Why Do Journalists Let Lawmakers Get Away With Baldfaced Lying?

The headline  is enough to leave one slack-jawed: Speaker Johnson: Possible Biden Actions on Border Amount to Election Year Gimmicks.

Yeah, he said that.

Multiple  media  outlets  reported last week that President Joe Biden might use his executive authority to address immigration and border issues.

When asked about it, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called it election year gimmicks.

Youre kidding, Mike, right?

Do you mean like the election-year move to scuttle a bipartisan bill addressing the border crisis that had much of what Republicans wanted with significant concessions by Democrats to boot? Do you mean like that kind of election-year gimmick? You know, like the part where people in your own party proudly  announced  they wouldnt do anything that would enable Joe Biden or help Joe Bidens approval rating.

I mean, it is an election year.

Let me make sure I have this right, too. You said we dont need new legislation because the president has the power to do something about the border without it.

Heres what you said  on social media: 

President Biden falsely claimed yesterday he needs Congress to pass a new law to allow him to close the southern border, but he knows that is untrue. As I explained to him in a letter late last year, and have specifically reiterated to him on multiple occasions since, he can and must take executive action immediately to reverse the catastrophe he has created.

He can and must take executive action immediately. So now that Biden is talking about taking unilateral action, its an election year gimmick. Do I have that right, Mike?

Heres the president doing exactly what Johnson said he can and must do, and now its an election year gimmick.

The balls on this guy.

My apologies for that comment. By now, Mikes family jewels are neatly tucked into Donald Trump s hip pocket. (Dont feel bad, Mike. Youre in good company with a lot of other invertebrate Republicans.)

It must be a basic tactic in the MAGA playbook. Demand something, then trash it when someone meets the demand.

Without question, Biden is making a political move, but Republicans forced his hand when they rejected the bipartisan immigration bill. Heck, if it were my call, Id insist that the bipartisan Senate team reintroduce the bill without any attachments to Ukraine or Israeli aid. Heres the immigration bill. No strings, no attachments. No excuses. Lets vote.

So the Cliff Notes version of this saga looks something like this:

Republicans: The border is a disaster. We need it fixed.

Democrats: Heres a bipartisan immigration bill to help fix it.

Republicans: Not gonna happen. Otherwise, we wont have a campaign issue.

Speaker: We dont need legislation. The president has all the power he needs to fix it.

President: Im going to use my executive powers to fix it.

Speaker: The president is engaging in election year gimmicks.

How does Johnson get away with saying that? Was there no media person within earshot to ask him that?

Im not sure whats worse:

• That Johnson had the temerity to say what he said.
• That not a single reporter there called him on it
• The inevitable defense from the usual suspects in the MAGA media circles because they have such inquiring minds.
• The MAGA voters who wont make the connection between two contradictory statements and instead conclude, Yup, Bidens just pulling an election year stunt to help his election prospects. Go, Brandon!

For me, its Door No. 2. I am no fan of the common practice among journalists to be genteel in the face of a lying lawmaker.

Just where were the reporters covering Johnsons little press conference? He stood before perhaps a half-dozen microphones and not one reporter called him out.

Oh, the reporters will squirm, but theyll think were biased. Wait. Are you worried about biased people thinking youre biased? Because the only ones who think youre biased are themselves biased.

We already have a biased media arm: the clowns who let a guy like Mike Johnson get away with a revisionist narrative and who then amplify it by supporting it.

Do you mean youre that kind of biased?

Dont tell me what he said. Tell me what you said to let him know he cant get away with saying that. Thats the kind of reporter I want, the kind we all should want.

Let him stumble through a response because theres no way he can come up with a legitimate answer. And then, if he does manage to give some sort of political-speak gobbledygook, just tell him, Sorry, sir, but thats bullshit.

What? Too direct?

Sorry, sir, but arent voters going to see your answer as nothing more than a steaming pile of bullshit?

Still too strong?

OK, take out the word steaming.

But they wont do it. Instead, they all go back to the nearest watering hole and say, Can you believe he said that?

I cant believe you let him get away with saying that.

Dont talk to me about journalists becoming part of the story, either. You already are when you fail to hold these muckety-mucks to account.

Im tilting at windmills here, I know. Journalism purists I dont know if thats the right thing to call them argue that journalists already know how to deal with powerful people who lie, as former Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler explained,  with continued intrepid and unbiased reporting. In short, the solution for journalism is more journalism.

Not to dismiss such a credo, but if you do it later in print, in a broadcast or on social media, even the best intrepid and unbiased reporting will be too late. The spin will already be in courtesy of the media hacks routinely engaging in massive journalistic malpractice.

Lets stop treating these lawmakers like theyre special. Theyre not. They are a bundle of gaseous ambition cleverly packaged as public servants. Journalists have an obligation to call out lawmakers when they lie, so cut through their vaporous tedium and hold them to account. To their face. In real time. Let Johnson sweat under the pressure of knowing hes been caught in a lie.

Yes, confirmation bias leads people who want to believe something to believe it even more when confronted by immutable facts showing them to be wrong. But calling out a liar in real time, on camera, to the point of embarrassment can make a difference when you see it happen before your eyes.

Look, Mike, heres your tweet. Here are these guys saying point-blank that they wont give Biden or other Democrats any credit for addressing the very immigration issues Republicans say they want addressed. How can you accuse Biden of the very thing you and your colleagues engaged in the week before?

Let viewers see all that. Let Johnson be subjected to all that. Let him wilt under the pressure of being caught in his lie. Create a moment of drama that couldve been entirely avoided if he had just decided to be honest.

Remember all those tabloid television shows from the 1990s where hosts like Jerry Springer caught some dirtbag in a lie? Shows like that garnered big ratings. Journalists dont have to be that theatrical, just intolerant of falsehoods.

Or maybe just get a little pissed off. Lord knows the electorate is.

It wont happen. Heres what will happen. Johnson will lie again, just like so many of his colleagues do. Some will do it like Johnson; others will do it obnoxiously, like Sen. Ted Cruz; still others, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, wont care how ridiculous they look. But theyll do it. Theyll continue to play on the vulnerability of reporters trying to maintain or, at this point, regain control over their journalistic integrity.

Forget it. Those boundaries are gone. If were going to get lawmakers to stop lying, journalists are going to have to scrap business as usual and start going for the jugular. Or take a page out of Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrows book.

McMorrow drew national attention in 2022 after a fiery speech on the statehouse floor, calling out  a Republican colleague who accused her of grooming young children and who then fundraised off that claim.

Instead of business as usual, a much more powerful response is [to] call bullshit bullshit.

Mr. Speaker: Sorry, sir, but what you said is bullshit.

See? Easy. So what are you journalists waiting for?