The Media Research Center loves to whine about Donald Trump being fact-checked, and executive Tim Graham went on yet another tirade about that in his Dec. 9 podcast:
Donald Trump accepted an interview request from NBC “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, and once again she incessantly interrupted and “fact checked” the president-elect. Jorge Bonilla reviews all that was asked and answered.
He summed up: “Welker’s sit-down with the once and future president featured some newsworthy items, but was mostly a showcase for her blatant deceptions,” especially on immigration.
But Graham served up some blatant deceptions himself. First up: “Welker tried to ‘fact check’ the idea that gangs took over apartment complexes in Colorado. Everything negative about illegal immigrants is defined as ‘not news’ or ‘misinformation.'” Graham did not prove that this view exists regarding “everything negative about illegal immigrants,” or who exactly is claiming that. Graham followed that up with this:
The Catholic League pointed out today: “In the last year, a total of 158 Congressmen voted not to deport migrants convicted of sex crimes, and 140 of them were reelected in November. Every one of them were Democrats.” The Democrats in the media have no interest in underlining this positioning.
Both Graham and the Catholic League are deliberately omitting context (which the MRC loves to do when it advances right-wing narratives). PolitiFact treated the vote more honestly, by pointing out the bill was largely redundant:
But Democrats and domestic violence groups who opposed the bill told PolitiFact that the law already provides for deportation of migrants convicted of sex offenses and crimes against children. And the bill’s language could have the unintended effect of harming immigrant domestic violence survivors, they warned.
“I voted against this bill for several reasons. First, it is redundant because all serious sexual and violent offenses already render someone deportable under the law,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., wrote in an email to PolitiFact.
[…]North Carolina University law professor Rick Su said aggravated felonies are already deportable offenses. Those are currently defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act — a law enacted in 1952 that governs U.S. immigration policy — to include rape, sexual abuse of a minor, all crimes of violence, child pornography and sex trafficking, Su said.
Another section of current law already makes domestic violence, stalking or violation of a protection order, and crimes against children deportable offenses, Su said. The law also makes “crimes involving moral turpitude” deportable offenses.
“Even if domestic violence and sex crimes were not explicitly noted as deportable offenses, they would almost certainly fall under a ‘crime involving moral turpitude,’” Su said.
Critics of Mace’s bill also said it provides no protection for immigrant victims of domestic violence, who often can be charged with a crime if they use violence in self-defense.
Graham concluded with more whining about Welker:
But the silliest Welker attack is the suggestion that Trump is uniquely “dividing” the country, as if the media and the Biden team aren’t doing and saying very divisive things, like suggesting Trump was going to “end” democracy we know it. We have a “divide and conquer” media, but they’re failing to conquer. They’re just dividing.
Note that Graham doesn’t actually come right out and admit Trump is dividing the country. He has to this lame whataboutism game in order to hide the fact that Welker is essentially correct.