President Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted out a video that showed images of the people the president honored at the State of the Union alongside clips of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ripping up Trump’s speech.
The caption for the video reads “Powerful American Stories Ripped To Shreds By Nancy Pelosi.” Trump supporters would see the point the video makes – that Pelosi ripped up a speech that included the stories of many honorable Americans because she hates Trump. Any politician would do the same for an attack ad. Trump’s speech contained a lot of positive information and Pelosi ripped it up, claiming it was full of lies. If former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had done that during one of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speeches the Democrats would absolutely make a similar video.
Yet now, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) is asking Twitter to remove Trump’s video because it is “clearly edited in a way that’s intended to mislead viewers,” adding, “You should take it down.”
Hey @Twitter, this video is clearly edited in a way that’s intended to mislead viewers. You should take it down. https://t.co/agXJlvRirf
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) February 7, 2020
The video inserts the same clip of Pelosi ripping up the speech in the middle of Trump celebrating Americans like Brig. Gen. Charles McGee. It’s “misleading” because it makes it look like Pelosi had a dozen copies of the speech to just keep ripping every time Trump honored an American. It’s also a pretty standard attack ad.
Not to be outdone, podcast host and former CNN reporter Jacki Schechner agreed with Cicilline, saying the video “is dangerous propaganda, and Twitter should remove it.”
Agreed. This is dangerous propaganda, and @Twitter should remove it.
— JackiSchechner (@JackiSchechner) February 7, 2020
How it’s “dangerous” is anyone’s guess.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Pelosi defended tearing up the speech because it was, as she called it, “a manifesto of mistruths.”
“It is very hard for us to get you to talk about the issues we are working on: H.R. 3, infrastructure and the rest. He misrepresented all of that. It was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, ‘This is not true, and this is how it affects you,’” she said, clearly not understanding how many Americans could say something similar about Obama’s State of the Union speeches.
“And I don’t need any lessons from anybody, especially the President of the United States, about dignity – dignity,” Pelosi continued. “Is it okay to start saying ‘four more years’ in the House of Representatives? It’s just unheard of. It is unheard of for the President to insult people there who don’t share his views, as well as to misrepresent – present falsehoods. Some would use the word lie – I don’t like to use the word lie – about what he is saying.”
“It’s appalling the things that he says, and then you say to me, tearing up his falsehoods, ‘Isn’t that the wrong message?’ No, it isn’t. It’s just – I have tried to be gracious with him. I’m always dignified,” Pelosi said. “I thought that was a dignified act compared to my other exuberances, as I said. But we will not allow any president to use that Capitol, that Chamber of the House of Representatives, of the People’s House, as a backdrop for him.”
“Now, all presidents have guests – constant guests – that was not a State of the Union,” Pelosi continued. “That was a state – his state of mind. We want a State of the Union. Where are we, where are we going and the rest. Not, ‘Let me just show you how many guests I can draw.”
Again, everything she criticized about Trump’s speech could have been said about Obama’s.