Over the weekend, as several MSNBC shows covered the backlash to Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar dismissively referring to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as "some people did something," it was repeatedly claimed that President Donald Trump and other conservatives took her words "out of context."
Host David Gura even went so far as to make the ridiculous claim that her comments were similar to President George W. Bush's iconic speech delivered at Ground Zero a few days after the attacks.
And host Joy Reid notably hinted that Fox News had taken Omar's words out of context even though the version of the clip played on Fox News programs was generally at least as long as, and in a few cases longer, than the version that most MSNBC programs used last week into the weekend.
On Saturday's Up with David Gura, host Gura recalled that President Trump has recently been hitting Congresswoman Omar in the aftermath of threats being made against her, and then continued:
In a post that is pinned to his Twitter page, there is a misleadingly edited video of comments Congresswoman Omar made, taken out of context, interspersed with graphic images of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Four words were ripped from a 20-minute speech she gave last month to an American Muslim civil rights group's L.A. chapter, she addressed the treatment of Muslims after 9/11.
Then came a short clip of Congresswoman Omar from the speech she gave on March 23 of this year: "-- some people did something, and then all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
Gura elaborated:
The President and conservatives seizing on part of what she said -- again, out of context -- even though, as the Washington Post points out, former President George W. Bush used similar language to describe the terrorist who attacked the U.S. in the speech that he gave on September 14, 2001.
Then came a clip from the speech President Bush gave standing next to a firefighter amid the ruins of the World Trade Center: "-- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
It should go without saying that President Bush had repeatedly talked tough about the terrorists responsible for the attacks, and was promising retaliation, in contrast with Omar who was essentially arguing that the U.S. did too much after the 9/11 attacks.
President Bush also did not vaguely refer to the attacks as merely "something" but called it "knocked these buildings down."
Moments later, frequent guest Elie Mychtal called President Trump a "petty, racist bigot who wants violence against brown people," and then thanked Gura for playing a long enough clip of Omar's speech to show its context.
Ironically, the clip Gura played was one of the shortest clips from the speech played on any of the three cable news networks, which in most cases played what she said both before and after "some people did something."
Later that morning on AM Joy, host Reid brought up Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade's reaction to Omar's comments, and played a clip from the show that failed to demonstrate that Fox and Friends used a clip of Omar that was longer than most other MSNBC shows had played, although Reid also showed extra footage at the top of her show.
