The trick: Temporary As Permanent
The headline says Trump reprogrammed his chatbot to stop fact-checking him.
The answers did change within a day. Then, within hours, some of the fact-checks came back.
The New Republic's headline says Trump reprogrammed the America.gov chatbot to stop fact-checking his lies.
Before you read on. Your call?
TRUE, BUT
2 hours
CNN's Daniel Dale found the launch-day bot flatly correcting many Trump claims; a day later it called some of the same questions political commentary. That shift is documented. The reprogramming is not: RTE says it was unclear whether settings were tweaked, and the White House only said the site will keep being updated.
The twist
About two hours after the refusals, Mediaite got a detailed answer that 2020 fraud did not change the outcome, and RTE found the bot still debunking other Trump claims.
There’s more to this story.
Membership opens the full investigation, the strongest counterargument and what to do with what you’ve learned.
Start your free month →First membership: 30 days free, then A$89 a year. One introductory trial per customer. Card required; renews annually until cancelled. Cancel before the trial ends to avoid the first charge. Already a member? Sign in
Couldn't check your access. That's on us.
The trick has a name
We call it Temporary As Permanent: a moratorium or intro price reported as the settled state. You'll see it again. Learn to spot it →
Receipts
- Supports yahoo.com:
Trump Reprograms Government AI Chatbot to Stop Fact-Checking His Lies
- Context cnn.com:
The chatbot flatly and correctly noted that many of these Trump claims are not true
- Context cnn.com:
America.gov will continue to be updated to provide more features, resources, and the most accurate information from the federal government.
- Supports mediaite.com:
The Trump administration appears to have changed its AI chatbot so that it no longer debunks Trump lies.
- Context mediaite.com:
which uses AI systems including Google’s Gemini and xAI’s Grok
- Context mediaite.com:
Dale and others noted that the answers provided by the chatbot appear to be changing in real-time
- Refutes mediaite.com:
Now the chatbot is providing even more detailed answers than it did yesterday.
- Refutes rte.ie:
It was unclear whether the Trump administration had tweaked the settings to prevent the chatbot from debunking the president.
- Context rte.ie:
The chatbot, however, continued to debunk some of Mr Trump's other contentious claims.
Open the Receipts Pack → What each source proves, every figure traced, and what would change our verdict.