
Trump Press Conference Video Doctored? - rkuykendall-com
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta-video-trump-cnn-aide-sarah-sanders
======
conductr
Sped up or not, I think the missing perspective is “is it okay to walk up to
someone and forcibly grab what they have in their hand?“ Given the context,
him not wanting her to grab the microphone, I see nothing wrong with his
reaction

~~~
assblaster
I don't think the microphone was Jim Acosta's personal property, and he was an
invited guest on federal property, and an employee/intern of the federal
government was given instruction to get government property back.

~~~
komali2
Except, Jim Acosta is the 4th branch. His job is to find out, on the People's
behalf, what the fed is up to, and the federal government (which we pay for)
was trying to squirm out of it.

That's not government property, that's _our_ property. The very house is paid
for by our taxes.

If it were up to me, journalists would be with elected officials more than
they aren't. I want transparency in government. Full transparency.

~~~
assblaster
Jim Acosta turned question-asking into political opinion generation. Are
reporters even supposed to render judgment at a Q&A?

~~~
BryantD
We have the transcript of the exchange. Can you clarify what you mean by
"political opinion generation"?

\----

Acosta: I wanted to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in
the tail end of the campaign in the midterms that …

Trump: Here we go.

Acosta: Well, I — if you don’t mind, Mr. President …

Trump: Let’s go. Let’s go. Come on.

Acosta: … that this caravan was an invasion. As you know, Mr. President …

Trump: I consider it to be an invasion.

Acosta: As you know, Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It’s a
group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the
U.S. And …

Trump: Thank you for telling me that. I appreciate it.

Acosta: … why did you characterize it as such?

Trump: Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of
opinion.

Acosta: But do you think that you demonized immigrants in this election to try
to keep …

Trump: Not at all. No, not at all. I want them to come into the country, but
they have to come in legally. You know, they have to come in, Jim, through a
process. I want it to be a process. And I want people to come in. And we need
the people here …

Acosta: Right. But your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over
walls and so on …

Trump: Well, that’s true. … They weren’t actors.

Acosta: They’re not going to be doing that.

Trump: They weren’t actors. Well, no, it was true. Do you think they were
actors? They weren’t actors. They didn’t come from Hollywood. … This was an
actual — you know, it happened a few days ago and …

Acosta: They’re hundreds of miles away, though. They’re hundreds and hundreds
of miles away.

Trump: You know what?

Acosta: That’s not an invasion.

Trump: I think you should — honestly — I think you should let me run the
country, you run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much
better.

Acosta: But let me ask … if I may ask one other question …

Trump: OK, that’s enough.

Acosta: Mr. President, if I may …

Trump: Peter, go ahead.

Acosta: If I may ask one other question. Are you worried …

Trump: That’s enough. That’s enough.

Acosta: But, Mr. President, I — well …

Trump: That’s enough.

Acosta: I was going to ask one other …

Trump: That’s enough.

Acosta: The other folks have had …

Trump: That’s enough.

Acosta: Pardon me, ma’am. I’m — I’m — Mr. President …

Trump: Excuse me, that’s enough.

Acosta: Mr. President, I had one other question, if I may ask, on — on the
Russia investigation. Are you concerned that — that you may have indictments …

Trump: I’m not concerned about anything with the Russia investigation because
it’s a hoax.

Acosta: Are you …

Trump: That’s enough. Put down the mic.

Acosta: Mr. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this
investigation?

Trump: I tell you what. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for
them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN. Go
ahead.

Acosta: I — I think that’s unfair …

Trump: You’re a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is
horrible, and the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn’t treat
people that way.

~~~
jki275
"Acosta: As you know, Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It’s a
group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the
U.S. And …"

That's where he's rendering a political opinion.

It would be quite different if he said something like "Congressman so and so
said just yesterday that this is not an invasion and is merely whatever and
could you comment" or "There is concern in some circles about your rhetoric in
calling this an invasion..., could you address this concern or explain why you
believe this is an invasion" or something like those -- but in taking the "as
you know" line, he's directly calling the President a liar, taking a political
position on the issue himself, and trying to bait the President into arguing
with him (which of course the President did as he always does).

~~~
komali2
I disagree that this is a political opinion. I think this is one party
(Acosta) challenging the other (the government employee) on objective fact, as
per Acosta's job description.

>“If someone says it’s raining & another person says it’s dry, it’s not your
job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the f __king window and
find out which is true.”

[https://www.google.com/search?q=invasion](https://www.google.com/search?q=invasion)
:

> an instance of invading a country or region with an armed force.

There are other definitions of "invasion" that can be applied, but why choose
the word "invasion" when there are more accurate ones to choose that don't
have the negative connotations? It is a bad faith use of the word "invasion"
by the government to describe anything other than an actual armed invasion.
How should they describe Russian troops landing on US soil if they've already
used up the word "invasion" to describe impoverished asylum-seekers?

>he's directly calling the President a liar.

The president _is_ a liar. He lies all the time. I'm glad the auditors are
pushing my employee on this. He's lying about what he's using my money for and
that infuriates me.

[https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-
trump/statem...](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-
trump/statements/byruling/false/)

~~~
jki275
Again, you're missing the point. He's taking a political position, not being a
journalist.

It's not an objective fact as a significant portion of the US disagrees with
you and Mr. Acosta. It's a matter of political discussion and has been for a
while.

~~~
komali2
I disagree, and have yet to be convinced it's an opinion instead of fact.

~~~
jki275
it's a characterization. It's a colloquialism.

You can argue that all day long, but calling it an "invasion" (which I don't
really agree with btw), is a subjective statement based in opinion. The fact
is that there are a lot of people travelling up through Mexico to the US
border. How you characterize that is an opinion.

------
rkuykendall-com
I realize this may be removed due to the political nature, but the
conversation about video speed and frame-dropping from video-to-gif
conversion, made me think it would be relevant to HackerNews.

~~~
ve55
What is even more interesting and relevant is what we will do when videos are
regularly and intentionally modified or created, and in much more striking
ways than this one. I'm surprised we haven't already seen some good attempts
at this with the amount of money and motivation that goes into US politics.

~~~
Izkata
Do you remember the thing about a year ago with Trump, Shinzo Abe, and the koi
pond? The story was that Trump ignored instructions and impatiently dumped all
the food into the pond, but the short video making the rounds was also edited:
It zoomed in on Trump to hide Abe also tossing all the koi food, before Trump
did.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
I watched the side by side comparison of the three videos about thirty times
before I read any of the text.

Why is it being framed as Acosta doing a chop rather than the woman in the
video trying to punch Acosta. All three of the videos, to me, look like the
woman going for a throat punch and Acosta's movements reactionary.

I can't tell who has the whacky bias here. Is it me?

Edit: rather than change my comment after I've posted it, I mean to write that
both of the reduced frame rate videos appear as though the woman is going for
the throat. The original video just looks nothing like that.

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
> look like the woman going for a throat punch

I mean... no, I can't see this at all. In every instance, it's totally obvious
she's reaching for the mic.

I agree that she clearly instigated whatever contact is there, and his
movements _do_ seem totally reactionary, but portraying her movement as an
attempt at a "throat punch" is kind of ridiculous.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Yes, I agree. I just mean to say why is it being framed one way when it can,
in my opinion, just as easily be misinterpreted the other way.

My first comment definitely overstates my opinion.

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
Ohh I see what you mean! Yes, it's just as easy to say she went for a throat
punch as it is to say he karate chopped her arm. I totally get what you meant
now. Sorry for not understanding. :)

------
ipython
Wow. I can’t believe the power of tribalism. Really, we are arguing over
whether someone grazed the arm of a woman who reached to remove the microphone
from a reporter?

I guess we really have no other pressing needs to attend to. Nope- the
homeless problem, solved. Opioid abuse? No longer a problem! Ethnic cleansing
in Myanmar? Eliminated! Murdering dissidents and journalists? Not happening.
Deploying thousands of military troops to intercept a caravan of asylum
seeking refugees? That’s yesterday’s news.

Nope, let’s spend our collective mental energy on fighting a battle- did he
assault that poor woman?!? Seriously?

I realize my comment stinks of snarkiness, but seriously- think of how this
plays out in the history books. How absolutely absurd does all this sound? I
mean we laugh at the fact we threw bound women in the water to divine whether
they were witches. What reaction will we have to the events of today a hundred
years from now?

I leave this comment with a question I have no answer to. How do we fix this
bug in human psychology?

~~~
PascLeRasc
The implications of this argument are that the government is suppressing media
and using disinformation to convince the public that it's alright. This is
part of protecting journalists and dissidents like you argue we should be
focusing on.

~~~
ipython
yes I agree but I think this reasoned argument is drowned out by the cries of
“but he hit her, no he didn’t...”

------
JohnTHaller
The White House Press Secretary downloaded a doctored video from a conspiracy
site and then uploaded it to Twitter to share it from the official Twitter
account. The overlay makes it clearer than a side by side:
[https://twitter.com/rafaelshimunov/status/106045055781770854...](https://twitter.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1060450557817708544)

While this will get flagged for being "political" the technological analysis
by various folks have been interesting.

------
GhostVII
Why is this even being talked about? The intern grabbed the microphone, he
pushed her arm out of the way, it doesn't really seem like a big issue at all.
Even in the gif it looks pretty minor.

~~~
chrisco255
When the President of the U.S. runs a press conference and wants to move on to
the next question, that's the President's right. It's not Acosta's place to
run the press conference and control it. He's one of 60 journalists in that
room. There's 1 President. Ok, if you were in a court room, the judge runs the
show. When you're in the White House, the President runs the show. Simple as
that.

~~~
dragontamer
That's fair. The President can run his press group however he wants.

But we, as citizens, can also fairly criticize the President for pushing the
doctored video and lying to us. This doctored video is proof positive that the
White House Press Secretary is willing to photoshop videos to push their
viewpoint.

This is a sad day in America. We all know the technology is possible, but to
use it on such a trivial issue as "who was trying to grab the microphone" just
demonstrates the poor sense of judgement of the current administration.

\---------

The President has the ability to revoke the Press Pass of whoever he wants.
But why would they push a false story while doing so? This isn't even that
important of an issue, but to see them doctoring up videos and pushing them
around is... worrying... to me.

~~~
chrisco255
The video wasn't doctored. They're arguing about the frame rate and whether it
was sped up or down. Acosta clearly used force against the staffer's arm.
Whether he used 100 Newtons or 200 Newtons... nobody cares. It's the
principle, and the disruption and the grandstanding.

------
dustinmoris
This is all just so sad. There's really no winner in this, because at this
stage of technology and general mistrust towards the opposing party there is
nothing that anyone could do in order to provide an answer that everyone can
believe in, let alone non tech people. We have truly created a state of lies,
mistrust, fake news and conspiracy and this will end badly. It surely plays
into Trump's cards which is also quite upsetting too.

~~~
dakna
Divide and conquer at it's best. We, the people, are supposed to stop making
decisions based on rational thinking and vote according to a social identity
that is shoved into our faces constantly. And if enough people have nothing to
trust anymore, and think there are conspiracies everywhere, it is easy to fill
the void with just one loud person to trust. It is the last resort based on
emotions and identity. Well played, well played indeed.

~~~
ipython
This - a thousand times. Read this story:
[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/21/kent-
sore...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/21/kent-sorenson-was-
a-tea-party-hero-then-he-lost-everything-220522)

It’s a great story for a bunch of reasons, but what I would like to point out
for this thread is how effective pitting ethnic and racial groups against each
other in prison is at surpressing organized dissent. That’s exactly the tactic
employed here with the virulent tribalism egged on by this administration.

------
jefe_
Jim Acosta has done this many times. If he was really interested in answers he
would continually modify his approach until he got what he wanted. But he's
not really interested in answers so much as making a show of Trump not
answering his questions. Case in point, I have no clue what he was asking, all
of the stories have been about the reporter. Contrast with the Axios interview
on HBO this week, where the interviewers discussed trying something different
and effectively got a unique Trump interview.

~~~
alphabettsy
Whatever you think about him is really not relevant to the press secretary’s
complete mischaracterization. She said that he “put his hands on her”, and we
all know what that is implied to mean. They could’ve just said that he lacked
proper decorum or something, but instead they did this.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
No conversation about doctored videos is complete without someone bringing up
that time Obama called Trump a "complete dipshit".

[https://news.avclub.com/jordan-peele-makes-obama-call-
trump-...](https://news.avclub.com/jordan-peele-makes-obama-call-trump-a-
complete-dipshit-1825333067)

