President Donald Trump shared an edited video of Democratic nominee Joe Biden that makes it appear as if the former vice president blasted N.W.A.’s “F*ck tha Police” from his phone. In reality, the clip is from Biden playing the song “Despacito” after being introduced at a Latinos for Biden event by that track’s singer, Luis Fonsi.
As documented by CNN reporter Sarah Mucha, Biden was kicking off Latinx Heritage Month in Florida when he approached the podium following Fonsi’s introduction. Biden told the crowd, “I just have one thing to say.” He then began playing “Despacito” — Fonsi’s smash-hit 2017 song – and bobbed his head along, smiling. Biden cut the audio, saying, “I tell you what: If I had the talent of any one of these people, I’d be elected president by acclamation.”
Just after midnight on Wednesday, Trump retweeted an edited version of the clip that replaced “Despacito” with a clip from “F*ck tha Police,” the legendary N.W.A. jam. Trump added his own commentary to the doctored clip, writing, “What is this all about?”
Twitter has labeled the tweet boosted by the president as “manipulated media,” an apt alliteration for Trump’s habit of boosting bogus news. The president’s penchant for obscuring, warping, or outright ignoring the truth was on display once again. It’s not the first time Twitter has applied this label to something that ended up on Trump’s Twitter feed.
In June, as Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, the president tweeted a video of an altered CNN clip to attack the news media. As TechCrunch reported, a CNN clip of “two toddlers...showing us what real-life besties look like” was manipulated to make it appear as if a CNN chyron underneath a clip of a white child chasing a Black child read “TERRIFIED TODLER [sic] RUNS FROM RACIST BABY.”
As CNN reported, the video was eventually removed due to a copyright claim from the parents of one of the toddlers. But before that, the BBC reported, Twitter gave the video a “manipulated media” warning, a first for a presidential tweet.
Trump has tweeted other edited videos as well. In 2019, he posted a clip depicting yard signs from a world where he is an eternal president, an edit of a Time magazine video for a cover story about the lasting legacy of Trump’s politics. In 2017, he shared a real clip of himself at a WWE professional wrestling event, but the person he was attacking in the clip had their face covered up with the CNN logo.
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