Doctored Nancy Pelosi videos, making her speech appear slurred, spread rapidly on social media
The videos emerged as a war of words between Pelosi and President Trump has been heating up.
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Doctored videos that make it appear as if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is slurring her speech are circulating on social media as a war of words heats up between the speaker and President Donald Trump.
The sources of the videos are not known but their rapid spread underscored how fake information can easily reach a wide audience before it can be corrected.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, was among those who tweeted out one of the videos of the California Democrat, before later taking the tweet down.
Pelosi did not immediately respond to the video. She was in the Philadelphia region Friday morning for an appearance at Delaware County Community College with Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon and Madeleine Dean, both Pennsylvania Democrats, to talk about college affordability and post-secondary career opportunities.
The doctored video shows Pelosi speaking Wednesday at a Center for American Progress event, during which she said Trump’s refusal to cooperate with congressional investigations was tantamount to a “coverup."
One version, posted by the conservative Politics WatchDog Facebook page, has been viewed more than 2 million times and generated more than 26,000 comments by Friday morning, with users suggesting Pelosi was drunk or was suffering a stroke.
The Washington Post said an analysis of one video by its journalists and outside researchers “indicate that the video has been slowed to about 75 percent of its original speed. To possibly correct for how that speed change would deepen her tone, the video also appears to have been altered to modify her pitch, to more closely resemble the sound of her natural speech.”
Trump also tweeted a 30-second video broadcast from Fox Business that spliced together instances of Pelosi stumbling over her words during a 20-minute news conference.
“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,” the president tweeted about the distorted video.
On Thursday, the enmity between Trump and Pelosi deteriorated, with Pelosi questioning his fitness for office and with Trump questioning her sanity after a dramatic blow-up at the White House.