After Jim Jordan showed a video with clips of reporters saying "peaceful protests" out of context, Jake Tapper demanded an apology on behalf of his CNN colleagues.
July 29, 2020

At the beginning of Bill Barr's hearing Tuesday, Rep. Jim Jordan played a wildly dishonest video, part of which was a montage of reporters saying the words "peaceful protest" in edited form, as if to depict violent protests as peaceful.

Jake Tapper was not having it. "Jim Jordan of Ohio played a video featuring many upsetting images of mayhem and violence from protests and riots across the country," he told viewers. "And that was included along with a mash-up of members of the media and others using the term ‘Peaceful protests.'”

He then played the full quotes of CNN reporters Josh Campbell and Diane Gallagher, who described the protests as generally peaceful protests until night fell, when they turned violent.

And then the hammer fell.

Our reporters Diane Gallagher and Josh Campbell as you saw accurately described the protests as peaceful and often exploding into something else, including violence at night. But Congressman Jordan, you just quoted the part of what they said, that said peaceful protests when that wasn’t the full context. That’s not what they said. They weren’t calling violent protests peaceful. Congressman Jordan, you did a disservice to them. And more importantly, you did a disservice to the American people and you did a disservice to the truth. Congressman Jordan, you owe them and anyone else whose comments you completely misrepresented today on Capitol Hill, you owe them an apology. Any person of honor, any person who cares about the truth would do that. I guess we’ll see what you’re going to do.

Spoiler alert: Jordan will never ever apologize. He is there to spread lies and distraction. That video he showed was full of looped audio overlaid over looped video, as if to make every Black Lives Matter demonstration seem violent and dark. Oddly enough, he never mentioned the violence wrought by white supremacists pretending they were Black Lives Matter protesters.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon