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Democratic strategist James Carville sparked controversy during a recent podcast appearance, where he claimed Democrats face stricter accountability to truthfulness compared to their Republican counterparts.
‘Our side won’t tolerate lies’: James Carville claims Dems ‘constrained by the truth’ https://t.co/Z33me0xEw0
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) November 14, 2024
Speaking with The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky on “Politics War Room,” Carville discussed Tomasky’s article attributing Trump’s electoral victory to right-wing media influence. He expressed frustration at the extensive conservative media landscape, including Fox News, Newsmax, and One America Network.
“You list all of the entities they have now, from Fox to Newsmax or One America … There seems to be a lot of demand for this out there — I mean, a lot,” Carville told Tomasky. “So one of the things that I get constantly is, we should do what they do. Well, they lie. I mean, I’m being frankly serious.”
“But our side won’t tolerate lies. Okay, if … a Democrat goes on TV and says some lie, The New Republic’s going to say, ‘That’s not right,’ or The New York Times is going to say, ‘That’s not right.’ So how — and I’m serious when I say this — one side is constrained by the truth; the other side has no such constraint,” he added. “You’re kind of starting in a bad place, aren’t you?”
His comments follow earlier statements from September, where he suggested fact-checkers should prioritize scrutinizing Republican claims to protect the Constitution.
“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,” the Democratic strategist said at the time. “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.”
James Carville upset at certain media members who are 'burdened with the obligation to tell the truth':
"The people that I find most loathsome: The wormiest, slimiest people in this: What I call, The truth teller caucus.
The people out there that are such burdened with the… pic.twitter.com/TRlxwbGCmf— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) November 1, 2024
“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. “Because they’re two different things.”
The discussion emerges amid criticism of ABC News moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir for their selective fact-checking during the September Trump-Harris debate. While scrutinizing Trump’s statements, they notably overlooked Harris’s contested claims about Trump’s Charlottesville comments and his stance on national abortion legislation.
