Late night pounces, seizes on Jan. 6 fake news story
June 30, 2022
It’s hard to blame late-night comics for feasting on the Russian collusion hoax.
The media spent years detailing every faux angle of the narrative, while alternative news sources shredded its core tenets piece by piece.
The mainstream press has yet to apologize for some of the most egregious errors tied to that journalistic debacle. Don’t expect late-night hosts to attempt anything like a mea culpa.
Just know monologues like this have aged … badly.
Reporters haven’t learned their lesson, alas.
They pounced and seized on Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony this week before the Jan. 6 hearings. The former White House aide’s claim? President Donald Trump tried to physically grab the steering wheel away from a Secret Service driver to join the Jan. 6 protests.
When denied, Trump allegedly attacked the agent.
Only one problem? Two, actually.
The Secret Service member in question is ready to testify no such thing occurred. And the source for Hutchinson’s testimony, Tony Ornato, denies the story as well.
Other than that, Hutchinson’s tale checks out.
It’s the latest black eye for the press, which recounted Hutchinson’s comments as if it were the smoking gun they’ve lusted after ever since Trump became president.
None of this stopped late-night comics from mocking the incident to discredit Trump. The aide’s story began to fall apart mid-day Tuesday, but they stuck to the false narrative while prepping their nightly broadcasts.
Because Trump.
Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Fallon all used the testimony to attack Trump. Colbert said the incident “is going to make a great season premiere of Kleptocrats in Cars Seizing Power.”