Anyone who watches Pennsylvania Democrat senatorial candidate John Fetterman knows he's struggling to recover after suffering from a stroke in May. Despite claims from his campaign that he's doing well and only has "lingering impacts" on his auditory processing, he himself admitted the stroke nearly killed him. Fetterman spent months afterward campaigning remotely à la Biden 2020, but with his public appearances becoming more frequent as we inch closer to the midterms, his health issues are taking center stage.
Not surprisingly, conservatives have highlighted Fetterman's struggles in an attempt to show he's not fit to serve, but instead of asking legitimate questions about his health, NBC News is calling the videos "deceptively edited" and is trying to get social media companies to remove them.
The videos could run afoul of Twitter’s rules against political misinformation, even though they are still available. The platform says it bans “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media” that is “likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. TikTok removed the videos that NBC News flagged to it, citing its “integrity and authenticity” policy, which includes rules about misinformation. (NBC News)
Greg Price, a senior political consulting group X Strategies, who shared the viral supercut of Fetterman, pushed back.
And no, I did not in fact "doctor" any of it.https://t.co/StC89Soe6E
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 15, 2022
Others pointed out NBC News needs to get its accusations straight – are they saying he "doctored" them or "lightly edited" the videos?
This is an odd claim. All video news providers edit video. They have to. NBC News does. But doctoring is a potentially libelous claim. Merriam-Webster says the word means "to alter deceptively." That is what they said Greg Price did. (2)
— Jim Stinson (@jimstinson) September 15, 2022
If you read @BenjaminGoggin's story: There are no multimedia comparisons. The headline says doctored. But the story uses phrases like "slight edits" and "lightly edited videos." My gosh, NBC and MSNBC do such editing every day. @greg_price11 (4)
— Jim Stinson (@jimstinson) September 15, 2022
The bottom line: This is from the playbook created to respond to James O'Keefe. He changed the debate when he released ambush videos of ACORN in 2009 and 2010. Their response was to accuse him of editing. (7)
— Jim Stinson (@jimstinson) September 15, 2022
The full video from Fetterman's 9/11 abortion speech can be viewed here. Price's clips do nothing to exaggerate the progressive's problems, as Fetterman's speech issues are evident throughout.
On Wednesday, Fetterman reportedly agreed to debate his GOP opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, but wants closed-captioning used as well as two practice sessions ahead of the debate.