President Trump has called allegations that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders shared a “doctored” video of Jim Acosta’s interaction with a White House intern “dishonest reporting.”
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Responding to a question about whether or not the video was altered, Trump stated, “Nobody manipulated it, give me a break…See that’s just dishonest reporting. All that was was a close-up. That is just dishonest reporting.”
When you say doctored you’re a dishonest guy…
He continued, “I watched that, I heard that last night. They made it close up, they showed it close up, and he was not nice to that young woman. I don’t hold him for that, because it wasn’t overly horrible…But when you say doctored you’re a dishonest guy.”
Trump defends doctored @Acosta video from Infowars pic.twitter.com/S3LtIClK9Q
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 9, 2018
The internet and media outlets have been abuzz ever since Sanders issued the following tweet, after revoking Acosta’s press pass:
We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video. pic.twitter.com/T8X1Ng912y
— Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018
According to Fox News, Sanders is being accused of posting an edited video circulated by Infowars editor, Paul Joseph Watson. The video posted by Sanders “allegedly speeds up Acosta’s arm motion to make it appear that he essentially karate chopped the female intern.” However, Watson has taken to Twitter to defend himself writing “The only editing done to this clip is that it is zoomed in.”
Sanders’ father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, weighed in to defend his daughter after former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren commented on the video controversy:
Watch the video in real time from CSPAN. Or read this from @BuzzFeed –hardly friendly to @realDonaldTrump or @PressSec and get "the rest of the story. https://t.co/P8L8COSKCe https://t.co/wVSLP9kNMm
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 9, 2018
BuzzFeed concluded that the video was not deliberately altered, rather, they claim, the low quality gif version of the interaction contributed to the confusion:
There's no evidence that the video was deliberately sped up — but the change in format, from a high quality video to a low quality gif, turns the question of whether it was "doctored" into a semantic debate.
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 8, 2018
