Raw Story93%

JD Vance's 'laughable' excuse for fumbling Epstein files chided by Dem: 'He clearly knew' 59%

By Bennito L. Kelty84%

7/16/2026, 12:49:02 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 13 faulty reasoning types, including Fundamental Attribution Error, False Dilemma, and Appeal to Authority, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 22.7% saturation with 67 hits. Analysis detected 478 faulty-reasoning hits from 295 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 55.7% and a BS Rank of 59% (8,503 of 20,517 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 58.60% of the article peer group.

A Democratic lawmaker chided the way Vice President JD Vance described the White House's handling of the Epstein files . 
While speaking with CNN anchor Erin Burnett, Rep. 
Robert Garcia (D-CA) reacted to comments that Vance made while he was on The Joe Rogan Experience earlier this week. 
"I say this with all candor. 
Like, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files," Vance told Rogan. 
"We just did. 
But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is that we were trying to hide something? 
No." 
Before Burnett could finish asking whether Vance's claims were believable, Garcia shouted, "That's laughable," as he shook his head. 
"That's laughable," Garcia repeated. 
"The Vice President was holding essentially classified meetings in the Situation Room with the entire top level of the administration, including the AG, the Chief of Staff, the FBI director, trying to actually manage the release of the files." 
Garcia was referring to details that emerged from reporting by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book Regime Change . 
Garcia explained that in the meetings, Vance was trying to "basically take the heat off Donald Trump," and dismissed Vance's description of those scenes as simply a communications problem. 
"The vice president was in the situation room trying to manage the Epstein files, and he's saying it was a comms problem?" 
Garcia said. 
"He clearly knew that this was much bigger than a comms issue, which is why he's trying to have these secret meetings in the situation room." 
Garcia added, "We know from reporting that they were trying to use Ghislaine Maxwell as a possible way of exonerating the president. 
It's outrageous." 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 22.7%Bennito L. Kelty: 12.0%Rawstory: 7.6%Confirmation Bias22.7%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 7.5%Bennito L. Kelty: 3.5%Rawstory: 4.4%Availability Heuristic7.5%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.8%Rawstory: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.2%Rawstory: 1.0%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 8.8%Bennito L. Kelty: 2.5%Rawstory: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias8.8%This article: 6.8%Bennito L. Kelty: 11.4%Rawstory: 13.7%Framing Effect6.8%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.2%Rawstory: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 2.7%Rawstory: 2.8%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 15.3%Bennito L. Kelty: 18.4%Rawstory: 21.8%Negativity Bias15.3%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.5%Rawstory: 1.1%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 18.6%Bennito L. Kelty: 3.6%Rawstory: 2.9%Fundamental Attribution Error18.6%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.5%Rawstory: 2.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 1.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.9%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.7%Rawstory: 1.7%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.7%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 2.6%Rawstory: 6.4%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.2%Rawstory: 0.7%Straw Man0.0%This article: 15.9%Bennito L. Kelty: 4.9%Rawstory: 3.8%Appeal to Authority15.9%This article: 18.6%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.6%Rawstory: 2.9%False Dilemma18.6%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.1%Rawstory: 1.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.9%Rawstory: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.8%Bennito L. Kelty: 6.9%Rawstory: 11.9%Hasty Generalization9.8%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.8%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 8.5%Bennito L. Kelty: 7.5%Rawstory: 9.2%Appeal to Emotion8.5%This article: 8.8%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.7%Rawstory: 1.5%Begging the Question8.8%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 9.3%Rawstory: 3.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 2.4%Rawstory: 1.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 3.5%Rawstory: 3.9%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.3%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 13.9%Bennito L. Kelty: 3.0%Rawstory: 2.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)13.9%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 8.9%Rawstory: 5.4%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 4.3%Rawstory: 4.2%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 6.8%Bennito L. Kelty: 9.5%Rawstory: 15.6%Biased Writer Voice6.8%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.1%Rawstory: 3.2%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 7.6%Rawstory: 8.0%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 0.9%Rawstory: 1.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Bennito L. Kelty: 1.3%Rawstory: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

295 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers85%attributed speech44writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 20 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 6 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 14 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 3 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 19 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 1 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 19 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 4 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 39 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 25 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 29 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 2 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 26 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 22 words • 0.0% coverageRobert Garcia • 2 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Robert Garcia

70%flagged-word coverage
214 attributed words85% of attributed speech45% writer coverage
0%25.0%50.0%Biased Writer Voice-45.5 ptsWriter: 45.5%Robert Garcia: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.