Rep. Scalise posts manipulated video clip of disabled man’s interview with Biden
On Sunday, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La) posted a manipulated video clip of an interview between Joe Biden and a paralyzed activist Ady Barkan, who has ALS and uses a wheelchair. Scalise has already deleted the video, but I’ll explain what happened.
Barkan doesn’t speak through his mouth but through a computer. So, in the interview with Biden, you don’t see Barkan moving his mouth, but he is controlling a computer that speaks for him.
In the interview, Barkan asked Biden about whether he would redirect funding for law enforcement into social services, mental health counseling, and affordable housing. Biden replied that he has proposed that kind of reform but that it’s not the same as defunding or getting rid of police. Barkan then said, “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?” Biden said, “Yes, absolutely.”
After this, Scalise posted a video tweet that showed a clip from the interview, but added “for police” to make it seem like Barkan said, “redirect some of the funding for police.” The audio for “for police” was pulled out of another part of the interview.
So, what it means is that Scalise took advantage of Barkan’s disability in that they were able to add audio and think that nobody would notice because his mouth was not moving.
Twitter flagged the video as “manipulated media.”
Barkan said on Twitter “These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts. You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain… You owe the entire disability community an apology.”
Scalise has not apologized but deleted the video. His spokesperson said that they felt Biden did say he was open to redirecting money and decided to edit the video to make it a condensed version for Twitter.
Biden said Scalise intentionally tried to spread misinformation at the expense of a man who uses assistive technology.