For CNN’s liberal fact-checker Daniel Dale to admit that President Donald Trump was “correct” about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s fracking stance must have been a hard pill to swallow for the network.
During CNN’s post-debate analysis, Anderson Cooper 360° anchor Anderson Cooper pointed out that Trump went after “Biden on the issue of fracking to extract oil and gas.” Cooper then showed a clip of the Trump-Biden exchange on fracking, where Biden claimed that he “never said ‘I oppose fracking.’” Cooper then appeared to try to lead Dale into giving the answer he wanted by saying, “Daniel, he [Biden] then later on added that he had called for an end to fracking on federal land.” Dale then dropped a bomb on CNN talking heads: “In this case, Trump is correct. Biden did make anti-fracking comments during the Democratic primary in 2019 and 2020. Trump was not lying.” [Emphasis added.]
After showing a 2019 clip of Biden saying about fracking that his administration would “make sure it’s eliminated,” Dale tried to throw Biden a bit of undeserved slack. He did at least admit Biden’s previous statements do underscore an anti-fracking bent. Dale said: “Biden did not say the words, ‘I oppose fracking’ there, but he clearly was at least very strongly suggesting that he was an opponent.”
Watch Dale’s comments below:
Dale tried to contextualize Biden’s position on fracking by making it appear more convoluted: “The nuance here is that that was never Biden’s actual policy position.” He continued: “So we had this weird semi-comical cycle during the primary where Biden would make these broad, anti-fracking comments, and then his campaign spokespeople would have to say, ‘No, no. That’s not his actual plan. His actual plan — as it is today — is a ban on new leases for oil and gas on public land only.”
Dale concluded: “So Biden is not actually proposing a complete fracking ban, but it’s just false for Biden to say that he never said he opposed fracking, Anderson.” Dale at least admitted that Biden’s gaslighting was “false.”
Biden had also made a jaw-dropping statement during the debate that he would “transition from the oil industry.” CNN tried to avoid that politically lethal statement in its debate analysis. Dale, of course, never mentioned that statement in his arbitrary nuancing of Biden’s position on banning fracking.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact CNN at 1-(404)-827-1500 and demand its reporters stop giving their own nuanced take on Biden’s extremist, anti-fracking position.
MRC News Analyst Nicholas Fondacaro contributed to this report.
