For far too long, media outlets have taken members of the Trump administration at their word. For the media to do its job, a lot more skepticism is needed, beginning with simple announcements concerning purported law enforcement victories.
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In the early hours of Thursday morning, MAGA world was abuzz with news of the arrest of a major bad guy… one of the leaders of the dangerous Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang. If that’s really what happened, then a heartfelt congratulations to everybody involved.
But did it? We don’t know because everybody in this administration is a liar, so we will reserve our total applause until there is an indictment. Of course, the person in question may never see the inside of a US courtroom and instead be sent directly to the gold mines of El Salvador or to some other kind of hard labor there.
Don’t get us wrong, we don’t mean to be conspiratorial even though the timing is very convenient for the Trump administration, which needs a win after several court defeats and the embarrassing revelations of “Signalgate.”
It is also noteworthy that very few details apart from the suspect’s age and location were revealed.
In addition, we are no experts on modern-day gang culture, so it’s tough to evaluate Attorney General Pam Bondi’s statement that the person who was apprehended in Virginia was one of the top three leaders of MS-13 at a mere 24 years old.
We don’t know how quickly you can rise through the ranks of the gang, when MS-13 members begin their “careers” in criminality, or whether nepotism may have been involved.
Maybe his father-in-law pulled some strings.
After all, it’s not unheard of that somebody this young rises to a key position in an enterprise of dubious repute.
In any case, the administration and just about every Republican celebrated this news as though Osama bin Laden had been killed again, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, 27, seemed to urge reporters to move on from Signalgate when she briefly addressed the media.
“I think the arrest of an MS-13 leader this morning speaks volumes about the competence of the president and his team,” said the youngest White House press secretary in history.
And, to this administration’s credit, it appears that no MS-13 leaders were tipped off about the raid in any government group chats.
What we are saying, however, is that any announcement from anybody in this administration should be viewed with skepticism.
Beginning at the top with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and then continuing throughout the cabinet and other senior positions, there is just too much lying going on at all times.
After all, these are the same guys who insist that everybody they sent to El Salvador a couple of weeks ago was the member of another gang even though there is plenty of reason to doubt that this is true.
If we had to place odds on what really happened, there probably is a pretty good chance (let’s say 80-90 percent), that the apprehended person really is a senior member of MS-13. Maybe not in the top three, but it would be asking too much of this administration to not embellish the significance of the arrest at all.
However, we would not rule out that this was just some junior drug mule who is going to be sent to a gulag later today because Trump needed a distraction and a win.
In addition, it’s unlikely but also possible that this “gangbanger” is really just a dogwalker and part-time pub quiz host who has a tattoo of his favorite hockey player, Hall of Famer Mats Sundin, with an MS-13 logo because those are his initials and that was his number.
After all, this wouldn’t be the first time the government has solely relied on tattoos to identify individuals as gang members, even though experts say that is flimsy evidence.
So, really, we just think it’s important for any journalist to never take this administration at its word until there is some kind of proof that goes beyond Bondi or FBI Director Kash Patel announcing a major victory.
This is something every news outlet should get in the habit of doing.
We are way beyond giving anybody involved in Trump 2.0 the benefit of the doubt.
That’s not to say that there will never be good news coming out of this administration. There certainly will be, but the proof is in the pudding, or, in this case, an indictment with some evidence.
And, if we never hear about this person again, then that will also speak in a clear language.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
