Did President Donald Trump claim Americans are "going to die" when he's not president and call his staff "stupid" in a television interview? No, that's not true: a video -- posted by an anti-Trump political action committee -- deceptively snipped footage from Trump's Aug. 31 interview with FOX News host Laura Ingraham, taking his words out of context.
The claim appeared as a video (archived here) published via Twitter by The Lincoln Project on September 1, 2020 under the title "No one is safe in Donald Trump's America." It opened:
No one is safe in Donald Trump's America.
This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Tue Sep 1 23:36:34 2020 UTC)
The 39-second Lincoln Project ad uses out-of-context clips from the FOX News interview to insinuate Trump denigrated his staff, calling them "incompetent and stupid" as well as claiming Americans are "going to die" when he is not president. Those quotes and others were taken out of context and do not accurately reflect the questions he was answering or the topics he was addressing.
No one is safe in Donald Trump's America pic.twitter.com/Cb1HW7WXwe
-- The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 1, 2020
The Trump interview is on FOX News' YouTube channel in two parts, linked to near the end of this Lead Stories report.
The following links take you directly to the full answers the president gave in his interview with Ingraham, showing how editors for The Lincoln Project picked and chose words out of context:
From Lincoln Project's doctored video: "No one is safe in Donald Trump's America."
Ingraham actually said "The Oregon governor said 'No one is safe in Donald Trump's America," as a lead-up to a question to Trump in Part 1 of the interview at 2:11.
From Lincoln Project's doctored video: "I'm like standing here in a sea of incompetent, stupid people and violent people."
Part 2 of the interview at 20 seconds in, Ingraham asked Trump what he would say to women voters that are turned off by his aggressive tweets. He responded talking about his critics, not his supporters.
Ingraham: Let's say for the sake of argument you have a deficit among female voters who maybe in some cases, you're too aggressive, your tone or your Tweets. What do you say to them directly about what you'll do in a second term?
Trump: Ok, I have to be aggressive. Because I'm like, standing here in a sea of incompetent people, stupid people and violent people.
From Lincoln Project's doctored video: "My supporters stick up for the violence, the people that are getting hurt."
Trump is not on camera when he says this. However, in Part 1 at 5:15 Trump speaks positively about his supporters.
I want to leave it to law enforcement, but my supporters are wonderful, hardworking, tremendous people."
That part was spliced onto a quote from Part 1 at 2:30, when Trump is talking about the opposing party.
Ingraham: The Oregon Governor said no one is safe and Donald Trump's America. They're trying to turn the tables on you after months of...they are not really saying much about the violence.Trump: But they won't really criticize anybody that's a violent person. They stick up for the violence.
From Lincoln Project's doctored video: "At some point I will not be president...they're going to die."
This was patched together from a segment of Part 1 at 7:21 during which the president said his Democratic opponents and the "fake news" have manipulated stories of violence around the country and then he claimed NBC's ratings will die in five years when he is no longer in office.
It's not only the Democrats, it's the media, the fake news. The news is so fake. The mayor, where they make it look like it's a great unity thing when actually they were cursing at him and they would have done big numbers, but they don't show that. They show the mayor standing with these very tough thugs and we was gone, ok? They saved him. NBC shows that like it's unity. NBC shows that like it's unity with the people. I don't get it.
I don't know why they're doing it and I will say this. At some point I will not be president. Hopefully that will be in five years from now, but I will not be president and they're all going to die. Can you imagine if they had to cover sleepy Joe Biden?"
Part 1
Part 2
The Lincoln Project video escalates a battle of doctored videos in the 2020 Presidential campaign. Two days earlier, the social media director for the Trump White House falsely suggested Trump's opponent, Vice President Joe Biden, fell asleep during a local television interview.
The White House official, Dan Scavino, shared to his 930,000 Twitter followers a fake video that combined snoring sounds and video of a comical exchange between a TV reporter and singer Harry Belafonte, but with Biden's face superimposed where Belafonte's had been.
On the same day, The Trump campaign sent Twitter followers a doctored video clipped to make it sound like Biden said "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America."
In the uncut original, Biden was quoting what the Trump campaign was saying about him. The phrase "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America" was Biden quoting a line from Vice President Mike Pence's speech during the Republican National Convention. Biden had gone on to say their "proof" was "the violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America".
Lead Stories debunked the out-of-context Biden quotes: Fact Check: Joe Biden Did NOT Claim "You Won't Be Safe in Joe Biden's America"
Lead Stories also debunked the faked video of Biden: Fact Check: Joe Biden Did NOT Fall Asleep During Live TV Interview -- Video is Faked
