The Atlantic published a report Thursday evening accusing President Trump of disparaging and insulting service members who fought and died during World War I. The story has multiple sources, but all of them are anonymous. Trump is surely capable of saying the things he is alleged to have said, but this report raises a question: How do we as readers treat such an allegation when fake news runs rampant and political biases dominate the coverage?
Trump reportedly skipped a visit to honor the U.S. service members lying in a French cemetery outside of Paris in 2018 because he was nervous the rain would mess up his hair and because he didn’t understand the point of visiting the cemetery in the first place.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump reportedly told aides before canceling the trip. In another conversation, Trump reportedly said that the 1,800 Marines who lost their lives in the Battle of Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed.
Again, Trump does say things like this. He famously mocked the late Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, for becoming a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and suggested that McCain was less heroic “because he was captured.” Trump has also admitted to making derogatory remarks in the past, such as the Access Hollywood tape in which he said he would “grab” a woman by her genitals. In other words, Trump’s track record speaks for itself.
But I can’t help but read the Atlantic report with some skepticism. Jeffrey Goldberg, the author of the report and the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, defended using four anonymous sources and argued during an interview with CNN that each had “firsthand knowledge” of the discussion. The reason they wished to stay anonymous, he said, was because they “don’t want to be inundated with angry tweets and all the rest.”
To be sure, retaliation is a reasonable concern — especially if these individuals still work in the federal government. But in this case, it does not justify anonymity. It’s not as though these sources were coming forward with sensitive, confidential information that would put their well-being at risk or place them in legal jeopardy. They were simply relaying a conversation Trump had with his aides. And if these sources know for a fact that the president made these comments, they should have the courage to stand by it.
Goldberg, too, should have had the courage to push at least one of these sources to go on the record. Because not only is the credibility of his publication at stake, but reports like this one threaten to undermine what little trust the public still has in the media. Seriously, why should readers take these sources at their word on a gossipy tidbit like this when not a single one is willing to say it publicly?
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that skepticism is necessary whenever the media write about Trump. We have learned the hard way that news outlets will often publish just about anything, regardless of the evidence or lack thereof, as long as the story advances a certain narrative. For example, the Atlantic recently admitted that a pro-police abolition story it had published was based on fictitious events that never happened. Similarly, CNN was forced to admit back in 2018 that a report it had published about the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia was misleading because the anonymous sources CNN had relied upon intentionally coordinated to give the network false information. Where was the fact-checking? The accountability?
The truth is that this has been going on for a long time. We’re just more aware of it now, and it’s gotten correspondingly worse.
Former national security adviser Ben Rhodes once bragged that he often turned to Goldberg to push Obama administration talking points that would not be questioned or scrutinized. The media has always had an agenda, though it’s become much more deliberate in the Trump era.
So until at least one of Goldberg’s sources can own up to what he shared with the Atlantic, I feel I have to read this report through the lens of skepticism it deserves. Without his sources, Goldberg’s story is little more than an empty accusation surrounded by filler.
