Twitter on Monday called attention to a phony video about a Republican as just that – phony.
The social media platform cited two “fact-checkers” – Reuters and the Associated Press – who noted that a left-wing provocateur’s post last week about Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was faked.
“A viral video on social media purporting to show Florida Governor Ron DeSantis arguing with TV host Sean Hannity and producer Laura Trump over the recent FBI raid of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is digitally altered,” Twitter noted in citing the “fact-checkers.”
The post at issue included a comment from its creator, who said “Ron DeSantis went on Hannity and things got SPICY.”
True – except for the part where it was all made up.
Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’ campaign spokeswoman, noted on Twitter, “Of course it’s fake. The clip of DeSantis is from 2020 when he was responding to a question about Florida police executing a felony search warrant at the home of a fired state employee who had a documented arrest history of physical violence against police.”
According to Newsweek, Fox News’ Hannity says during the “segment”: “When this raid happened and it was a raid…”
The governor then seems to reply, “It’s not a raid, with all due respect….” He then added, “t was not a raid, they were serving valid process, in accordance with the laws and Constitution of the United States and the state of Florida.”
DeSantis was actually referring to disgraced former state Department of Health employee Rebekah Jones, who was investigated by state troopers for allegedly pilfering sensitive DOH information.
Jones claimed that she was fired for doctoring death data about COVID-19. Yet earlier this year, a DOH inspector general’s report found that her assertions were meritless and without proof.
The Free Press reported that far from standing behind the FBI’s much-criticized raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, DeSantis has been a vocal critic of President Joe Biden’s FBI.
“The raid of MAL [Mar-a-Lago] is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves,” DeSantis tweeted on Aug. 8.
“Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
The creator of the video admitted it was faked, tweeting that the “editing is s—-y because I spent 15 minutes on making this video and it should be obvious to anyone who sees it that it is not real.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.
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