'Blatant lie': CNN replaces #FakeNews with #FakeHistory, uses a distorted James Madison quote in its #RealityCheck segment on the Electoral College

Greg P. | 11:25 AM on March 20, 2019

CNN’s John Avlon was caught using a distorted quote earlier today to suggest James Madison was against the Electoral College:

The Electoral College has been debated since the days of James Madison, who called it "evil."

So could it actually be abolished? @JohnAvlon explores that in today’s #RealityCheck. https://t.co/lCGCfDTMSL pic.twitter.com/Z1Tct6bMQL

— CNN (@CNN) March 20, 2019

Cool. Cool. The Founding Father who “basically created the Electoral College” was really against it?

Huh? Madison basically created the Electoral College. What he called "evil" was Thomas Jefferson's habit of using slave populations as a way to "weight" electoral vote allocations, and his trading favors for "winner-take-all" results that benefited him. https://t.co/8c5ornXWrK

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) March 20, 2019

Here’s what Madison was really talking about:

This is #fakenews from @CNN, and an absurd distortion of a Madison quote. He didn't call the EC "evil," he was talking about elections thrown to the House which awards 2 votes to states of every size. (This is the contingency for when a vote ISN'T decided by the EC). https://t.co/LTvybKmejw

— Jarrett Stepman (@JarrettStepman) March 20, 2019

Here’s the source material from the Washington Free Beacon’s Alex Griswold:

Yep, I was right. Madison wasn't referring to the *Electoral College* as "evil," he was calling the eventual certification by the House "evil," and he was using the word in the old-timey definition of harm or risk pic.twitter.com/2Ptsw57CEW

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) March 20, 2019

So, not “evil”:

In the same letter he endorses an amendment to maintain the electoral college, but by *district* rather than state. Pretty far-flung from "evil." https://t.co/G0mnNLgAf1 pic.twitter.com/6A7oGgduRq

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) March 20, 2019