Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) slammed CNN’s presentation of former President Donald Trump seeking to “protect the women” as president, arguing the clip the network showed him was taken “out of context.”
At a campaign event Thursday night, Trump said, “Whether the women like it or not, I’m going to protect them” from illegal immigrants. CNN presented Donalds with an incomplete clip of Trump making this statement without any reference to illegal immigrants, prompting the Florida lawmaker to argue that the network was being “grossly inaccurate” with its question.
“Play the full clip, play it in its context,” Donalds said on CNN’s News Central. “He was talking about the tragedy at our southern border that led to the death of Jocelyn Nungaray. Jocelyn’s mother has come out and endorsed Donald Trump because she fully believed that if Donald Trump was president, her daughter would be alive. And so what he was talking about was, ‘I‘m going to protect women, I‘m going to protect children,’ and then he was just telling a joke. Really, he was just telling them a joke about how some of the staff said, ‘No, don’t say you will protect women because they would take it out of context.’ Obviously, what CNN is doing right now, taking it out of context.”
Doanlds’s comment at the end prompted CNN anchor John Berman to try to interrupt the lawmaker’s response, claiming he and the network did provide the full context. Berman then suggested that former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and others have been critical of Trump possibly pushing female voters away from supporting his campaign.
That prompted Donalds to argue that CNN was “conflating two very separate things” with the network’s “selective editing.” Berman then pressed Donalds on why Trump said he would do so whether women liked it or not.
“What I will tell you is, is that once again, if you’re going to clip five seconds out of an hour speech and not provide context, this is why the American people, frankly, are frustrated with media because you guys play games, you take things out of context, you don‘t explain them clearly, and you want to get caught up in semantics,” Donalds said.
Kamala HQ, Vice President Kamala Harris’s social media account promoting her campaign, has taken Trump’s statement that “I’m going to do it whether the women like or not” to claim he was talking about restricting abortion. Trump’s campaign account has since reposted Kamala HQ’s post with the former president’s full comment, accusing “Kamala’s stupid interns” of attempting to edit out his promise to protect women from “illegal aliens.”
“Whether the women like it or not” pic.twitter.com/lFbx5rbWrd
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 31, 2024
In this clip that Kamala’s stupid interns deceptively edited (what else is new), President Trump was talking about protecting women from illegal aliens Kamala released into our country who murder and rape.
Does Kamala HQ have a problem with that?
https://t.co/S1IXNC7Vjq pic.twitter.com/clj0fuUJcj
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 31, 2024
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CNN is not the only network accused of deceptive editing by Republican lawmakers. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) accused CBS News of cutting down answers he gave during an interview earlier this month, including his detailing of a voting lawsuit in Virginia. He has since said he would “never agree to a non-live interview with CBS again.”
With only days left before the election, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has argued that Harris “knows she’s losing” the race, as her message is not “resonating” with voters. Trump, meanwhile, is aware he has all but won the election, Luna claimed, but she stressed that his supporters still need “to show up and vote.”