Fact check: Biden ad misleadingly suggests Trump called Covid-19 a ‘hoax’

CNN fact-checks a misleading Biden ad, which edited a Trump speech to make it look like he called coronavirus a Democratic hoax. To be clear, Trump’s informal and freewheeling style of speaking at rallies often leaves his exact meaning hard to pin down. But I agree with CNN that this ad misrepresents Trump’s intentions.
Here’s what Trump actually said:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus — you know that right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes. One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in.” It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.
CNN notes that 56 second pass between Trump mentioning “coronavirus” and “hoax.”
The story offers the following context:

The next day Trump was asked about this comment and tried to clarify what he said, claiming he was “referring to the action that [the Democrats] take to try and pin this on somebody, because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them.”

That said, Trump’s clarification has not stopped some of his supporters from believing the pandemic is, in fact, a hoax. One Trump supporter attending a campaign rally in Michigan on September 10 was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta why he was not wearing a mask. “Because there’s no Covid,” he said. “It’s a fake pandemic created to destroy the United States of America.” —CNN

Post was last modified on 21 Sep 2020 10:10 am

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Dennis G. Jerz

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