Marco Rubio Caught Circulating Fake Video To Smear Rep. Ilhan Omar
July 26th 2019
Marco Rubio - Caricature (DonkeyHotey)
By Oliver Willis
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) used his Twitter account on Tuesday to share a deceptively edited video smearing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as “racist.”
“I am sure the media will now hound every Democrat to denounce this statement as racist. Right?” Rubio wrote, alongside a video of Omar.
The video was posted by Molly Prince, a contributor to the conservative Daily Caller, which has published white supremacists and anti-Semites.
“Ilhan Omar contends that Americans ‘should be more fearful of white men,'” Prince claimed.
But the video was chopped up and edited to distort what Omar actually said.
Parker Molloy of Media Matters for America posted the video of the original interview Omar gave to Al Jazeera, noting that Rubio “shared a deceptively edited version” of the exchange.
The video Rubio shared removed Omar’s entire statement in which she responded to conservative concerns of violence committed by Muslims.
“I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” she said. What she said next, however, was cut from the video Rubio shared.
“And so if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe inside of this country, we should be profiling, monitoring and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”
This isn’t the first time Rubio has used his social media to promote questionable material.
Last December, he promoted a crowdfunding campaign from serial fake news creator Brian Kolfage asking for money to build Trump’s wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Rubio hailed Kolfage as a “true American hero.”
There were already questions about the trustworthiness of the campaign as Rubio promoted it, and things just got worse.
After the group raised $20 million, Kolfage became evasive about where the wall would be built and how the funds would be used. Former supporters are now demanding that he explain what was done with their money, and his response has been to rant on Twitter. The group has also faced legal challenges, including failing to obtain proper permits.
At least Kolfage got the Rubio bump.
Rubio, in his zeal to join in Trump’s racist campaign against Omar, misfired again.
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