spiegelmama@spiegelmama@infosec.exchange
@gleick@mas.to I don't have enough of the article to know what the most accurate reading is, but I suspect it's neither, and it's more like "contradict the president's claims." Lying requires that he knew or should have known the claim was not true, or that he admitted later that he lied. Right now we don't know what his handlers are telling him, so he might not be aware of the lack of factual basis to his claims. And he's going to believe his handlers more than any journalist who tries to tell him the truth, so that doesn't help. Now trump has absolutely lied, and been caught in doing so, and that's not called out as much as it should be. But if it's just "old man doesn't know about economy," you can't prove intent to deceive, even if it seems obvious.
There are ways to show the impact without that, though. The headline is maybe the best spot, since that's all that non-subscribers will see. Along the lines of:
Trump economy collapses under weight of accurate data
Trump economic report fudges the numbers and still falls
Again, this is difficult to do with one sentence of material. But it's not a matter of just saying he's lying if we don't have a way of knowing his state of mind.
James Gleick@gleick@mas.to
@spiegelmama@infosec.exchange I disagree. When a government official makes a statement of fact (violent crime in DC is rising out of control) in an official context (justifying a policy decision) he is presumed to be responsible for the truthfulness of the statement. In this case, it’s not hard—anyone with internet access can find out the truth in a minute. The president has even more resources.
He’s lying. He’s lying deliberately and purposefully. He knows he’s lying.