Reacting to word that the U.S. Supreme Court has approved the Trump administration's ban on new transgender military recruits, CNN correspondent Jessica Dean ran a piece which deceptively edited a clip of Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign to make it appear he had made a general promise to support "LGBTQ" rights which he is now allegedly breaking.
In fact, the clip of Trump in question was responding to the Pulse night club mass shooting as then-candidate Trump promised to prevent more such attacks on LGBTQ Americans by Muslim terrorists -- a specification which was carefully cut out for the CNN piece.
Nearing the end of The Lead on Tuesday afternoon, host Jake Tapper informed viewers of the Supreme Court decision and then added: "You mght recall that during the 2016 presidential campaign, LGBTQ allies of then-candidate Donald Trump pledged that Trump would be great for their community."
He then recalled that transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner had praised Trump for allowing him to use the women's restroom during a trip to Trump Tower.
Tapper continued: "So, two years into the Trump presidency, with measure after measure suggesting administration hostility to LGBTQ equality, how are those allies explaining today what the President is doing?"
After bringing aboard Dean, Tapper further recounted: "The President even used the term 'LGBTQ' at the Republican Convention -- the first time a nominee ever did that -- but I guess actions speak louder than those five letters."
Introducing the pre-recorded portion, Dean claimed that "it is hard to find evidence that he (Trump) is making good on some really big promises."
The piece began with Dean: "Promises made, promises kept? Candidate Donald Trump was quick to promise his advocacy for the LGBTQ community."
Then came a clip of Trump from his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention: "As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens."
After an obvious jump, Trump was then seen adding: "Believe me."
The quote makes it sound as if candidate Trump made a general suggestion that he would side with gay rights activists on such issues, but an unedited clip of that portion of Trump's speech demonstrates that he was merely promising to protect homosexuals from terrorist attacks rather than imply anything beyond that for other gay rights issues.
The full quote was: "As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful, foreign ideology. Believe me."
Trump was reacting to the attack on the Pulse night club in Orlando from 10 days earlier that left 50 dead and more than another 50 injured. The quote came from within an eight-minute segment when he was speaking about his plans to combat terrorism by jihadists.
Suggesting that this abridged quote meant that Trump was making a more expansive promise about supporting gay rights, Dean continued: "A handful of high-profile members of that community tried to assure peers that Trump would be in their corner." She then recalled that Ambassador Richard Grenell and Caitlyn Jenner were LGBTQ activists who spoke in favor of Trump at the time.
After noting that Jenner praised Trump for siding with allowing transgenders to use the public restroom of their choice, Dean spent the rest of the report fretting over Trump's decision on transgenders in the military without presenting any evidence that he had ever promised to side with liberals on that issue.
In October, when the policy change was first announced, several CNN shows similarly utilized the same quote while slicing off the part showing that Trump was referring to protecting gays from violence by terrorists.
By contrast, when MSNBC covered the issue in October, even while they made essentially the same argument using the same quote, at least they did not edit the quote and deceive viewers about the context.
