During his rally in Green Bay on Saturday night, President Trump chastised Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers over Evers' planned veto of proposed "born-alive" legislation protecting infants who survive abortions.
"Your Democrat governor here in Wisconsin shockingly stated that he will veto legislation that protects Wisconsin babies born alive, born alive,' Trump said. "The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby."
If that language sounds familiar, it's because it was nearly identical to the description offered by disgraced Democratic Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
"[Third trimester abortions are] done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that's nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," Northam told WTOP Radio in January. "The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."
Naturally, in blasting Trump for his supposed lies on late term abortions, Democrats like Ilhan Omar have been shockingly silent about Northam's characterization of them. And for the record, when was the last time anyone heard about Northam's blackface/Ku Klux Klan hood yearbook photo?
This is by design. The media's aim here is to protect a controversial but shockingly mainstream Democrat view on late term abortion by framing the controversy not as how radically Democrats have moved on the issue, but rather how Trump is lying about it.
He's not. He's describing late term abortion in the exact terms that Northam (a pediatric surgeon) did. You just never hear the comparison.
The effect of this is a form of gaslighting--an attempt to make you think that you didn't actually hear Northam's words and didn't actually see this shocking admission from Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran:
Without this context, it may seem as though Trump is unfairly characterizing the late term abortions, but with the benefit of seeing the Northam and Tran videos that started the current controversy over the issue, it is clear that he is accurately (almost word-for-word) their position.
Naturally, the media never shows the Northam or Tran videos to provide this context. CNN's Brian Stelter, host of the rather ironically titled "Reliable Sources," held a lengthy panel discussion on Trump's comments without ever once mentioning Northam or Tran.
This is gaslighting--pretending that the relevant context for Trump's comments never existed.
One would think that the news media would in the interest of fairness and presenting its audience with all relevant information want to provide as much background information on Trump's comments as possible so as to allow said audience to be as informed as possible, but that isn't the role of the news media anymore.
Now it's role is to present one side of a story and one half of a controversy and hope its audience isn't able to ascertain the whole truth.