NATIONAL PULSE
The Associated Press (AP) has deleted a disingenuous article claiming former President Donald J. Trump‘s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, described school shootings as “a fact of life.” The supposedly impartial news wire service had taken the Ohio lawmaker grossly out of context, with his full quote on the subject of a recent shooting in Georgia being, “I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life, but if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you’ve realized that our schools are soft targets, and we have got to bolster security at our schools.”
Vance also said, “If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it,” stressing: “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
AP acknowledges it provided only a “partial quote”—eagerly seized upon by the Kamala Harris campaign—in a social media post sharing its replacement article. However, it has stopped short of issuing an apology.
REPUTATIONAL DAMAGE.
The news agency received heavy criticism for its misleading reporting. The scandal follows X (formerly Twitter) owner and tech mogul Elon Musk stating, “AP stands for Associated Propaganda,” in response to another questionable report on “Right-wing influencers [being] duped to work for [a] covert Russian influence operation.” This was illustrated with a photograph of Donald Trump, despite the fact that most of the influencers were not Trump supporters.
The “fact of life” article is not the first article on Vance that AP has had to delete. In July, a gratuitous “fact check” centered on a false claim about the vice presidential hopeful having “sex with a couch” was taken down, with the new agency admitting the article “didn’t go through our standard editing process.”
NEW: The Associated Press (@AP) has deleted a tweet which claimed GOP VP candidate @JDVance said school shootings are “a fact of life.”
Vance actually said: “I don’t like that this is a fact of life, but if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our… pic.twitter.com/JfHuHDF3P0
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) September 6, 2024
“This is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician,” Vance’s spokesman William Martin told The National Pulse.
”Senator Vance said exactly the opposite of what the Associated Press claimed. It should come as no surprise that the AP lost any and all credibility it had years ago, because they will lie about literally anything in order prop up the Democrats. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has called for all police officers to be removed from schools, putting children all over America at risk. It’s yet another example of how Kamala Harris’s weak, failed, and dangerously liberal agenda makes her unfit for office.”
