4 Media Lies About the Government Shutdown

A Border Patrol Agent takes down information of a man and his son who crossed the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States in Hidalgo County, Texas, on May 26, 2017. Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times

The fake news media loves to lie about President Donald Trump, and they’ve been especially brazen in their dishonesty when it comes to the partial government shutdown over border security.

For the last three weeks, the mainstream media has framed the government shutdown as a catastrophe, amplifying the voices of impacted federal workers while ignoring the many federal employees who still want the president to stand firm on border security.

While the media has been unfairly critical of Trump throughout his presidency, the degree of journalistic dishonesty has never been higher than it is today. Here are the four biggest lies perpetrated by the press about the border wall debate.

1. There Is No Immigration Crisis

The fake news media wants to convince the American people that there is no border security crisis, hoping to turn them against Trump’s crusade to secure the border.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough even called Americans who recognize the border crisis “stupid” while accusing the president of being a liar.

“[Trump] is going to be telling nothing but lies and falsehoods, and he’s going to be twisting reality,” Scarborough said before the president delivered his Oval Office address to the American people last week. “And at this point I’ve got to say, how stupid are Americans who still believe there’s a crisis on the southern border?”

CNN’s Jim Acosta also did his best to downplay the president’s claim by posting a widely-mocked video of himself standing next to the border wall in which he inadvertently acknowledged that border walls are effective.

“I found some steel slats down on the border,” he said. “But I don’t see anything resembling a national emergency situation.”

Of course, there is a real crisis at the border—and the media knows it.

Women and children suffer deprivation, exposure, and the constant threat of violence and sexual assault while attempting to cross the border illegally; drug cartels exploit our overstretched border security resources and bring crime to our communities; and American families are robbed of their loved ones by illegal aliens who should never have been allowed in the country.

Denying that this problem exists only enables this humanitarian tragedy to continue.

2. Trump Used Border Patrol Agents as Props

Another popular argument made by the talking heads in the media is that Trump is using some Border Patrol agents as political props to advocate for the wall.

Indeed, the president recently held a White House press conference with several Border Patrol officials, but he only did so because he thought it was important for them to tell the American people what they had just said in a private meeting.

The president also gave a television interview in Texas surrounded by about a dozen immigration agents in uniform, but then, the whole reason he was there was to solicit their input.

Nonetheless, these moves did not sit well with many members of the press.

Vox, for instance, slammed Trump, publishing an article headlined “Trump uses Border Patrol agents as props during Fox News interview.”

If the mainstream media and biased press truly cared about the Border Patrol, they would acknowledge the fact that the agency overwhelmingly supports Trump’s effort to build a physical barrier on the border.

A 2018 survey, for instance, found that 89 percent of agents believe that a “wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border.”

Border Patrol officials are not props—they are genuine supporters of Trump’s proposal because they know firsthand what it truly takes to achieve border security. If they gave officials on the border air time to express their support for a border wall, the president wouldn’t have to.

 3. Trump Is Responsible for Keeping the Government Closed

When Trump said that the government remains closed because the Democrats refuse to compromise on border security, the press quickly noted that the president had previously agreed to take responsibility for the shutdown.

While Trump did vow to shut down the government if the Democrats failed to fund the border wall, he also welcomed productive negotiations, repeatedly urging his counterparts to solve the budget impasse.

Despite their repeated claims to be in favor of “border security,” however, Democrat leaders have refused to meet the president in the middle. They simply refuse to negotiate or compromise whatsoever.

4. The President ‘Lies’ to the American People

The most preposterous lie of all came in the form of “fact checks” that slammed Trump for telling “falsehoods” during his Oval Office address on border security.

Multiple news networks and publications, including The New York Times and CNN, accused Trump of lying to the American people, but their “fact checks” contained little substantive criticism of the president’s speech, and a great deal of opinionated semantics.

The Times, for example, somehow managed to fact-check the President’s prediction that the wall will be indirectly paid for by Mexico, arguing that the statement was “false” even though it addressed what will happen in the future.

CNN, meanwhile, reluctantly agreed with the president’s statistic that one-in-three illegal immigrant women are subjected to sexual assault, but felt compelled to point out that the figure doubles when you include violence of all varieties.

The fake news media loves to lie about Trump and his policies—and their outrageous coverage of the border security crisis proves that they have no interest in being factual, objective, or unbiased.

Charlie Kirk is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group for young conservatives.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.