President Donald Trump, whose administration is known for touting “fake news” without seeing the irony of being entirely “fake news” themselves, has been called out by the prestigious PBS News Hour after using an edited version of footage from a 2016 town hall that did not show the full context of then-President Barack Obama’s remarks.
In the mashup of the edited version of the video, Trump appeared to be touting how good he was at creating jobs in comparison to his predecessor, intertwining Obama’s speech with some joke-like jazzy trombone music.
“Because some of those jobs of the past are just not gonna come back. And when somebody say he’s gonna bring all these jobs back. Well how exactly are you gonna do that? What are you gonna do? What magic wand do you have?” Obama is heard saying in Trump’s video.
The video then moves on to jazzier, happier music, with Trump and Fox News touting how much jobs and wages have been growing.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2018
But again, PBS, who is the holder of the original Obama footage was like, Wait, hold up, this is not how that story went down.
“President [Donald Trump] tweeted Monday an edited excerpt of our 2016 town hall with then-President [Barack Obama] Here is the video of that moment,” The news program tweeted out.
President @realDonaldTrump tweeted Monday an edited excerpt of our 2016 town hall with then-President @BarackObama. Here is the video of that moment.
Transcript: https://t.co/fWOyvHODZ2 pic.twitter.com/KO32Ja6LDd
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) September 11, 2018
In that version of the footage, Obama’s context and intention are both clear.
“For those folks who’ve lost their job right now because a plant went down to Mexico — that isn’t gonna make you feel better. And so what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are coming in now because some of those jobs of the past are just not gonna come back,” Obama actually said at the time. “And when somebody says — like that person you just mentioned who I’m not going to advertise for — that he’s gonna bring all these jobs back. Well how exactly are you gonna do that? What are you gonna do?
“There’s no answer to it. He just says, ‘I’m gonna negotiate a better deal.’ Well how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is — he doesn’t have an answer,” the only real POTUS to ever do it added.
If President Trump wants to promote himself properly, someone from his administration should really tell him he should have the proper receipts and facts. Then again, that’s laughable, because when has the Trump administration ever been concerned with receipts and facts?
