumbass and an asshole.

I already know the difference between good and evil - I don't need to be spoon fed bullshit.

[chowder66]

24. I would change them a little bit.

Question 1: 'Federal investigators received classified intelligence that suggested the president of Egypt gave you a $10 million 'cash bribe,'......
WHEN will you make that documentation public? (not Will you?)

Question 2: You have flip-flopped your position on abortion over the years, including saying you were 'very pro-choice' and later claiming women who get abortions should be punished....... Clarify your position and whether you support a national abortion ban. (not Can you?)

Question 3: You called for prosecuting President Joe Biden, executing your former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and jailing former Rep. Liz Cheney. If elected, will you follow through on any of these threats or go after other political enemies? (Um the fucker lies).
If Kamala Harris is elected, do you support her using these same threats to go after political enemies?

I think I'll leave it at that. I don't even see much of a reason to go on. These are too polite and too easy to allow him to answer with another lie.

[Cha]

25. TY & The Philadelphia Inquirer!

[Blue Owl]

26. K&R

[Quanto Magnus]

29. Unfortunately

I expect it to basically go like last time from the talking heads....

I would be very happy if they did challenge tRump, but I highly doubt they will.

[captain queeg]

30. Won't happen. He wouldn't and couldn't answer any of them.

I’d add. You always talk about the mental acuity test you took 5 years ago that really wasn’t. Would you agree to take a psychological test administered by a neutral party and publish the results?

[democrank]

31. Highly recommended

Try to imagine Trump honestly answering just one of these questions.

[Generic Brad]

32. They would be nasty horrible journalists if they asked those questions

--According to him.

Will no one bring on the nasty and try to hold him accountable?

[mucholderthandirt]

34. They aren't going to ask anything other than how was his day. Did he color some nice pictures? No diaper rash?

In other words, business as usual, nothing significant, nothing of import to the American people. And they'll ignore his idiotic "answers" to whatever they do ask, while they go after Harris and never let her answer anything. Turn that mic off, she's said enough!

[gilligan]

37. LOL

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

39. 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

😂...Whew! Sorry. Great questions, but there is no way Trump will be asked them. Or, if asked any substantial questions, he will reply with his usual lies and gibberish.

That anyone can listen to him and not clock him as an egomaniacal, mendacious moron is beyond belief.

[bdamomma]

45. He would

bully those moderators. The moderators need to call him out or will just let him lie without fact checking?????

He is a felon, they need to call him out him out on that!!

[poozwah]

46. crack pipe

they will, as history suggests, ask him none of these questions. they are cowards. their employer is a corporate entity and we all know that who corporate america supports.

[4catsmom]

48. Count on it

that NONE of these questions will be asked

[msfiddlestix]

49. Important questions.... but why not also call out the media for enabling a convicted felon in creating a mockery of a

vitally significant national event with international and national importance as the presidential election?

[Brainfodder]

50. If there is even 1 not softball question to citizen SHIT I might have tighter pants?

We will be watching!

Spoiled Human Ignoramus Traitor