Mike Pence Lied Constantly Last Night. So How Can He Be the Winner of the Debate?

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Mike Pence won last night’s debate. Pretty much everyone agrees about that. Here’s what everyone also agrees about: Pence lied constantly. It was one of the most widespread observations about the debate:

Washington Post: More effectively than any Trump surrogate up to now, Pence simply denied — and denied, and denied, and denied — that someone as essentially good as Donald Trump could hold the views that cameras had recorded him holding.

New York Times, on Kaine’s charge that Pence and Trump have praised Vladimir Putin: “We haven’t,” Mr. Pence protested, even though he himself said on CNN last month that Mr. Putin was “a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.” But Mr. Pence during the debate flatly denied making that remark.

LA Times: [Pence] smoothly, and without a hint of embarrassment, denied that Trump had said things Trump had said.

Guardian: Mostly Pence flatly denied that Trump had made controversial statements and, instead of defending the candidate, resorted to the strategy of gaslighting, by repeatedly challenging known facts to manipulate the truth.

Politico: The main tenet of [Pence’s] strategy was to deny that Trump ever said these things to begin with — despite the fact that many of the statements were both real and a part of the public record.

McClatchy: During the few moments he did address statements Trump made, Pence denied them or even misstated them. “No he hasn’t,” he said repeatedly.

I didn’t have to go looking for this stuff. I just opened up seven debate recaps and found these six. (Only the Wall Street Journal seemed not to notice Pence’s behavior.) So here’s where we are: Pretty much everyone watching the debate agreed that Mike Pence lied over and over about simple stuff that’s on tape and easily verified. And yet pretty much everyone also agreed that he won the debate. Does anyone see the problem here?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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