Scalise on altered Biden video: ‘It shouldn’t have been edited’

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) conceded on Monday that a video he tweeted containing a doctored clip of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaking to disability rights activist Ady Barkan“shouldn’t have been edited.” 

The video, which accuses Democrats of fomenting violence in American cities, contains a clip of Barkan’s interview with Biden. “Do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?” Barkan, who has ALS, asks Biden in the original clip, referring to shifting public safety funds from police to mental health and social services. “Yes,” Biden responds.

The clip Scalise tweeted spliced in the words “for police” from earlier in the interview at the end of the question in the same computerized voice Barkan uses to communicate.

Look, it shouldn’t have been edited,” Scalise said on “Fox & Friends.” “But at the same time, the comments were always about — in fact, twice in that interview he asked Joe Biden if he was for redirecting money away from police. And in both times, Joe Biden said yes.”

Twitter flagged the clip as containing manipulated media, and it prompted swift backlash from Democrats and activists.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/514390-scalise-on-altered-biden-video-it-shouldnt-have-been-edited