I still don't think Republicans understand what "fake news" is. Fake news is something untrue that is presented as being factual in an attempt to mislead readers. The stories about Trump and Russia were never presented as being news accounts of his business dealings and peccadilloes. They are fair and accurate accounts of what went on with this intelligence dossier that was presented to Trump and President Obama, details of which reporters have gone out of their way to make clear have not been verified in any way whatsoever. If the information contained in the dossier is incorrect, that's an entirely different thing. (And if you want to talk about whether the dossier should have been reported on at all, see: WIKILEAKS.) Trump had no problem spreading actual fake news stories about Clinton (and Obama) and then when asked whether or not he thought some of the more outlandish ones were actually true, he'd just say, "I don't know. I just know what I saw on the Internet" and kept on repeating them. "Fake news" has also become a conservative catchall for "news we don't like." Sadly, there really is no such thing as facts anymore thanks to the right. If we can't all agree that Trump mocked Serge Kovaleski, what chance do we have on agreeing on anything at all?
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