September 30, 2024 12:40 PM UTC

Fact-Check Lauren Boebert, Reap The Snark

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last week, Colorado’s eminent epicenter of rhetorical excess Rep. Lauren Boebert sat down for an interview with Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner, who has a reputation for fair and polite yet still persistent questioning, and also capable of real-time fact-checking so as not to allow his interviews to become launchpads for misinformation.

As The Hill’s Juliann Ventura reports via Denver’s KDVR-TV, Boebert didn’t take the fact-checking well:

Boebert said she was “extremely disappointed in the bias” of reporter Ryan Warner’s questions about a third of the way through the interview, and she later battled with him over climate change and water, saying “there’s certainly a reason” she doesn’t “listen to CPR news.”

Later, as the two discussed whether the Inflation Reduction Act, legislation that included billions in tax credits for climate-friendly energy sources, should have that name, Boebert asked “are we having a debate or an interview? I’m just checking.”

“Well, first of all, I get to say things as a journalist to set the record straight, so inflation is easing,” Warner replied.

“Oh, you’re going to fact-check me during the interview,” Boebert answered. [Pols emphasis]

“That’s exactly right, and inflation is easing,” Warner replied…

It’s not a convenient fact for Republicans determined to trash talk the economy for political advantage during the election season, but Ryan Warner is correct that inflation has eased considerably in 2024, to the point that the Federal Reserve made a “jumbo” half-point interest rate cut to boost spending after the inflation rate dropped from its high of over 9 percent to around 2.5%.

But don’t trouble Lauren Boebert with your facts, she’s got anecdotes–and snark:

“OK, this is adorable. Go to your local King Soopers or your City Market and ask the shoppers if inflation is down when they’re buying one dozen eggs for $7, $10,” Boebert replied before giving other examples of high prices.

Once again, here is today’s price for a dozen eggs from Kings Soopers, a place Boebert apparently no longer visits as a six-digit income congressional jet-setter:

If you do shop for yourself and/or your family, you already know that Boebert’s claim that a dozen eggs costs between 7 and 10 dollars is nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with a reporter who knows better and has the presence of mind to say so in an interview that what is being said has no basis in reality. That’s their job, or at least it used to be before one side of the political spectrum abandoned peer-reviewed reality to just make up whatever they want.

As the UK Independent’s Rhian Lubin reports, discussing the apolitical reality of human-caused climate change yielded a similar result:

Warner had asked Boebert what she believes a representative’s role is when it comes to preserving Colorado’s water needs “in the face of climate change.”

“Wow,” Boebert replied. “There’s certainly a reason I don’t listen to CPR news, and this is…”

Warner, taken aback, asked: “Wait, because I said climate change?”

Water supplies and climate change are inextricably linked. But Boebert said Warner’s question “slipped in” something that is “partisan” and “not even fact-based.”

“No, I’m going to stop here and say it is…” Warner replied. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Congresswoman. It is not a partisan statement, to say that warming temperatures…”

He was then cut off by Boebert.

There was a time earlier in Boebert’s career when her response to tough follow-up questions and real-time fact-checking was to stammer incoherently and try to change the subject to more favorable issues on which she had prepared talking points. Following two terms in Congress and now cruising for a third after surviving one of the worst political and personal faceplants in Colorado political history, Boebert is an experienced prevaricator who, like her mentor Donald Trump, never concedes error even while her talking points are dismantled before her eyes. Boebert is getting more comfortable over time with the trademark belligerence that her career has rewarded from the beginning. The voters Boebert depends on don’t care if everything she says is a lie–in fact it’s more important to them for Boebert to defend the lies they believe in common than to admit the facts.

It’s not fair to say that Boebert has learned no lessons from her rise and near fall. She has learned, and reaffirmed, all the wrong lessons.