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- President Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appearing to stammer during a press conference.
- The Fox Business video took portions of Pelosi’s weekly briefing with news reporters and compiled them in a "supercut" of stammers.
- After showing the video, Fox Business personalities speculated about Pelosi’s age and health.
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President Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted a Fox Business video compilation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appearing to profusely stammer during a press conference.
The segment took portions of Pelosi’s weekly briefing with news reporters on Capitol Hill and compiled them in a "fast Fox News supercut of little stumbles," as Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell described them on Twitter.
"This video is different from the slowed and distorted ‘drunk’ one, but it serves the same purpose, by attempting to disparage Speaker Pelosi," Harwell added. "It’s also stripped of context, cut and edited so as to make it hugely disorienting, probably by design."
The short segments provided little to no context of Pelosi’s statements and revealed roughly 30 seconds of her complete 21-minute press conference.
"’PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,’" Trump added in a caption to the clip.
After playing the clip, Fox Business personalities speculated about Pelosi’s health and age. Pelosi is 79 years old.
"It was worse yesterday, we played another clip," Fox News commentator Gregg Jarrett said after playing the Pelosi clips. "She could not put a subject with a predicate in the same sentence. What’s going on?"
"I’m 76 years old, she’s a couple years older than I am and we all age a little differently," Fox News political commentator Ed Rollins replied. "My sense is she has a very big job, I think she’s getting worn down."
"She’s always was very neat, very proper," Rollins said. "I think she’s very inarticulate, which she’s never been in the past. And I think to a certain extent she needs to kind of step in the background and not be out in the front as much."
During the 2016 election, conservative news outlets repeatedly speculated about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health based on video clips.
Pelosi has been targeted this week by critics who have uploaded separate, altered clips of her speeches. Videos of her speaking at various events have been been doctored and slowed down to create the effect of her slurring her words, according to The Washington Post. The videos received millions of views on websites like Facebook before being taken down.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Fox Business told INSIDER that its video segment "did not slow down any aspect" of Pelosi’s press conference.
The videos come amid mounting tensions between Trump and Pelosi. The two leaders levied personal insults at each other this week after a contentious meeting in the Cabinet Room on Wednesday.
During the meeting, Trump delivered an ultimatum to Pelosi and Democrats: cease the numerous congressional investigations against him and his family or he would slow-walk the country’s infrastructure goals.
Trump reportedly left the meeting abruptly, and later went on a freewheeling tirade against the Democrats at the press conference in the Rose Garden.
"These people were out to get us — the Republican Party and President Trump," Trump said in the third-person at the time. "They were out to get us."
On Thursday, Trump paraded several of his senior officials in front of news cameras and asked if his temperament at the meeting was accurately described in several news reports. Senior officials like White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied Trump had acted distastefully.
See Also:
- Nancy Pelosi says she’ll start working with Trump once the ‘extremely stable genius’ starts acting more presidential
- Trump’s so disgusted by Democrats talking about impeachment that he’ll call it only the ‘I-word’
- Nancy Pelosi says Trump stonewalling Congress ‘could be an impeachable offense’ in her strongest stance yet
Source: Business Insider – dchoi@businessinsider.com (David Choi)