CNN Tonight host Alisyn Camerota tried and failed to fact-check an ad featuring Casey DeSantis where she touted her husband Ron’s record of banning “child mutilation.” As Camerota tells it, DeSantis’s team admits they have no proof of such events ever happening, but that is not true.
Camerota teed up a video of the ad, “So, he's raised $20 million in the second quarter, which is, of course, impressive. And his wife, Casey, is out with a campaign push called "Mamas for DeSantis," and she has put out this ad of what her husband stands for. So, let's watch a piece of that.”
The clip showed her running through a list of her husband’s accomplishments, “He'll do for America what he did for us in Florida. Schools, open. Parents' rights, defended. School choice, universal. Critical Race Theory, prohibited. DEI, stopped. Child mutilation, illegal. Girls' sports, saved. Communities, protected. Our economy, growing. And freedom, guaranteed.”
After the clip, Camerota singled out one issue in particular. Addressing The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, she claimed, “Okay. James? Child mutilation, illegal? It's illegal everywhere, by the way. I mean, obviously, they're referring to, you know, reassignment surgery, but that, it was fact checked by PolitiFact that actually, the governor's office could not provide PolitiFact any examples of this happening to a child.”
The PolitiFact article in question came out in August 2022. In that article, author Yacob Reyes wrote, “The governor's office sent PolitiFact two examples of people who received transition-related surgeries in their mid to late teenage years — one at 15 and one at 17.”
However, to justify a “mostly false,” rating Reyes got hyperliteral, “DeSantis' Florida Department of Health differentiates between children (under 10) and adolescents (10-18).”
By speaking of children, Casey DeSantis was clearly using “children” as a synonym for “minors” and Reyes notes that such operations do exist:
In one case DeSantis provided, an individual from California received masculinizing chest surgery at 15. Under existing California law, an insurer cannot deny coverage for the surgery — which includes double mastectomies — based on a patient's age alone.
The procedure is mostly offered to teenagers 15 and older, The New York Times reported. However, we found one report of a 14-year-old who obtained the procedure, and there isn't a consensus on a specific age requirement among medical guidelines.
“Masculinizing chest surgery” is an all-time euphemism for breast removal, which is, of course, irreversible. As for the other case:
The other case involved Jazz Jennings, a transgender woman who stars in a reality television show on TLC. Jennings received genital reassignment surgery at 17.
Genital reassignment surgery should be reserved for those 18 and older, according to guidelines for the medical care of transgender patients developed by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH.
C.P. Hoffman, senior policy counsel for the National Center for Transgender Equality, told PolitiFact that cases like Jennings are not common.
Hoffman has an agenda to push, but even if that is accurate, “not common” is not “never.”
As for the rest of the panel, nobody, not even the liberals, addressed Camerota’s claim and chose to focus on the rest of the ad and whether or not they believed is effective.
This segment was sponsored by ClearChoice.
Here is a transcript for the July 6 show:
CNN Tonight
7/6/2023
11:22 PM ET
ALISYN CAMEROTA: All right, let's move on to Ron DeSantis and where he stands in the Republican Primary right now. So, he's raised $20 million in the second quarter, which is, of course, impressive. And his wife, Casey, is out with a campaign push called "Mamas for DeSantis," and she has put out this ad of what her husband stands for. So, let's watch a piece of that.
CASEY DESANTIS: He'll do for America what he did for us in Florida. Schools, open. Parents' rights, defended. School choice, universal. Critical Race Theory, prohibited. DEI, stopped. Child mutilation, illegal. Girls' sports, saved. Communities, protected. Our economy, growing. And freedom, guaranteed.
CAMEROTA: Okay. James? Child mutilation, illegal? It's illegal everywhere, by the way.
JAMES SUROWIECKI: Yeah.
CAMEROTA: I mean, obviously, they're referring to, you know, reassignment surgery, but that, it was fact checked by PolitiFact that actually, the governor's office could not provide PolitiFact any examples of this happening—
SUROWIECKI: Happening.
CAMEROTA: to a child.
