CNN’s Daniel Dale, who usually fact-checks the president, turned his attention to lib blue-check Aaron Rupar after the Vox journo tweeted a wildly misleading clip from President Trump’s rally in Arizona yesterday that made it seem that he called the CEO of Exxon and exchanged political favors for a donation.
From Dale:
For people retweeting without watching the full clip: this quote was not a Trump corruption admission. It was him being defensive about Biden outraising him – saying he COULD easily raise tons of money if he wanted to call up CEOs and make corrupt bargains, but he won’t do that. pic.twitter.com/DhtwSyIjVC
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 19, 2020
Oh, it was more than a misleading caption. Rupar added the hashtag #QudProQuo which totally changed the meaning of it:
For those asking (@waltshaub), here's the full transcript of Trump's remarks about Exxon and fundraising. Again, the clip that's circulating has a misleading caption; Trump's point was that it compromises a president to make personal fundraising calls to big CEOs, so he won't. pic.twitter.com/EuGRwQg6Z1
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 19, 2020
It. Was. Clear:
Once more: A) Trump *does* do lots of high-dollar fundraising, but B) He was clearly not admitting here to corruption or an actual deal with Exxon. Carry on.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 19, 2020
But thanks to other lib-blue checks sharing Rupar’s fake news, ExxonMobil had to clarify things:
We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO…and just so we’re all clear, it never happened.
— ExxonMobil (@exxonmobil) October 19, 2020
And those who shared the bogus clip were Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ted Lie as well as high-follower accounts like Amy Siskind and actor Josh Gad:
Wild/totally unsurprising how far this nonsense has spread based on a bad initial tweet. pic.twitter.com/IHqbiCNl9j
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2020
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Hours later, Rupar deleted the tweet:
Deleted this because the quote reads too much like something Trump actually said to Exxon when he was talking about a hypothetical. I thought the “I’ll use a company” line nodded to that context, but it’s apparent folks are interpreting in a more literal way. That’s on me. pic.twitter.com/75AVU5veQW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 20, 2020
But it had already amassed almost 5 million views by then:
Glad you caught it before it reached 5 million views
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) October 20, 2020
His explanation doesn’t really fit since he added the salacious hashtag though:
Is that what you put “quid pro quo” in the hashtag?
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 20, 2020
Good advice:
“Apparently folks are interpreting in a more literal way” he says after 5 hours, millions of views, and 3 members of Congress call for action based on his dishonest tweet.
Everyone. Stop retweeting Aaron Rupar. https://t.co/lTPC7BGbIl
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 20, 2020
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