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Chris Wallace interviews White House senior adviser Stephen Miller on the federal whistleblower complaint.

By Tara Jons
10/02/2019 • 12:00 AM EST

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: Click or tap on any techniquesee definition - the definition will be displayed here.
 that appears in bold to show its definition.
: ad hominemsee definition - attacking the character or motive of the person making an argument, rather than addressing the argument itself.
: Miller dismisses the credibility of the 'whistleblower'—not by refuting their claims, but by attacking their character and alleging partisan motives.
: poisoning the wellsee definition - discrediting your opponent to an audience in advance to encourage dismissing any future claims or accusations they may make in the future.
: Miller preemptively dismisses any allegations against Trump as nothing more than deep state operatives pursuing their own agendas, discrediting the allegations without actually addressing them.
: appeal to ignorancesee definition - reducing uncertainty to certainty by treating the absence of evidence as evidence itself.
: Miller presents a false choice that assumes an obligation to investigate something without providing any evidence that such an investigation is warranted.
: false equivalencesee definition - implying that two things are essentially the same, despite being significantly different, by focusing on anecdotal or superficial similarities.
: Between soliciting foreign interference in a U.S. election and conducting opposition research, when the former is illegal and the latter is a standard political function.
: reversal of realitysee definition - a statement that is not only verifiably false, but is the exact opposite of the truth.
: Trump is not exposing corruption in Ukraine, but potentially engaging in it by pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, and he is not the whistleblower, but the one against whom the whistle is blown.