Newsmax put out a lot of pro-Trump rhetoric before the first presidential debate, but on the day of the debate on June 27, it succumbed to cranking out direct Trump stenography tied into the debate. First up was Nicole Wells, under the headline “Trump Campaign Aims to Debunk ‘Biden Lies’ on Crime”:
The Trump campaign has released a memo Thursday morning dismantling President Joe Biden’s talking points on crime ahead of the evening’s presidential candidates’ debate.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee took aim at four of what he termed “Biden lies” — statements used by his Democrat rival when discussing crime in America.
According to the Trump campaign, the first “Biden lie” is “[t]rust the FBI crime ‘data.'”
[…]Citing sizeable increases in major crime categories in Washington, D.C., New York City, Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia, Trump said “Crooked Joe Biden’s record is indefensible.”
“So all he can do is LIE, and that’s exactly what he is going to do tonight,” he added.
Trump and Biden are set to square off at 9 p.m. ET Thursday at the CNN-moderated debate in Atlanta.
Thirty-nine minutes later, Fran Beyer contributed her own bit of stenography, under the headline “Trump Campaign Calls Out ‘Biden Lies’ on Economy”:
The Trump campaign is pushing back at President Joe Biden’s claims about his economic achievements, calling them “Biden Lies.”
In an outline from former President Donald Trump’s election team to Newsmax, Biden’s assertions were countered on economic progress in job numbers, inflation, gas prices, income, and the national debt.
The Trump team, citing a House of Representatives press release from June 2, said a 72% job surge claimed by Biden “were simply jobs that were being recovered from the pandemic, not new job creation.”
About an hour after that, James Morley III turned in his assigned task, under the headline “Trump Campaign Releases Five ‘Biden Lies’ on Border”:
In a preemptive debate strike on Thursday, the Trump campaign released a scathing summary of President Joe Biden’s record on the U.S. southern border. The ICYMI – Biden Lies: Border Edition breaks down five “lies” the Biden Administration has peddled to the American public over the last 3 and half years.
According to the Trump campaign, the first Biden border lie is that the border is “secure.” Using data from both the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol as well as the Drug Enforcement Agency, the campaign dismantles each of Biden’s immigration talking points.
No explanation was offered as to why Newsmax thought it was a great use of resources to assign three writers to rewrote Trump campaign press releases, or why those writers couldn’t be bothered to contact President Biden’s campaign for a response to make it look at least somewhat less like it was taking dictation from the Trump campaign.