Typically, conservative media is charged with debunking Rachel Maddow’s outlandish claims, like the one she made last night, accusing the White House of “selectively editing” the transcript of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
This time, though, The Washington Post stepped in to do the dirty work.
Tuesday night, Maddow announced on her MSNBC prime time program that she and her staff had uncovered a striking conspiracy, hidden in plain view on the White House’s media page: the administration “skillfully cut out” a Reuters reporter’s question about whether Putin wanted Trump to win the 2016 presidential election, from it’s official video and transcript of the event.
“We can report tonight that the White House video of that exchange has also skillfully cut out that question from the Reuters reporter as if it didn’t happen!” Maddow laughed.
WATCH:
White House edits video to remove question about whether Putin wanted Trump to win. pic.twitter.com/ExlsHNlgF8
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) July 25, 2018
There’s one problem: The Washington Post obtained the same video and the same transcript, and both of their copies make the same omissions.
As The Washington Post fact-checker points out, the problem doesn’t so much lie with the White House as it does with the video feed. Whoever was controlling the sound blasted in the translator’s feed and not the reporter’s.
What happened? If you watch the videos, it’s pretty clear. At some point in the middle of that question, there’s a switch between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator. In the White House version of the video, you can hear the question being asked very faintly under the woman who is translating saying “president.
“We did not edit the question out. This is the feed we were provided,” The Washington Post declares.
Weirdly enough, the only channel that didn’t mess up the audio was Fox News. According to WaPo, the Fox feed is the only feed where you can actively hear the audio switch over from the translator to the reporter, just moments too late to hear the reporter ask Putin his question.
The White House’s excuse for the “skillfully” edited tape is the same as The Washington Posts: the feed “did not have Mason’s audio turned up in time,” per a White House spokeswoman.
Rachel Maddow is just going to have to keep looking for her smoking gun.
[H/T Hot Air]