The point is that it’s not hard at all to prove that politicians, as a class, are some of the dimmest, dullest, and least inspiring group of people you could possibly imagine. It takes a special brand of lazy hack to feel compelled to manufacture evidence to that effect.
Not unusual for him. Also, while many people confuse median and average, Tyson has no excuse.
After being caught out claiming he was a “Nobel Prize recipient” in his original complaint (then having to retract it), it seems Mann and his lawyers just don’t have the good sense to know when to stop. In this case Mann has been “hoisted by his own petard”. His very own words condemn him. Again.
It’s also worth noting that a suborbit can be accurately defined as an orbit that intersects the earth or its atmosphere. So even if you have orbital speed, if there’s not a sufficient horizontal component to it, you’ll still end up back on the earth before you go around.