Take a silly thing. The press said that Trump was “attacking” a crying baby and his or her mom at a rally. The baby cried. Trump said he didn’t mind it. And then he said he did and asked her to leave. Except that if you watch the video, it’s clear that Trump is joking the second time he says it. He’s not “attacking” anybody.

Take another recent example: Trump’s comments about nuclear weapons. Many people, Hillary Clinton and myself included, have cited the fear of Trump having access to America’s nuclear arsenal as a reason to oppose him. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made a lot of headlines citing what he said was a national security bigwig who had spoken to Trump and said the latter had asked three times in one hour, “If we have nukes, why can’t we use them?”

The press ran wild with it. Nevermind that this is a third-hand account, which means we have no way of knowing what actually happened — if anything. Trump might simply have been asking honestly about how deterrence works. Nuclear policy is a somewhat obscure topic even if you’re a career politician, and not being afraid to ask dumb questions when you don’t know the answer is actually an attractive attribute in a leader.