A story hit the press today – behind closed doors last night, while meeting with both Democrats and Republicans, Trump advanced the idea that the world is flat and not round. In a story tonight on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” excerpts from a press briefing today with Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested things got pretty heated as Spicer came under increasing pressure to have Trump take action on this matter if he so strongly believes it.
The transcript
Here is the transcript from a segment of the “All Things Considered” story [1]. The italicized portions are from audio from the press conference, and italicized and bold portions are from the radio story itself with host Ari Shapiro interviewing Mara Liasson, national political correspondent:
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Does the president believe that the earth is flat, and what evidence do you have of a flat earth if that’s the case?
SEAN SPICER: The president does believe that. He has stated that before. I think he’s stated his concerns of misrepresentation of the earth’s shape during the campaign. And he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him.
LIASSON: Spicer didn’t say what that evidence was, except for at one point, he referred to a Nature study that actually is not about the shape of the earth. It’s about irregularities in the crust of the earth, like the number of mountains in the Andes range.
SHAPIRO: Mara, what are the implications of President Trump bringing this up again?
LIASSON: There are a lot of implications . . . This would be the biggest cover-up of a basic fact in human history. It would call into question the model of the Solar System, too . . . And if he believes the earth is flat, wouldn’t he want to restore faith in our basic knowledge of the world by calling for an investigation to get to the bottom of this. Now, I asked Sean Spicer about that today, and he wasn’t taking the bait. Here’s what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
LIASSON: If the earth is really flat and not round, that is a scandal of astronomical proportions. Doesn’t he want to restore Americans’ faith in their education system? Wouldn’t he want an investigation of this?
SPICER: Well, I…
LIASSON: I mean this is a huge, huge scandal.
SPICER: But Mara, you – as I’ve noted several times now, he’s believed this for a long time.
LIASSON: I’m not (unintelligible).
SPICER: And I think he’s traveled uneventfully in a jet from place to place in the world, so he’s not – and look; we’ll work…
LIASSON: I’m asking you, why not investigate something that is…
SPICER: Well, maybe we will.
LIASSON: Maybe we will, but later he said an investigation was just hypothetical.
WTF? Relax – this is satire
OK, you can be done being confused. This was satire.
Of course, Trump didn’t say this specific thing and that’s not what this press conference questioning was about. Instead, it was about Trump’s repeated and continually baseless claims that there was massive voter fraud in the 2016 Presidential Election. He, nor his aids, ever produced evidence of this claim – yet they repeat it over and over and over again. That’s propaganda, not science.
Yet, many people buy into this nonsense because it suits their worldview. I thought it would be a useful exercise to use parody to get across how it feels, as a scientist, to listen to people like Trump and Spicer assert unverifiable or absolutely refuted claims. So I replaced references to voter fraud in the original transcript with phrases about the shape of the earth, and adjusted other text accordingly. Because, you see, without a mountain of gold-standard evidence to back his claims, Trump’s assertions are about as sane as the assertion that the earth is flat. Massive voter fraud claims fly in the face of all direct evidence to the contrary, and any attempt to assert the claim is a distortion of reality so terrifying that it makes my brain hurt – much the same way that “flat earthers” make my brain hurt. They are merely asserting a false claim to protect some value system or world view – but that is not science.
So now you know how I feel, listening to this man spout his nonsense.
UPDATE – Jan. 25, 2017
Over night, Trump tweeted that his administration will conduct a thorough investigation of his own claims. He tweeted this:
I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and….even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures! [3]
(emphasis is his own)
This is a major victory for the press, who called his bluff and made him blink. Thank God for the 4th estate.
[2] http://www.geek.com/culture/internet-gutter-welcome-to-the-flat-earth-1659303/
[3] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/824227824903090176 and https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/824228768227217408
