White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted Monday morning that President Trump “strongly condemns” a violent parody video depicting him stabbing, shooting and impaling prominent members of the media and political opponents, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney.
Grisham tweeted on Monday that the president had not seen the video yet, but would review it “shortly.”
The video was shown at a conference held by the pro-Trump group American Priority at the president’s Miami, Florida, resort last week, as The New York Times first reported on Sunday. The video, a digitally altered version of a scene from 2015’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” inserts Trump’s head on the body of the shooter as well as several media logos and the faces of Democratic rivals on the victims.
Re: the video played over the weekend: The @POTUS @realDonaldTrump has not yet seen the video, he will see it shortly, but based upon everything he has heard, he strongly condemns this video.
— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) October 14, 2019
As of about 8:30 a.m. PT, Trump had sent 13 tweets on Monday morning — including a message supporting former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on “Dancing With the Stars” — but had not commented on the video.
You can watch the nearly-4 minute clip below:
Journalists were quick to denounce the video. The White House Correspondents Association issued a statement saying it was “horrified” by it, while Politico’s Andrew Desiderio called it an “incitement to violence.”
CNN issued a statement calling on Trump to condemn the parody: “The president and his family, the White House and the Trump campaign need to denounce it immediately in the strongest possible terms,” the network said in a statement. “Anything less equates to a tacit endorsement of violence and should not be tolerated by anyone.”
A statement on the Twitter account for American Priority called the video “unauthorized” and said it was shown in a side room. “The video was not approved, seen, or sanctioned by the #AMPFest19 organizers,” it says. It goes on to criticize the Times for not reporting on “any of the sanctioned events in the article.”
trTrump ‘Strongly Condemns’ Violent Parody Video Depicting Him Attacking Media, Political Opponents