Kamala Harris and her allies in the media are in panic mode over the trajectory of the 2024 election.
The polls and the early vote numbers have pundits installing Donald Trump as the favorite to win the Presidency.
And an October surprise just blew up in Kamala Harris’ face for this awful reason.
The Atlantic’s October surprise smear
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg is one of the least reputable members of the media.
Goldberg helped lie America into the Iraq War with his false reporting about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.
In 2020, Goldberg published a story, which turned out to be false, claiming Trump called fallen soldiers “suckers and losers” and said he didn’t want to visit a cemetery in France where American service members were laid to rest because he was supposedly worried about the wind blowing his hair.
Now Goldberg is back with his latest smear piece.
Goldberg published another story based on the account of anonymous sources about Trump allegedly backing out of paying for a military member’s funeral because he hated Mexicans.
The story revolved around an April 2020 meeting in the Oval Office where Trump told the family of Private Vanessa Guillén that he would pay for her funeral, after a fellow soldier she was stationed with at Fort Hood and his girlfriend beat Guillén to death and then burned her body.
“If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” Trump reportedly said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”
“If you need help, I’ll help you out,” Trump added.
Goldberg then claimed that when Trump heard how much the bill for the funeral cost, later that year, he flew into a rage and allegedly said it shouldn’t be that expensive to “bury a f******* Mexican.”
“Trump became angry. ‘It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!’ He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: ‘Don’t pay it!’ Later that day, he was still agitated. ‘Can you believe it?’ he said, according to a witness. ‘Fucking people, trying to rip me off,’” Goldberg wrote.
Goldberg then claimed the family’s attorney told him that Trump stiffed them after they sent the bill for the funeral.
“Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston,” Goldberg added.
Every person named debunks Goldberg’s story
Goldberg’s story was based on the accounts of anonymous sources.
But everyone Goldberg named as involved in the incident said Goldberg lied about what happened or their interactions with him.
Attorney Natalie Khawam posted on social media that Goldberg “lied” about their conversation and that Goldberg “exploited” Vanessa Guillén’s death to hurt Trump politically.
“After having dealt with hundreds of reporters in my legal career, this is unfortunately the first time I have to go on record and call out Jeffrey Goldberg@the Atlantic: not only did he misrepresent our conversation but he outright LIED in HIS sensational story. More importantly, he used and exploited my clients, and Vanessa Guillén’s murder… for cheap political gain,” Khawam wrote.
Vanessa Guillén’s sister Mya also debunked Goldberg’s story and added that she voted for Donald Trump.
“Wow. I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today,” Guillén posted on X.
Goldberg named former chief of staff Mark Meadows as being in the room when Goldberg claimed Trump made his disparaging remarks about Guillén’s funeral bill running so high.
Meadows went on the record to say Goldberg made the whole thing up.
“I was in the discussions featured in the Atlantic’s latest hit piece against President Trump. Let me say this. Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillén or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false. He was nothing but kind, gracious, and wanted to make sure that the military and the U.S. government did right by Vanessa Guillén and her family,” Meadows stated on X.
Meadows aide Ben Williamson also posted on social media screenshots to show that Goldberg edited his statement to misrepresent Williamson denying Goldberg’s account of events.
On the left: I sent Atlantic a comment saying President Trump “absolutely did not say that,” referring to the alleged comments about Ms. Guillen they printed.
On the right: Atlantic translated that comment to “didn’t hear Trump say it.”
Treat this dishonest piece accordingly. pic.twitter.com/pM1o1c9fEm
— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) October 22, 2024
Polls show the media reaching record low levels of trust with the public.
Critics contend that’s the result of stunts like Goldberg’s latest October surprise hoax.
