Trump’s Lawyer Schools Mainstream Media On How To Show Trump’s Remarks In Full Context
Trump’s lawyer David Schoen presented a side by side video of Trump’s Charlottesville comments that the House lawyers played with the full video that included context.
Many people fell for this lie that President Trump called ‘white supremacists fine people’ and below is the full video from CNBC as well as the side by side from Trump’s lawyer.
The CNBC video is what the media used to edit Trump’s response to the Charlottesville incident after he said ‘fine people on both sides’
Rep. Jamie Raskin made this claim during the impeachment trial, “He said there were, ‘very fine people on both sides,’ when the neo-Nazis, the Klansmen and Proud Boys invaded the great city of Charlottesville…”
The montage shared by Forbes twitter is an edited clip and without context. Many failed to realize what the media did with clips of Trump speaking the last 4 years and some have just started to see how clips are edited taken out of context.
Rep. Jamie Raskin plays montage of Trump praising political violence at #ImpeachmentTrial.
Raskin: “He said there were, ‘Very fine people on both sides,’ when the neo-Nazis, the Klansmen, and Proud Boys invaded the great city of Charlottesville and killed Heather Heyer." pic.twitter.com/96Ng3ivpZ6
— Forbes (@Forbes) February 11, 2021
In 2017, according to CBS News, Trump’s first response 3 days before the out of context clip was used he said, “We’re closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Mr. Trump said. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides.”
Here is the first time on August 12, 2017, “Trump condemns hatred ‘on many sides’ in Charlottesville white nationalist protest”
Of course from the Aug 12, 2017 clip, CBS News criticized him not explicitly mentioning the hate groups, “In his remarks, the president failed to mention displays of white nationalism or Nazi symbols present in Charlottesville.”
PolitiFact posted the full transcript word for word, “”But we’re closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Va.. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America. What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives. No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society.”
Trump condemned all hate regardless of what the media wanted and demanded at the time. Trump made it clear in his second response to condemn hate and said he didn’t want to make a quick statement.
Transcript from Politifact of Trump’s press conference on Aug. 15, 2017 of his ‘you also had people that were very fine people’
Reporter: “Let me ask you, Mr. President, why did you wait so long to blast neo-Nazis?”
Trump: “I didn’t wait long. I didn’t wait long.”
Reporter: “Forty-eight hours.”
Trump: “I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct — not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement. But you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. And it’s a very, very important process to me, and it’s a very important statement.
Below are Trump’s later responses with the reporter which it has become more clear on what they were trying to do.
Reporter: (Inaudible) “… both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the –”
Trump: “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides — I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say.”
Reporter: “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest –”
Trump: “Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
