Did U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene hold a sign reading "Honk if you want a bloodbath" alongside Trump supporters gathered on a roadside? No, that's not true: The video purporting to document that has been edited to add a sign that was not there. The original footage was published before Donald Trump's "bloodbath" remarks on March 16, 2024. It was captured on February 24, 2024, on the day of the GOP primary in South Carolina. Greene was filmed with two different 2024 campaign signs supporting Trump. Since then, the signs in the videos have become meme fodder and have resurfaced with a variety of sayings edited onto them.
The edited video appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published by @AreMond2 on March 17, 2024 with the caption:
There's nothing on MTG'S sign about Cars.
Should MTG be charged with inciting violence?
This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Mar 18 14:41:08 2024 UTC)
This video is not authentic, and the original copy dates back to February 24, 2024, before Trump's March 16, 2024, comment at an Ohio rally that "It's going to be a bloodbath" if he does not get elected (at 0:47 seconds in this video). In a March 18, 2024, post (archived here) on Truth Social, Trump maintains that his "bloodbath" remark was made in the context of talking about his prediction of economic disaster for the automobile industry.
In the edited version of the video (pictured above), the sign purportedly held by Greene reads, "Honk if you want a bloodbath." A '@Tarquin_Helmet' watermark appears in the lower right corner of this video. This edited video was first shared on X (archived here) on March 17, 2024, by @Tarquin_Helmet. In the comments under the posting, the account holder was asked if the video was edited and they confirmed it was.
At least seven different edits have been done to the signs to make new versions of the video. In one example below (archived here), posted on March 11, 2024, the sign reads, "Honk if it's his jail time." Four additional versions are archived here as thumbnails featured in advanced search results of the @Tarquin_Helmet account on X, and another video featuring an edit to the white sign was posted on Instagram (archived here).
(Image source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Mar 18 14:46:55 2024 UTC)
On February 24, 2024 Greene was in Columbia, South Carolina, to show her support for Trump in the GOP primary. She posted videos of herself (here and here) on X -- waving to passing cars and holding a white "Trump 2024" sign and alternately, another sign with the blue background and the "Trump Make American Great Again" slogan on a wooden stick. Her posts (pictured below) were captioned:
SOUTH CAROLINA IS TRUMP COUNTRY! #MAGA 🇺🇸
http://SC.DonaldJTrump.comand
South Carolina is ready for four more years of President Trump! #MAGA 🇺🇸
(Image source: Lead Stories composite image with Twitter screenshots taken on Mon Mar 18 18:01:33 2024 UTC)
Additional Lead Stories fact checks pertaining to the 2024 elections can be found here.
