A video of the U.S. President, Donald Trump during his health care deliverance speech, a small event took place that was caught on video. A small disabled boy, Monty Weer, reaches out to shake Trump’s hand and it appears that Donald ignores him. This snippet caught attention after being released, July 28th, and even caught the attention of the series milking fantasy author, J.K. Rowling.
She went on a twitter tirade that evening, split between a couple tweets, saying, “My mother used a wheelchair. I witnessed people uncomfortable around her disability, but if they had a shred of decency they got over it," she continued. "So, yes, that clip of Trump looking deliberately over a disabled child's head, ignoring his outstretched hand, has touched me on the raw.” The video does show what J.K. Rowling is talking about, however, that clip was posted by "PhuKenh", an obvious troll account, which is a whole situation on its own.
Did Trump mock a disabled reporter?
The tweet had received over 70,000 re-tweets, despite the spreading of the false news.
Donald Trump’s relationship with the disabled community has been a little hazy to determine since he mocked that reporter with a disability back in 2015. That one was not Fake News, believe it or not. The video of Donald Trump showed him making exaggerated gestures and holding his hand in a way similar to the disabled reporter, Serge Kovaleski. Trump later confirmed, without confirming, saying in a set of tweets January 9th, 2017, “For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him..."groveling" when he totally changed a 16-year-old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!” This is what made the tweet by J.K.
Rowling much more believable.
If there is one thing we can agree on about Donald Trump, is that Celebrity Apprentice was very entertaining and that fake news is an actual issue that he tends to cross paths with. This being one of them. While the Twitter-finger President hasn’t responded, the mother of the disabled child said it best, explaining the video clip was misleading, and how Trump went to the boy first when he entered the room. Which can be seen in the full video. The biggest question is, why did Rowling not do her research before letting her prejudice speak? After all, this is something she’s had issues with Donald Trump doing in the past. Despite my disposition on Trump, the fake news hurts everyone.
And he deserves an apology at the very the least. Even though he did mock that disabled reporter back in 2015. Unfortunately, that is not what the "Twitterverse" got.
No apology to Trump from Rowling
The back peddling went into a different direction, and J.K. Rowling apologized to the family about the entire situation, and not to the President. Meanwhile, Twitter made their feelings known about Rowling, who on several occasions, makes her feelings clear on U.S. politics.
My issue is what happens to people like this. The misleading information received so many re-tweets and favorites in comparison to the apology tweet, that declared the video as misleading. There will be several people in the dark about the situation and they will run with the fake news.
Politics needs to have an unbiased delivery, which is why I don’t favor this topic. The information has to be oil and water to the opinion and still manage to deliver the story. In conclusion, fake news will be fake news, Donald Trump doesn’t dislike disabled kids, just that one disabled reporter, and you’ll have to determine whether your sources come from a troll account with a double entendre for a username or a children’s fantasy writer.