Checks and Balance: Reality wreck
Checks and Balance from The Economist
The Economist
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2020
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The president’s tweet announcing his positive coronavirus test was his most shared ever - a shocking fact amid a mire of misinformation. This week’s angry TV debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden highlighted how even the truth has become a partisan issue. Can reality be reclaimed?
We speak to MIT’s Sinan Aral, author of The Hype Machine, and Adam Roberts, The Economist’s Midwest correspondent reports from Iowa.
John Prideaux, The Economist's US editor, hosts with New York bureau chief Charlotte Howard, and Jon Fasman, Washington correspondent.
For access to The Economist’s print, digital and audio editions subscribe: economist.com/2020electionpod
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | May I have your attention please you can now book your train tickets on Uber and get |
| 0:08.0 | 10% back in credits to spend on your next Uber ride so you don't have to walk home in the rain again. |
| 0:16.5 | Trains now on Uber. T's and C's apply. Check the Uber app. |
| 0:19.9 | On Tuesday night in Cleveland, the candidates came on stage from opposite sides. |
| 0:28.0 | There was no handshake. Everyone there was tested for COVID-19. |
| 0:33.0 | It was the first TV debate held in a pandemic, |
| 0:36.0 | but when the subject came up, |
| 0:38.0 | it triggered another angry argument |
| 0:40.0 | over alternative realities. |
| 0:42.0 | Joe Biden called President Trump irresponsibly. over alternative realities. |
| 0:42.8 | Joe Biden called President Trump irresponsible. |
| 0:46.3 | You could never have done the job we've done, |
| 0:48.3 | Trump replied. |
| 0:49.4 | You don't have it in your blood. |
| 0:51.8 | He needled Biden for wearing the biggest mask I've ever seen. in your |
| 0:55.0 | Biden for wearing the biggest mask I've ever seen. |
| 0:56.0 | Biden wasn't wearing a mask during the debate of course, |
| 0:59.0 | neither were members of the Trump family |
| 1:01.0 | and senior staff in attendance. With 31 days to go, this is |
| 1:06.4 | checks and balance. I'm John Prido, the economists's US editor, and this is a podcast about the 2020 elections. |
| 1:17.0 | Each week we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in death. |
| 1:24.9 | Today, how did reality itself become an election issue? |
... |
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