Independent journalist Mark Halperin recently spoke to Glenn Kessler, a fact checker who took a buyout and left the Washington Post last week.
Halperin really grilled Kessler over the paper’s lack of coverage of Biden’s mental decline and did not let him off the hook as he tried to make excuses. The clip of their discussion, which you should watch below, is being shared widely on Twitter/X.
Kessler was one of the media figures who pushed the ‘cheap fake’ narrative. I’m amazed this tweet is still up.
In the course of their exchange, it seemed like Kessler was more concerned with discrediting conservative outlets than he was with getting to the truth about Biden.
Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
MARK HALPERIN, HOST: Regarding Joe Biden. When you looked at the question of whether the videos being played largely in conservative media that showed apparent cognitive decline of the president, what conclusion did you reach in Fact Checker about those videos?GLENN KESSLER, FORMER WASHINGTON POST FACT-CHECKER: Well, you’re talking about when he supposedly meandered off to talk to the parachutists? Yeah. So that fact check was looking specifically at how that video was being portrayed on news sites.MARK HALPERIN: Yes, sir.GLENN KESSLER: And what we did was we went and got the full video in the full context, because it looked like the way it was cut, and particularly distributed by the RNC, it looked like Joe Biden was wandering off and he didn’t show him talking to parachutists. What we showed was that he was talking to parachutists. And I’ve said this before, fact checks are a complement to the news coverage, not a supplement.Yes, sir. The overall context of the Washington Post coverage, we had coverage about, you know, was he too old? We had columnists saying he shouldn’t be running again.And that fact was specifically about that video distributed by the RNC.MARK HALPERIN: Understand, but the power of the Pinocchios and the power of the fact check, when you write that, people say that and say, the Washington Post is saying that that video is not reflective of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. That’s what people take from that. They do.They do. Glenn, they do. You know the power that you had in that job.So do you think the Washington Post, how would you rate the job the Washington Post did in covering Joe Biden’s, not his age, not whether David Ignatius thought he should run again, but how good a job would you say the Post did in covering the reality of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline?GLENN KESSLER: I would say, so there was a lot of effort to produce a story that would look at very carefully at what seemed to be a cognitive decline. It never came together because we couldn’t get enough people on the record.MARK HALPERIN: Glenn, Glenn, do you know the moment where Joe Biden spoke to a dead Congresswoman at a public event? Are you familiar with that moment? Yes, yes, yes.Okay. What kind of sourcing did you need to say Joe Biden was suffering cognitive decline? Did you see him trailing off regularly?
Be sure to watch the whole thing.
Featured image via YouTube.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY