Almost every time he talks, whether it’s in an interview, a debate or a campaign rally, former President Donald Trump perpetuates lies, makes outrageous and offensive claims, and sows both shock and fear.

There’s been a lot of chatter about how the press — maybe deliberately and maybe inadvertently — makes Trump sound more coherent and normal. The clever word to describe this: sanewashing. Like greenwashing (taking superficial actions in the name of helping the environment), or sportswashing (using sporting events to burnish one’s reputation and gloss over corruption or human rights abuses), sanewashing is the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal.

Critics accuse many in journalism of doing just that.

There are plenty of explanations. Journalism is about making sense of things, so of course journalists want to help people understand what Trump is trying to say. Reporting is biased toward giving people useful information, not rambling digressions.

Too often, political stories don’t have a clear focus. And sometimes they try to do too much. But stories that state a clear purpose tend to make use of Trump quotes in ways that accurately capture his speech.

To avoid inappropriately sanewashing a statement from any politician, journalists must be deliberate and intentional as they craft their stories, select their quotes and identify what value the story brings to the audience.

What follows are a few solutions, with examples, that demonstrate how journalists used quotes from Trump that accurately conveyed the confusing or alarming nature of his statements.

Let the quotes stand

Journalists have an impulse to make things easier for news consumers. That’s fine when translating the economic jargon from the chair of the Federal Reserve because it’s truly helpful. But it’s a mistake to try and make sense where there is none.

This story from The 19th avoids that trap. Its purpose is clear: Contrast Trump’s proposed solutions to the economic hardships of child care with Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposed policies. To accomplish the task, reporter Jennifer Gerson combs over speeches from both presidential candidates and their running mates.

She finds a lot of material from both Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and she lays out their proposals.

After that, the report points out that Trump is rambling and illogical when he talks about alleviating the child care burden on families. Halfway through the story, the reporter transcribes a 365-word direct quote Trump uttered in response to a direct question about his legislative plans to alleviate child care burdens.

The 19th asked the campaign to clarify and was rebuffed. There is no way to make sense of what Trump is saying. It is truly incomprehensible. Smartly, The 19th doesn’t even try. And that’s the brilliance of the story. The reporter tells the reader that Trump’s answer was rambling, then shows the reader precisely what Trump said.

Because Trump mentioned his plan to enact tariffs as part of the solution, Gerson follows the quote with additional context, pointing out that experts from differing political perspectives estimate such tariffs will cost families up to $4,000 a year.

Point out the lies and also the purpose they serve

When a politician lies or distorts information repeatedly, the journalistic instinct is to set the record straight with fact checks, which are helpful for people who are seeking to know the truth of the matter.

For instance, in this week’s debate, Trump said that Haitians were eating people’s pet dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. Many journalists, including the debate moderators, provided a fact check that refuted that claim.

In addition to clarifying the truth, another journalistic purpose is to expose the work that the lie is doing for the politician. NPR (for which I am the public editor) published a story explaining the history of the trope.

But it’s possible to go even further, to look at how Trump got to the point in the debate where he blurted out the ridiculous claim. ABC’s debate moderator David Muir asked Trump why he ordered Republicans to kill the bipartisan border security bill.

Trump responded with the following circuitous series of statements:

• People don’t leave his rallies.
• He has the biggest rallies.
• The U.S. is a failing nation.
• We are headed for World War III.
• Millions of people are coming into the country (illegally).
• Many towns are ashamed to admit that immigrants are ruining their communities.
• Haitians are eating pet dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.
• People come to his rallies to make the country great again.
• Harris is destroying our country.
• If she is elected the U.S. will be “Venezuela on steroids.”

Not only was the claim untrue, it was used to categorize immigrants as a threat to a more wholesome way of life. Reporter Tess Bonn traced the origin of this particular falsehood for Katie Couric Media. It’s also relevant to remind news consumers that Trump blurted out this racist trope, rather than explain why he ordered Republican lawmakers to kill the border security bill.

Expose the conspiracy and the audience for it

Almost everything a politician says is designed to resonate with a specific audience. These dog whistles can sometimes be very subtle. And with some candidates, the message evolves over time.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently pulled apart a relatively obscure economic theory Trump has been exploring. Krugman, who has a Nobel Prize in economics, doesn’t need other experts to explain the absurdity of Trump’s claims that some countries are trying to hurt the U.S. by shedding the American dollar from their reserves.

It takes Krugman an entire column to make his point because he has to explain how reserve currency works. He starts by using an extended quote from Trump at a rally — one that begins with a false claim about crime and ends with an assertion that as president he would force countries to maintain reserve currency in U.S. dollars.

For the amateur international economist who is likely to be enticed by the argument, Krugman explains that Trump is conflating a couple of concepts, none of which the former president seems to understand.

This particular column isn’t for everybody. But it’s there for those who want more information.

Identify the journalistic purpose

These quote-selection techniques work for all politicians. The easiest way for journalists to avoid advancing a politician’s cause when reporting the news is to explicitly identify what value the audience will take away from hearing the quote. Then find a way to share that reason with the audience.

If a journalist is running an extended quote to show people how offensive a statement was, they should tell people that.

If they’re trying to document a lack of mental incoherence, they should say so.

When they want to fact-check a candidate, they should tell people they are setting the record straight.

And if they want to expose a dog whistle or coded language, they should break down the trope and document its history and usage.

The worst habit is for reporters to include quotes as filler material, lacking any journalistic purpose at all. At best, it wastes the audience’s time. At worst, it confers legitimacy and obstructs accountability.