Reader TTS

CNN's Jake Tapper said Wednesday night that he's disheartened by a new poll. He traced the objectionable results back to President Trump's tweets in February accusing former

President Barack Obama of tapping his phones in Trump Tower, then played clips of House Speaker Paul Ryan and FBI Director James Comey unequivocally shooting down those claims. "So that

would have seemingly been that — except that the president and his team kept pushing ways to make this evidence-free claim somewhere, sort of, possibly in the neighborhood of almost not

entirely false," Tapper said. "Now, they failed, but they muddied the waters quite a bit, and now, here are the shocking numbers." In a new ABC/_Washington Post_ poll, he

said, "32 percent of the public thinks President Obama intentionally spied on Donald Trump and members of his campaign, and 52 percent of Republicans believe this charge — a charge that

there is _literally_ no evidence to support; it is the definition of fake news." Americans can believe what they want — "18 percent of the public says they've seen or been in

the presence of a ghost — I mean, whatever," Tapper said — "but in a thriving democracy, truth matters and facts matter. We learned in the campaign that Donald Trump can be

cavalier about facts and truth. We learned in his first 100 days that that's not going to change, indeed that some in the government and some of his friends in conservative media will

even work to try to make his falsehoods _seem_ true." But then Tapper pulled back, pointing out that "fake news" cuts both ways, and there's "a lot of incendiary

nonsense against Trump on the left that is just as fake." Otherwise sensible journalists retweet some of that news on Twitter. The news media has to be very careful to present only

facts and cogent analysis, he said, "and this is a time for you, the public, to demand evidence from your leaders _and_ from your media, even if you already agree with the politics of

the person on your TV." Watch below. Peter Weber SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE &

SAVE SIGN UP FOR THE WEEK'S FREE NEWSLETTERS From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our

morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Explore More Fake News Speed Reads