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Candidate Donald Trump - Fox News Sunday

Overview: Presidential candidate Donald Trump is known for creating controversy and he did so again at a speech on July 11, 2015 in Phoenix (Miller, 2015). Making remarks of Jeb Bush one of his republican opponents Mr. Trump mentions “How can I be tied with this guy, he’s terrible,” (Miller, 2015). Fox News program Special Report with Bret Baier breaks down how long Donald Trump will stay on top of the polls, and just how good he is for the Republican Party.

Statement: “He hasn’t long been a Republican, in fact for many he years gave more money to Democrats, praised Hillary Clinton” - Brit Hume

Conclusion:

Truthiness: It is true that he did praise Hillary Clinton, and would donate money to the Democrats. However, in the past five years he has given much more money to the Republican Party. Making this statement misleading.

There are countless occasions where he has told reporters that he feels like more of a Democrat. In the year 1990 he told Playboy Magazine “I’d do better as a Democrat then a Republican” (Kurtzleben, 2015). He told Wolf Blitzer in the year 2004 the same thing; that he identifies more with Democrats (Moody, 2015). He also does have a history of praising Hillary Clinton, his potential opponent in the Presidential race. In 2012 when Hillary was running against President Obama Trump publicly supported Hillary stating “I think Hillary is a terrific person” (Miller, 2015). He even donated to the Clinton campaigns (Seitz-Wald, 2015). However both parties have received generous donations from Donald Trump. Since the year 1989 he has donated about 1.4 million dollars to both parties, with republicans receiving the most (Kurtzleben, 2015). The Republican Party has received 961,140 dollars compared to the Democrats receiving 584,450 dollars.

Statement: “30 percent of Americans thinks he is honest and trustworthy and 44 percent do not.” -Karl Rove

Conclusion:

Truth. Even though the poll results are slightly different with each poll they all are around the same. Each poll shows that majority of Americans do not find Donald Trump honest and trustworthy.

We are going to look at other polls done about the same topic to see if the results are closely the same. In a poll done by ABC News found that thirty-five percent of America found him honest, and fifty-nine percent did not (Sargent, 2015). It would be fair to point out that in the same poll when asking just Republicans sixty percent say he is honest and trustworthy and thirty-five saying he is not, but Karl Rove was referring to all Americans. Another poll by Quinnipiac University found that 33 percent trust him and 58 did not (Tani, 2015). Although these poll result numbers are all different they each prove the point Karl Rove was making. Most Americans do not trust Donald Trump.

Statement: Talking about if Donald Trump would run as a third party if he does not win the Republican Party “He’s answered the questions straight on saying he would consider it” – Bret Baier

Truthiness: The statement by Bret makes it sounds like he is leaning more towards a run for third party. When in fact Trump is still on the fence on the subject. Saying he will only consider it if the Republican Party is unfair to him (Cirilli, & Cusack, 2015).

If a candidate does not win the Republican or Democratic primary that candidate can then choose to run as a third party. Which is running for President not for one of the two major parties. Bret makes it sound like Trump is leaning towards running as a third party. In an interview with The Hill they asked him whether or not he would consider a third party run. “I’ll have to see how I’m being treated by the Republicans… If they’re not fair, that would be a factor.” (Cirilli, & Cusack, 2015). The statement by Bret makes it sound like he is leaning more towards a third party run. When he meant that his chances for a run will go up if the Republican National Committee is unfair to him (Cirilli, & Cusack, 2015).

Statement: “(Donald Trump) said that Mitt Romney was too mean on immigration for taking positions weaker then ones he is taking now.” – Brit Hume

Conclusion:

Truthiness. He did say in an interview that the immigration policy is what lost Mitt Romney the race. However it is up to opinion on which immigration policy has stronger or weaker points. One can make arguments for both of them.

On November 26, 2012 Donald Trump gave an interview to Newsmax talking about the Republican Party loss. “The Republican Party will continue to lose presidential elections if it comes across as mean-spirited and unwelcoming toward people of color” (Kessler, 2012). Donald Trump gave his stance on the immigration policy of Mitt Romney “He had a crazy policy of self-deportation which was maniacal,” (Kessler, 2012). This self-deportation plan he is talking about is where employers become more strict and higher only legal citizens. This would eventually force the illegal immigrants to go back home, since they are unable to locate any jobs.

Now, three years later Donald Trump has his own immigration plan. On his campaign website he covers three aspects to his plan. The first is he will make Mexico build a wall stretching across the border. Second is enforcing the law, and send them home if caught. Third is that this new immigration law must serve the country, which means it will add more jobs and improve security and wages (Trump Campaign, 2015). With both of the immigration plans known there is no clear answer for which one is weaker or which one is stronger. It all comes down to opinion and what you think.

SMELL Test:

S: Source:  Brett Baier is the host of his television show Special Report with Bret Baier. He has been reporting at Fox News since the year 1998 (biography on Bret Baier).

            P (Proximity): Low Mr. Baier is a news television reporter. He gets most of his information from the guests around the table and his research. He does often do interviews with the actual people he is talking about. However in this situation he was not at the press conference and did not have a one on one interview with Donald Trump.

            I (Independence): Moderate Mr. Baier is there to report on the news and what is happening. The reason it is moderate is because he is an anchor on Fox News and has to comply with their standards.

            E (Expertise): High Bret Baier has a long history with American politics. Since starting with Fox News he has been covering government affairs. At one point in his career he was appointed Chief White House Correspondent for Fox News. He has also been one of the moderators in the 2016 GOP presidential debate (biography on Bret Baier).

M: Motive: The content is designed to inform and entertain. Bret Baier needs to keep his show interesting so viewers keep tuning in. This means getting interesting guests and talking about interesting topics.

E: Evidence: The evidence was a little shaky. The panelists would often state a fact without any sources or proof of where it came from. If they had a graphic depicting where they got their information or how it would be more comforting.

L: Logic: The start of the clip they show a video of Donald Trump bashing on a candidate. They spend the rest of the time talking about how he will most likely fail. They could have spent some time talking about what his opinions on political matters were. The clip they played was twenty seconds of a much longer speech given by Trump. They could have gone over the other factors of his speech as well.

L: Left Out: In a segment that is only eight minutes long you are always going to leave something out. In this situation they left out almost the entire speech given by Donald Trump. They played and talked about one statement he gave. They could have gone into more depth on the policies of Donald Trump and what he believed can turn the country around.

The vilification of Donald Trump over illegal immigration

Overview: On June 16, 2015 Donald Trump made the official statement that he was running for President of the United States. During this speech he gave his stance on several different topics on issues that face the country today. His statement about illegal immigration left many people upset. Referring to the topic of border control he stated, “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people" (Washington Post Staff, 2015). When Mr. Trump spoke his views and thoughts on the border problem, he had some consequences to face. Several companies that worked with him such as Macey’s, NASCAR, NBC and Univision separated ties shortly after that speech (Santucci, & Kelly, 2015). In this clip, Bill O’Reilly looks at the statement made by Donald Trump, analyzing if what he said was correct.

Statement: “Vast majority of illegal immigrants do not commit crimes while on American soil apart from immigration offense.” – Bill O’Reilly (0:43)

Conclusion:

Truth. Although in 2010 forty-six percent of the arrests happened to undocumented citizens. Only five percent were for federal offenses besides their immigration offense, which is what Bill O’Reilly was referring to.

According to Donald Trump the people crossing the border illegally are Mexico’s worst, they cross the border and bring with them a lot of crime (Walker, 2015). Bill O’Reilly is stating the opposite, that majority of illegal immigrants do not commit crimes. The Congressional Research Service did a study on illegal immigration and crimes associated with them. In the year 2010 there were 179,489 people arrested for Federal offenses, 83,024 of that number were undocumented citizens (Rosenblum, & Kandel, 2012). This statistic means that an incredibly high forty-six percent of people arrested in 2010 were undocumented citizens, which would prove Mr. Trump correct. However, majority of these arrests come from illegal entry. Only five percent of undocumented citizens committed crimes for all other federal offenses, which would prove the point of Bill O’Reilly (Rosenblum, & Kandel, 2012).

Statement: “Mexico is the major supplier of illegal drugs into the U.S.”

Conclusion:

Truth. Mexico is definitely the major supplier of illegal drugs into the United States. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana are all drugs that enter at the border.

Both Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly agree; the amount of drugs coming from the Mexico border is a big problem. The facts of drug trafficking and drug war are pretty incredible. Ninety percent of all cocaine in the United States enters at the Mexico border. On top of that Mexico is the major supplier of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana (Lee, 2014). The New York Times looked at just how profitable and dangerous these drug cartels are. Both the Mexican and Colombian cartels make 18 to 39 billion dollars from drugs sales in the United States (Radden Keefe, 2012). From the years 2006 to 2012 more than 50,000 people have died thanks to the drug wars in Mexico. The Tijuana, Juarez and Sinaloa cartels in Mexico are constantly in “bloody turf wars” (Radden Keefe, 2012).

Statement: “Francisco Lopez Sanchez an illegal ailien from Mexico murdered Kate, apparently Sanchez has seven felony convictions has been deported five times.”

Truth. The statistics on Sanchez the seven felony and five times deported is correct.

Sadly Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, shot and murdered thirty-two year old Kate Steinle in San Francisco. The bay area news team ABC 7 reported Sanchez admitting to the murder (Barnard, 2015). Sanchez does have a criminal history of seven felony convictions and deported five times (Chan, 2015).

Statement: “Of Mexican residents and illegals in the U.S. fifty-nine percent have a high school education or less and four percent have a college degree."

Conclusion:

Truth. The statistics used by Bill O’Reilly are very close to statistics used in other sources.

Education is a critical part in the lives of everyone. Education is how we all grow and discover new things. However, as Bill O’Reilly has stated, much of the Mexican resident or illegal immigrants are not finishing their education. Only six percent of the Mexican immigrants who are twenty-five and older had received their bachelor’s degree or higher (Zong, & Batalova, 2014). After a study in the year 2008 they discovered that 61.5 percent did not have a high school diploma (Terrazas, 2010). This is why Donald Trump said Mexico is not sending their best people (Washington Post Staff, 2015). Majority of the Mexican immigrants are not receiving a high education. This according to Donald Trump would mean that there are better people in Mexico who are willing to receive an education.

SMELL Test:

S: Source: Bill O’Reilly is the host of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News.

            P: (Proximity): Low He is not on the Donald Trump campaign team and was not present at the speech Donald Trump gave. Talking about illegal immigration he is talking based off statistics and facts he received from other sources.

            I: (Independence): Moderate Bill O’Reilly is a news reporter who needs to have his viewers in mind with what he is reporting. If speaking his mind happens to offend the public he could be out of a show. He also has to make sure not to offend anyone in Fox News. He is however known for speaking boldly about subjects he feels strongly towards.

            E: (Expertise): High Bill O’Reilly is a veteran when it comes to reporting politics on the news. He started his show The O’Reilly Factor in the year 1996 and it has grown to become one of the most popular programs for Fox News (Fox News, 2015).

M: Motivation: Bill O’Reilly being the host of his own show is motivated by ratings. He wants to inform the public of topics that are currently hot in the nation. Talking about Donald Trump and dissecting what he meant in his statement would be something a lot of people would be interested in.

E: Evidence: He has a team of reporters that find the facts he reports. As a reporter on such a popular show he needs to be careful what facts he is stating. His graphs do have sources on where they got the information.

L: Logic: The news segment was broken down and reported in a very understanding way. To the left of him were words reiterating what he was speaking, giving the audience a chance to better understand. He speaks loudly and clearly making it easier to understand.

L: Left Out: The discussion of immigration is a very broad topic and hard to be discussed in ten minutes. He gave the public the facts that we wanted to hear and were easy to explain. He could have gone much more in depth giving the public a more educated idea of what is happening regarding illegal immigration.

Rich Lowry: Fiorina castrated Trump in last debate

Overview: Donald Trump has been criticizing his republican running mates for quite some time now. Not afraid to speak his mind he often creates controversy. In this video Megyn Kelly and her two guests are breaking down the debate. More specifically they are breaking down what Carly Fiorina said to Donald Trump. It is not often a candidate gets a better zinger then Donald Trump. Megyn and her guests are talking about this new rivalry between Fiorina and Trump.

Statement: Talking about the GOP debate, Rich Lowry said, “Let’s be honest, Carly cut his balls off with a precision of a surgeon” talking about Carly shutting down Donald Trump."

Conclusion:

False To say Carly cut his balls off is a matter of opinion and could be looked at either way. Saying this on television will definitely make the audience look at Trump in a different light. When in reality it was a good debate with both Carly and Trump having some good arguments.  

The debate was overshadowed by the feud of Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump. Mr. Trump who is known for tearing down opponents and pointing out their flaws was doing the same thing last night. Only this time Fiorina was ready to attack as well. “I can only say this, she can’t run any of my companies” Trump said referring that she has poor money and business skills (Adams Otis, 2015). Fiorina did not hesitate in responding about the failure of the Trump casinos in Atlantic City. “(Trump) Forced casinos into bankruptcies not once, not twice, but four times”. “Why should we trust you to manage the finances of this country any better than your casinos” replied Fiorina (Adams Otis, 2015).  She was very quick with her reply but this does not mean she cut Trumps balls off. It was a good response but it did not boggle the brain of Trump and stop him from continuing the debate. Even the experts had different decisions on who won the debate. Mike Morey chose Fiorina, Bart Rossi chose Trump and Kevin Eckery chose Marco Rubio (Katz, & Durkin, 2015). Showing that the “cut his balls off” comeback by Carly Fiorina was a small part of the entire debate.

Statement: Speaking about Donald Trump, “people are saying he is sexist because he made fun of her face” – Megyn Kelly

Conclusion: Truth Donald Trump most definitely did make fun of her face in front of a Rollingstone reporter. That comment also lead many to believe that he is sexist for saying those remarks.

Paul Solotaroff recently traveled with Donald Trump for a story that was featured in the Rollingstone (Uchimiya, 2015). While watching the news he was giving a commentary of each candidate that would appear onscreen. Carly Fiornia appeared and Trump did not hold back “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” (Solotaroff, 2015). A few days later Trump told CNN what he meant by that comment “I’m not talking about looks. I’m talking about persona.” (Diamond, 2015). His damage control statement was not enough and people do not buy it.

Statement: Megyn is referring to a statement made by Donald Trump, “Carly had dificutlies with her business career” – Megyn Kelly

Conclusion:

Truth Both Trump and Kelly are correct when talking about her failed stint as a CEO of HP.

From the year 1999 she was appointed as the CEO of the Hewlett Packard or most often known as HP. She was CEO for six years before she was fired in the year 2006 (Sonnenfeld, 2015). Her short go as CEO did not go very well. She made a string of bad decisions, one of which was purchasing Compaq Computers in 2002 for nineteen billion dollars (Mitchell, 2015). That purchase started sinking their quarterly profits and lead to 17,000 people being laid off (Mitchell, 2015). When HP let her go the stock of the company went up ten percent, ending at positive seven percent at the end of that day (Sonnenfeld 2015).

Statement: Chris believes that majority of the Republican candidates are attacking Donald Trump. “The idea that nobody else is firing on Trump in this whole thing, is ludicrous, everybody is taking shots” – Chris Salcedo

Conclusion:

Truth In every debate there are examples of different candidates taking jabs at Donald Trump. With Donald Trump being in the lead and the biggest threat everyone is trying to tear him down.

The republican candidates have all been talking back to Donald. The comment by Carly Fiorina just happens to be the most memorable comeback so far. Here are just a few examples of other candidates taking shots at Trump. Jeb Bush was not afraid demanding an apology to his wife, which Trump refused to do (Kopan, 2015). Christ Christie interrupted the feud between Trump and Fiorina saying he is sick of hearing about their business careers; let’s talk about the unemployed citizens (Kopan, 2015). Scott Walker said “Mr. Trump, we don’t need an apprentice in the White House” (Katz, & Durkin, 2015). Currently Donald Trump is the biggest threat to the other republican candidates. If they can say something that will embarrass him, or make him look bad, they definitely will jump on that chance. 

Source: Megyn Kelly who is a news anchor on Fox News. She is currently a host on her show The Kelly File.

            P (Proximity)- Low- Megyn is a news reporter reporting the news. She was not at the debate or any of the speeches she showed in the clip. She did not have either Trump or Carly on her show to ask specific questions.

            I (Independence) Moderate – She has nothing to gain or lose speaking her mind on the subject matter. She brings on guests that will help give both sides of the story. She is a news anchor on Fox News and viewers are very important to her show. So she will only say things that will not create controversy or hatred toward her show.

            E (Expertise) High – Megyn has been a member of Fox News since the year 2004. She has covered past presidential elections and has been a moderator for the GOP debate. In the year 2014 she was listed in Time as part of one of their top 100 Most Influential People in the World (Fox News).

Motive: The content is designed to entertain and inform to attract the viewers. Megyn wants to share the news that people are interested in hearing. She also wants people to be entertained while reporting.

Evidence: They are talking about some speeches that happened in the days past. In some parts they have clips showing what the politicians actually said, they would then debate that. However, some of the statistics are just said with no proof to back it up.

Logic: The video made sense and brought up a lot of good points. She has two guests on this segment, helping the audiences get different perspectives of the situation. The videos that were shown in the beginning helped set the stage for that to come. At the bottom of the screen they had quotes from the candidates they were talking about as well which helped.

Left Out: This segment was about portraying Donald Trump as a bad guy. They did not talk about his response to the criticism or what he did well in the debate. They only talked about how Carly Fiornia got the best of Trump.