Democratic strategist James Carville suggested on Thursday that fact-checkers should concentrate their efforts on “Republicans” to help protect the U.S. Constitution, even going so far as to hint they should embellish the truth.
In a June episode of his “Politics War Room” podcast, Carville had called for media outlets to intensify their “slanted” coverage of former President Donald Trump to prevent his reelection, arguing that “the entire Constitution is in peril.” Carville reiterated his position in a Thursday episode, expanding his focus to include fact-checkers and advocating for greater scrutiny of Republicans more broadly rather than just Trump.
“So let’s take the fact-check industry and let me tell you something, and I defy anyone to disagree on this: by 5 to 1, they would rather fact-check a misleading Democratic claim ’cause Republicans have so many … They want to say, ‘We’re just umpires, man, we just call it like [we] see it, we don’t really have anything.’ And, of course, there are times when Democrats exaggerate,” Carville claimed.
“My thing is, how would you fact-check World War II? … They’re treating this like it’s just a normal time where you got shirts and skins and we just call ’em like we see ’em,” he said.
“I think the whole industry has to decide: what is our role here? Is our role to be objective, impartial observers that report as accurately and fairly as we can, or is our role here to try to help save the Constitution of the United States?” he continued, apparently unaware that he is advocating for subverting the election process with purposeful disinformation against the GOP. “Because they’re two different things.”
New York Times non-fiction book critic Jennifer Szalai on Saturday published an article on Saturday titled, “The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” featuring a subheading that reads, “One of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be the country’s founding document.”
The article was a review of a University of California law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s “No Democracy Lasts Forever,” which was released Aug. 20 and asserts that the Constitution has become a “threat to American democracy” that is “beyond redemption.”
