LAST NIGHT, PRESIDENT Donald Trump held a political rally in Phoenix – where he called for unity following the Charlottesville attack and attempted to call out the media for not representing his position fairly.
Specifically, he referred to how his response to the attack on Saturday night was reported (where he infamously said that there was “violence on many sides”).
He read out his statement to the crowd in Pheonix to prove that he condemned the attack – but failed to mention the “many sides” comment directly after. Channel 4 News – along with many others – put the clips side by side as evidence
It was this factual omission of the most controversial line that led to CNN anchor Don Lemon coming out with this extraordinary monologue about the President’s speech
“Well, what do you say to that? I am just going to speak from the heart here. What we have witnessed was a total eclipse of the facts.”
“Someone who came out on stage and lied directly to the American people, and left things out that he said in an attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to Charlottesville”
A clearly stunned Lemon continued:
He’s unhinged. It’s embarrassing – and I don’t mean for us, the media, because he went after us, but for the country. This is who we elected President of the United States? A man who is so petty that he has to go after people who he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a 6-year-old?
And came back to the factual omissions contained last night:
His speech was without thought. It was without reason, it was devoid of facts, it was devoid of wisdom, there was no gravitas, there was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else… ‘He did it! I didn’t do it.’
Perhaps referencing the follow up press conference after the attack where Trump doubled down on the “both sides” argument as well as the recent mass exodus of business leaders from presidential advisory councils, Lemon continued:
He certainly opened up the race wound from Charlottesville. A man clearly wounded by the rational people who are abandoning him in droves… meaning those business people and the people in Washington who are questiong his fitness for office and whether he is stable.
He concluded:
That’s the truth. If you watched that speech as an American you had to be thinking, what in the world is going on?
His words have spread far and wide since last night’s rally
And people were quick to point out the inaccuracies in Trump’s speech – beyond the missing “both sides” line – in real time
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Powerful television.
