Former Bush-Cheney political strategist Matthew Dowd said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) lie so much during debates that there should be commentators watching who fact-check live, like in sports.
Host Nicolle Wallace said, “How much are we sort of in a post performative political moment? The Trump voters taught us they know all this stuff about Trump, but they’re with him anyway. So it’s all performative on the right?”
Dowd said, “I actually think Donald Trump has tried our souls and I think people have come to that conclusion in the course of this. We’re still a divided country. For all the things we talked about prior to this, I think people in the end people are saying I can’t do this. I voted for him once, twice, but I’m not going to do this. Many are unwilling to say it. I met people in Michigan and I became friends with a father and his adult son who whispered to me, I’m going to vote for Harris, but I can’t tell anybody because it’s going to be bad for me where I work because I live in a very red area.”
He added, “I think you’re exactly right, in this moment when candidates lie like Vance lies throughout the debate and Donald Trump lies throughout the debate and I think we have to come up with a different mode where it’s corrected and done in real time. We depend on the moderators, but I’ve often thought, remember Mystery Science Theater where they ran a bad movie and guys would comment on the stupid stuff in the movie? We need to cover debates where we’re commenting during the midst of the debate.”
Wallace said, “Every single sporting event, which is the most watched live in the content that exists anywhere in the world, every sporting event is covered live by realtime commentators while the game is going on.”
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