LATEST LIES FROM THE RNC

 

                          …Trump’s lying Campaign Spokesperson, Tim Murtaugh

 

It’s disgusting that they are mis-using Dr. Fauci’s statements

 

Have you seen the latest bogus campaign TV ad from the RNC falsely saying that the president has dedicated himself to dealing with the coronavirus?  It is such a manipulated ad with false info, it’s hard to even start to discuss it.

It is so false that even the great Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had to make a press release about the misleadingly quote in the Trump campaign ad released on Oct. 10.  The RNC had taken the Dr. Fauci statement:  “I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more,” out of a FOX interview with Dr. Fauci, where he was referring to the efforts of his NIA department.  But the ad had falsely added that clip as a comment from the Doctor about the president’s efforts against Covid-19.

It was a disgusting misrepresentation that the ad makes about the president’s very poor actions in dealing with the coronavirus.

Throughout 2020, the Trump campaign has offered a master class in how to snip and cut video in misleading ways. This new Trump ad is no exception.

The new ad highlights the president’s bout with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The deaths of more than 200,000 Americans from the disease have been a huge setback to the president’s election campaign. This ad tries to argue that he took forceful action against the coronavirus, despite his constant efforts to play down the pandemic in public.

The ad tries to assert that the, “President Trump has tackled the virus head on as leaders should,” it then follows with the false clip of Fauci appearing to endorse that claim: “I can't imagine that anybody could be doing more.”

There is a certain irony in the Trump campaign using Fauci as a validation, as the president frequently is quite critical of the infectious-disease expert.  But the biggest problem is that Fauci was not talking at all about Trump.  In fact, it was the opposite.  In the March interview on Fox News with Mark Levin, Fauci was discussing the workload of the whole coronavirus task force. Here is the full context for his quote. This is the section used in the ad that is highlighted in bold.

“I have been devoting almost full time on this…almost full time. I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. I’m connected by phone throughout the day and into the night and when I say night, I’m talking twelve, one, two in the morning. I’m not the only one. There’s a whole group of us that are doing that. It’s every single day. So I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more. I mean, obviously, we’re fighting a formidable enemy… this virus. This virus is a serious issue here.”

In other words, the RNC ad misleadingly clips Fauci’s comment and takes it totally out of context, especially because it even sets it up with voice-over narration designed to make viewers believe the popular Fauci is praising President Trump.

According to The Fact Checker’s Guide to Manipulated Video, this is an example of Missing Context - Isolation.  That’s when a brief clip creates a false narrative that does not reflect the event as it actually occurred. The little snip in the middle of Fauci’s comment indicates that the Trump campaign clearly wanted viewers to believe Fauci was talking about Donald Trump.

But he absolutely was not.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. But Fauci issued the following statement to CNN: “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”

After Fauci’s statement was issued and this fact check was published, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh defunded the ad: “These are Dr. Fauci’s own words. The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration. The words spoken are accurate, and directly from Dr. Fauci’s mouth.”

This is a bald-faced lie.

Murtaugh is absolutely wrong. This is yet another misleading “clip-job” by the Trump campaign.  Fauci’s words are placed in the ad in a deliberate effort to mislead viewers, and he had every right to complain.

Just more lies from the Trump campaign.

Please vote, and soon.

Copyright G. Ater 2020