‘After Truth’ Exposes Trump’s Parade of Charlatans, From Jacob Wohl to Alex Jones
Andrew Rossi’s new HBO documentary “After Truth,” premiering March 19, tackles disinformation and fake news, and is especially timely in the midst of the novel coronavirus.
Like his smirking partner in crime, right-wing con man Jacob Wohl, Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman loves to lie.
“Fake news is a weapon,” Burkman declares in After Truth, a disturbing, and occasionally enraging documentary—subtitled Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News—that premieres on HBO on Thursday at 9 p.m. “People believe it and reprint it,” Burkman elaborates. “It can be an effective tool…It’s become a tool of war… It’s like it’s World War I and it’s chemical weapons. People are using them, so you use them.”
Thus the square-jawed Burkman—coaxed into a rare instance of truth-telling by his interviewer, acclaimed documentary director Andrew Rossi—admits, or rather boasts, that he’s basically a war criminal in the battle of ideas.