Former President Trump gave credit to The Washington Post after he was forced to issue a major correction in a story about a phone call he had with Georgia election investigator Frances Watson in an exclusive interview with “Fox News Primetime” .
The Post initially reported that Trump told an official who worked in the office of Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to “find fraud” in the state, that he narrowly lost to Joe Biden, and that she would be a “national hero. “if you did.
However, a recent recording of the December 23 call found that he did not use those words. Instead, Trump said he would be “praised” when the “right answer came out” and encouraged her to take a closer look at the postal ballots in Fulton County, the state’s heavily blue and most populous county.
CRITICAL REPORTS FROM THE WASHINGTON MEDIA POST ON WHICH MAINTAINED THE MAIN CORRECTION AFTER THE TRUMP-GEORGIA ELECTION HISTORY
During the telephone interview on “Fox News Primetime”, Trump called the mistake “a terrible thing” that “probably affected” the Georgia Senate contests that Democratic candidates won.
“I will say that. I was very happy that the Washington Post had the courage or whatever you want to call it to at least admit its mistake. I hope it was a mistake,” Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “They were told something that didn’t exist and it made me sound bad, and when I heard it, I said, ‘This is ridiculous. I never said that.'”
He continued: “The Washington Post made a correction. A lot of pressure was put on them, but they made a correction because they realized that what they did was wrong.”
The Post published a lengthy correction to its story: “Correction: Two months after the publication of this story, Georgia’s Secretary of State released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s call in December with the state’s top election investigator. The recording revealed that the Post erroneously cited Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. In addition, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, claiming that she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also said that she had ‘the most important job in the country at the moment.’ . The title and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes incorrectly attributed to Trump. “
On Tuesday, Post media critic Erik Wemple investigated deeply what was wrong with his newspaper reports.
WASHINGTON PUBLISHED A PANORAMA FOR MASS CORRECTION FOR THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTION OF TRUMP-GEORGIA: ‘SO THEY DID THE QUOTE’
The “individual familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity” in the Post’s initial report was “based on an account by Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, to whom Watson informed [Trump’s] comments.”
Fuchs told Wemple: “I believe the story accurately reflected the investigator’s interpretation of the link. The only mistake here was in the direct quotes, and they should have been more of a summary.”
“I think it is absurd for anyone to suggest that the president was not urging the investigator to ‘find the fraud’,” added Fuchs. “These are quotes that [Watson] told me at the time. “
In response to Wemple, the Post stated: “We corrected the story and published a separate news last week – at the top of our website and on the first page – after we learned that our source was not accurate in relaying then President Trump We are not withdrawing our January story because it conveyed the essence of Trump’s attempt to influence the work of Georgia election pollsters. “
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Wemple continued to ding his own role, writing: “Misrepresenting the words of the country’s highest elected official is a serious lapse – and in this case, it seems so unnecessary.”
“The existence of the connection itself is an exorbitant exclusive. When it comes to calls, the only good sources are those that are dialed, ”explained Wemple. “The ex-president’s supporters will try to honor the Post’s story as an invention or ‘false news’. But one central fact remains: as the Journal’s recording attests, Trump behaved with all the crooked intentions and suggestions he brought to every other crisis of his presidency. “
David Rutz of Fox News contributed to this report.