Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief political correspondent, has been in rare form lately, taking on President Donald Trump’s White House for its embrace of “alternative facts” and attacks on the media. Now he’s fact-checking Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s claim that the media invented the term “ban” to describe the president’s executive orders on immigration and travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.
.@jaketapper with a remarkable 2-minute fact-check on @PressSec pic.twitter.com/GGjQ21GMUb— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill) January 31, 2017
Tapper pointed out that Trump himself had referred to the actions as a ban in a Twitter post. Spicer too, he observed, has described the administration’s move as a ban in two instances — including in an appearance the night before he berated the media for calling it a “ban.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon