Trump vs Facts Review: No Other Broadcaster Would Attempt TV So Daring (while also) Mind-Numbing

At the very least, you have to applaud their commitment to the bit. Broadly speaking, the British media handled Donald Trump’s official trip with cautious coverage placed inside regular news programming. Enter Channel 4, which decided to go big, junking off a full night’s schedule to deliver an non-stop, lengthy, fact-based, point-by-point refutation of virtually all that the president claimed since retaking office in January.

The extensive special, called Trump v the Truth, was the highlight of what effectively became a Trump-themed programming block on Wednesday. Before it aired was episode two of The Donald Trump Show, an odd program that paired a sarcastic reality TV-style voiceover over archive footage. During the broadcast, continuity announcers were replaced with a mimic who complained about the channel’s output. For example, he complained about his strong aversion of tossed salads.

Nevertheless, Trump v the Truth was always the real pull; an impressive show of force that few other broadcasters would have dared to attempt. Kicking off late and continuing into the dead of night, the show was described as a carefully verified truth examination of more than 100 untruths that Trump has shared during his current presidency, in speeches, Q&A sessions, announcements and social media posts.

In concept, this is an admirable example of truth-seeking reporting. We live in an age where Trump frequently seeks to silence the media – recently, he filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against a major newspaper – so for a broadcaster to challenge him as thoroughly as this may lead the way for other nations to emulate.

But sitting through it all was far more challenging. Beginning early on, the show maintained an rigid approach: first we’d see a video segment of Trump, and then white-on-black text would matter-of-factly set the record straight. Recordings of him stating a dramatic decrease in medication costs was followed by text stating “There’s no way reduce a price by more than 100% because a 100% reduction means the price is free”. Footage of him claiming that the US is the only country mail-in voting was corrected with text noting that more than 30 other countries use it.

You’ll need weeks in a sensory deprivation tank to recover from this …

This continued, flitting between minor falsehoods about Trump claiming to have invented the word “equalize” and significant lies about who initiated the war with Russia. In these cases, one couldn’t help but hope that Channel 4 had focused only on important issues. Frustration you feel when exposed to a significant falsehood – such as his repeated assertions that the majority of immigrants are lawbreakers – is quickly undermined by trivial details, like a fact about the background of the individual to make that discovery. When this happens, it is reminiscent of being trapped in a bar with the most tedious person.

Difficult to find a good analogy for the dullness of watching Trump v the Truth. It was reminiscent of lengthy ambient broadcasts, but with the relaxing trip replaced by a concrete risk to world stability. It was a bit like the old informational segments on VH1, but with fun trivia about Madonna replaced with data about the consequences for harming bald eagles. It was, in its extreme duration, almost like being visited by a particularly terrifying sleep paralysis demon.

However, this exhausting monotony was likely by design. This was more than just activism and more a grand filibustering designed to wear you down under the sheer volume of Trump’s nonsense. And it was effective. After sitting through it, I only desire to pass the next 90 days in a sensory deprivation tank until my nervous system recovers.

An important issue is the target viewer. His base will not be convinced by the fact that a foreign television channel spent hours unemotionally fixing his view on a criminal’s history. Critics don’t need reminding that he is dishonest, and were not required to be awake all night to be told.

Maybe there’s a sliver of a possibility that Trump himself inadvertently pressed a device before he retired at his accommodations last night, and it started playing, and it made him understand the mistakes he made. Should that happen, then Trump v the Truth will have been worth it. If not, it might be wise that we write this off a admirable but unsuccessful experiment.