‘Just Not The Truth!’ CNN Dumps Trump VP Pick Presser Mid-Sentence To Correct Falsehoods

CNN dumped out of Trump VP pick Sen. JD Vance’s (R-OH) press conference mid-sentence to correct several falsehoods, including that Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) tried to take children away from their parents.

The 2024 Republican vice presidential candidate spoke to reporters at an event in Wisconsin Wednesday afternoon hours after a similar campaign stop in Michigan.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN News Central , anchor Brianna Keilar dumped out of the Q&A portion of the event to knock down the falsehood about Walz and trans people, then went on to call out several other Vance falsehoods:

SEN. JD VANCE: I think that the weird argument honestly came from a bunch of 24 year old social media interns who were bullied in school, and they decided they’re going to project that onto the entire Trump campaign. And the reason it doesn’t make sense is because you ask, who’s weird, right?

Is I think it’s pretty weird to be the borders are to open up the border and allow fentanyl to come into your community.

I think it’s pretty weird to try to take children away from their parents. If the parents don’t want to consent to sex changes, that’s something that Tim Walz did.

I think it’s pretty weird to want to defund the police. I think it’s pretty weird to pretend that you’re a tough on crime prosecutor, even though you pursued the policies that made San Francisco such a disaster when it comes to crime and public safety.

So if they want to call me weird, like, I got my wife here, I’ve got three beautiful kids at home. I’m a normal guy who wants to live the American dream and wants all of you and your kids to be able to live the American Dream. That’s why I’m in it. If those people want to call me weird, I think it’s a badge of honor. Yeah.

BRIANNA KEILAR: You’ve been listening to JD Vance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Just to be clear, Tim Walz did not try to take children away from parents if they would not consent to sex changes.

But just a few other things to fact check here. I think specifically on the border, which is an issue that really animates voters and not just Republicans, a lot of voters. And that’s why you hear JD Vance really hammering on it. But while there are many things that the Biden-Harris administration have to answer for on that, some of what JD Vance said just does not ring true.

For instance, he said that right now there’s a terrible crisis at the southern border. Just to be clear, border numbers are actually down right now. They’re at a three year low since January of 2021. Since that executive order that President Biden signed, they have fallen for four months in a row.

He blamed Biden and Harris for the fentanyl crisis in America. And it is a crisis. To be clear, I think look at any community, you see that. But he left out that it started during the Trump administration, during Covid. It was really an issue of closures at the border and drugs coming over in a more concentrated way, less could get through. It became more concentrated. That persisted into the Biden-Harris administration.

But certainly he also seemed to allude as well to it being a root, the root cause of it being illegal immigration. He was kind of alluding to that. And that’s just not the truth!

It comes through legal ports of entry, and it is almost entirely being brought by American citizens.

He also seemed to allude to if Kamala Harris were in charge, if she were, the borders czar, as he put it, which is not a correct characterization. When his mother was struggling with addiction, that his mother would be dead. So he certainly tried to play on the emotions of this crowd.

OMAR JIMENEZ: Yeah. And look, the fentanyl crisis, I think it goes without saying, did not just start over the course of this administration. This is something that goes back years. We even start to see the rise of it back to 2015. And we even saw some numbers start to drop a little bit from, over the past two years, but still at a level that is killing so many Americans at a rate that no one wants to see.

I also want to pick up on one other aspect that he talked about, saying that Governor Tim Walz actively encouraged rioters to burn down the city of Minneapolis, that — that didn’t happen.

In fact, while there is some question about how quickly the National Guard was called in and whether they should have been called in a day earlier or not, this was the first instance in decades that the entire contingent of the National Guard was activated to try and deal with it.

And there was a legislative report that that concluded that, that Governor Walz did not realize the severity of events as they unfolded, resulting in a delayed reaction and increased violence. But we didn’t see an encouragement of the rioters to burn down, the city of Minneapolis.

BRIANNA KEILAR: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, it was a bipartisan report. Let’s bring in Alayna Treene on this. It’s a bipartisan report. There are lots of questions, that I think can be asked certainly of of these topics, but he’s really stretching it here.

ALAYNA TREENE: Yes. And I think, I mean, overall, like we could go through everything he said and have to fact checked the majority of those remarks.

But I think if you take a step back and you think about what the strategy is here, and this is something I know from my conversations with the Trump campaign, they want to be focusing on policy.

And even if the policy that they’re putting forward is not necessarily the truth, that is what they want to be in voters minds.

Watch above via CNN News Central .