The temptation to fact-check is impossible even for seasoned professionals to evade, because few can avoid succumbing to their own vanities.
As you may have heard, J. D. Vance had a fine night facing off against Tim Walz, so much so that the Democratic spin on it has changed from last night’s despairing excuse-making of “well, it’s a good thing debates don’t matter” to this morning’s “but really, this poll says it was a tie!” Both remain true, pretty much: Vice-presidential debates aren’t swinging entire states into one party’s column or another, and the snap polling showed a tie (keep in mind it’s a very uncertain sample). So thus we get the “spin wars,” a political ritual that has not changed since my childhood.
I hate spin, so I will level with you: The overall polling is irrelevant, even though it is still quite good for Vance. What matters most is that he did everything strategically that he needed to last night for the campaign: He completely rewrote the media caricature of him (as reflected in the sharp change in his favorables overnight), he spoke with relentless focus about the primary issues persuadable voters — not partisan ones, meaning not you or me — care about (immigration and the economy), and by all snap measures won those conversations overwhelmingly.
There is a reason nearly every commentator in America across the political spectrum ranked it a win for Vance last night. His weakest moment was transparently his final question of the night, about January 6; the matter remains disqualifying for me, but I think it’s simply farcical to pretend at this late date that the American voter rates it as a top priority themselves, no matter how much anti-Trumpers wish Vance’s unconvincing deflections and excuse-making for Trump about the 2020 election led the night instead of concluding it. (“It will be the clip everyone sees on the news later!” is the sad bleat of a man who already knows he has lost the political debate and is simply hoping for an imagined future that rights the moral scales in his eyes.)
But one thing that stood out in the run-up to the debate is how CBS News announced to the rest of the media in advance that its moderators, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, would not “fact-check” or correct misstatements by one candidate or another in real-time, as they spoke. Per the Associated Press: “CBS said the onus will be on Vance and Walz to point out misstatements by the other, and that ‘the moderators will facilitate those opportunities’ during rebuttal time.”
It was a bold and high-minded position to take: “We in the media will not put our fingers on the scales; it will be up to the candidates to make their cases.” Given the snakebitten history of “media fact-checks” during debates — no Republican has forgotten Candy Crowley submarining Mitt Romney in 2012 and then saying, “Oops, I goofed!” in a little-watched post-debate panel — I didn’t mind the idea. Vance and Walz were adults, after all, so as a famous Japanese scientist once said, “Let them fight.”
But of course, they still couldn’t help themselves last night. They had to try to fact-check Vance. And predictably, they got it wrong and, in so doing, humiliated themselves. Perhaps the single most memorable individual moment of the entire debate last night was when the moderators silenced J. D. Vance’s microphone mid-sentence, and the reason they did it is because Vance didn’t miss a microsecond in calling out Margaret Brennan for both her hypocrisy in breaking her network’s own rules, but for the fact that she did so with such partisan dishonesty.
Vance and Walz had been debating illegal immigration, specifically, the Springfield, Ohio, situation where Haitian illegal aliens have economically migrated by the tens of thousands to the small town, displacing locals from housing.
As they concluded, moderator Margaret Brennan felt the need to get the final word:
BRENNAN: And just to clarify, for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status. Norah?
VANCE: Margaret?
BRENNAN: Thank you senator, we have so much to get to.
VANCE: Margaret? I think it’s important because the rules were that you guys weren’t going to “fact check,” and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.
At this point, Vance lucidly explains that Brennan’s attempt to imply to viewers that these Haitians were in any way legal immigrants was itself incorrect as a fact-check and missed his point entirely: The Biden-Harris administration grants “temporary protected status” to every illegal alien who successfully crosses the border so long as they claim political asylum. (Trump, meanwhile, had the “remain in Mexico” policy.) And in truth, nobody seriously disputes that the Haitians are economic migrants feigning oppression for their political opinions; they are only notionally “here” as long as their asylum claims are being adjudicated. But of course the trick is that it is difficult to impossible to deport them once here. Thus illegal immigration becomes (quite intentionally for those who encourage it) a one-way ratchet.
Vance conveyed all of this briskly and succinctly, and Brennan’s reaction was pointedly hostile: She stonily said “Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process, we have so much to get to, Senator,” and then cut his microphone off, unwilling to be humiliated by his mastery of the federal immigration code. She then announced with a proud smile, “The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut!” Vance took it in stride and moved on.
It was a terrible look for the CBS moderating team, though it was primarily Brennan’s disgrace. First, they broke their own “no fact-checking” policy in the most flagrant way possible. (Brennan literally tried to end a segment with a “Just to clarify . . .” tag!) Adding to that, it was clear that Brennan’s motivations were purely partisan. But to cut Vance off as he was in the process of rather politely — and concisely — defending his corner against an incorrect broadside he was specifically told not to expect from the moderators? That betrayed cowardice and weakness.
I think it’s well beyond time we dispensed with the trope of the “fact-check” altogether. It’s abundantly clear at this point that it is beloved by legacy media types because it fortifies their bias with the veneer of authority, not because it offers any serious truth value — the mere laundering of opinion into “expert fact” to wield as a tool in shaping the contours of public debate. (I rate my assertion “Mostly True.”) The temptations of the “fact-check” are impossible even for seasoned professionals to evade, because few can avoid succumbing to their own vanities. Margaret Brennan was so unable to control her need to shape the conversation that she broke into one despite haughtily claiming in advance that CBS would be above the format. That she fell on her face so badly doing so — and let Vance make a fool out of her for it — should be a cautionary lesson to all.