Bachmann: ‘I Didn’t Get Anything Wrong’ In The Debates
Michele Bachmann says she quite proud that she didn’t get anything wrong during the presidential debates and considers herself “a virtual Wikipedia.”
“I was very proud of the fact that I didn’t get anything wrong that I said during the course of the debates,” the Republican Congresswoman said, according to Salon. “I didn’t get anything wrong, and that’s a huge arena.”
Which is surprising, to say the least.
In fact, Michele Bachmann did get many things wrong during the presidential debates, and she shouldn’t be left off the hook. Further, Bachmann’s entire congressional career is a giant error.
After a December 2011 debate, Bachmann said PolitiFact “came out and said that everything I said was true.†Politifact responded, “Actually, she earned a Pants on Fire†at the last debate.
Also during the debates, Bachmann claimed that America’s interest payments to China will become so large they will cover the cost of the entire Chinese army — false.
And let’s not forget Bachmann’s deplorable HPV vaccine lies.
“Most memorably, during a debate in September of 2011, Bachmann attempted to deny charges that she’d called the HPV vaccine hazardous,” the Huffington Post notes:
Earlier that month, however, she’d stood up on a different debate stage and called it a “potentially dangerous drug.”
“To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong. That should never be done. That’s a violation of the liberty interests,” Bachmann said. “Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan. They don’t get a do-over.”
While Bachmann made many more mistakes throughout debates — and even more outside of them — she’s done her best to gloss over that part of her record.
During an interview in November 2011, the congresswoman claimed she hadn’t “made a gaffe.” In the wake of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s notorious “oops” stumble, Bachmann may have gotten away with that claim, if not for the attention she had drawn for appearing to confuse Libya as separate from the continent of Africa.
Even outside of the debates, Bachmann gets many things wrong.
Bachmann introduced the first bill into the new 113th Congress in January, and it wasn’t the Violence Against Women Act, or a bill to fund relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy. Bachmann introduced yet another bill to repeal Obamacare.
Bachmann in a December radio interview accused President Obama of being a communist, fascist, promoting Sharia, and compared his work to tactics of Hitler.
In an extremely xenophobic 20-minute attack on Islam, Bachmann in SEptember accused Hillary Clinton of breaking the law by granting visas to terrorists.
At the Values Voters Summit in September Bachmann claimed Obama mandated the military and FBI, be retrained and “brainwashed in political correctness toward Islam.â€
In July, Huma Abedin, a top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had to be placed under heightened security after a New Jersey man made unspecified threats against her. Bachmann had been waging an anti-Muslim war against her.
Even John McCain felt compelled to slam Michele Bachmann in July, who had been demanding the government investigate Hillary Clinton top aide Huma Abedin for anti-American ties.
In June, Bachmann insisted Obamacare is still unconstitutional, despite the Supreme Court ruling, and labeled the John Roberts’ Court “activist.â€
In March of last year, Bachmann said that the 40 million people in America who don’t have health insurance chose to not have it but can afford to pay for it.
Also in March, Bachmann called President Obama a “health care dictator†and said under Obamacare he could mandate the number of children a family is allowed to have.
Earlier that month, Bachmann said attacks against people who “stand for traditional marriage†are far worse that attacks against gay people or those who support same-sex marriage.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
