Fake News MSNBC Runs Video of USBP Dumping Water But Conceals Date Proving Obama Was in Charge
While there are a number of hosts and contributors at MSNBC who could lay claim to the title of the most overt liar in pushing leftist narratives, weekend host Joy Reid would most certainly be among the front-running contenders for that dubious honor.
Newsbusters reported this weekend that, among other particularly egregious remarks on her “AM Joy” program, Reid ran video showing U.S. Border Patrol agents dumping out jugs of water that had been strategically placed in desert regions near the border for illegal immigrants.
What Reid neglected to mention — indeed, she even tried to cover it up with a chyron across the bottom of the screen — was the date of the video of Border Patrol agents dumping out water left for illegal immigrants, which was Jan. 10, 2011 — squarely within the first term of the prior administration of former President Barack Obama.
When the snippet of video was played on the full screen, the date of the video was obscured by the chyron. However, when the video was placed in a split-screen with Reid’s guests — Democrat Sens. Mazie Hirono from Hawaii and Jeff Merkely from Oregon — the 2011 date was briefly visible … though it received no mention.
Indeed, it was clearly insinuated by the remarks of Reid that the video had just recently been obtained, with the obvious intent being to blame the “cruel” behavior on the Trump administration.
Nor was this a one-off mistake by a lone host. Newsbusters reported that Reid was simply picking up where fellow MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell had left off when he implied the same thing with the same 2011 video during his Friday night “The Last Word” program.
On Saturday, as part of a discussion about the 7-year-old girl from Guatemala who had died in Border Patrol custody from severe dehydration mere hours after being apprehended with her father for illegally crossing the border into New Mexico — as it turned out, she hadn’t eaten any food or drank any water for several days — Reid brought up the old video that she purported to be new.
“One of the issues was dehydration. We’re going to show you some video … but there is video of Border Patrol agents dumping water on the ground — water that was meant to be left for migrants. This is from a Tucson-based aid group,” Reid said Saturday, as the video showed agents kicking over and pouring out gallon jugs of water left under a tree for illegal immigrants by a pro-migrant organization.
On Sunday, Reid again referenced the old video as being new and said:
“We saw Border Patrol dumping water that was made for desperate migrants being dumped out on the ground. This sort of extravagant cruelty is unusual for any administration, but, for this administration, they seem to think it’s effective for their base.”
Again, that particular incident occurred in 2011, and not without good reason. The supplies of water left in the desert near the border for thirsty illegal immigrants — while no doubt left with the best of intentions — actually served to place more migrants in danger by tempting them to make the dangerous illicit journey across the border through inhospitable regions.
The MSNBC hosts, not to mention their producers and other staffers, should have noticed and noted publicly the date of the video clip they were purporting to have occurred under the Trump administration.
Indeed, it isn’t like such information would be difficult to obtain, as it was conspicuously posted in the bottom corner of the video — when not deliberately obscured via a chyron — and had been the subject of some media attention when it was initially released to the public in January of this year by a liberal humanitarian group opposed to migrant deaths along the border.
In fact, the use of the chyron amounts to altering the video to distort the truth of its provenance. There’s a word for that. It’s “propaganda.”
In reality, Tucson News Now reported that the release of the “No More Deaths” video in January had prompted a media response from the Border Patrol that explicitly stated: “All agents in the Tucson Sector have been instructed not to remove or destroy water stations, food or other resources left along trails in the desert. The Border Patrol is aware of the video from approximately six years ago depicting agents damaging water bottles.
“The Border Patrol shares a common goal with Non-Governmental Organizations to preserve human life and to prevent injury. We do not condone or encourage destruction or tampering with any water or food caches. Furthermore, anyone aware of these activities occurring is encouraged to it immediately to the Border Patrol,” the statement added, making it clear that current Border Patrol policy prohibits the sort of actions seen in the 2011 Obama-era video.
In the end, we see that not just one, but two MSNBC hosts dishonestly portrayed a 7-year-old video as having just occurred when they almost certainly knew — or should have known — that it was not recent and made efforts to obscure that knowledge from their viewers and the public.
This is just the latest example of how that network routinely places leftist narratives ahead of actual facts and the truth, and disgustingly attempted to smear Border Patrol agents as cruel and uncaring monsters who would pour out perfectly good water left for illegal immigrants … which isn’t the case at all.
MSNBC ever admitting that — or casting a critical eye toward the “cruelty” that occurred during the Obama years — is rather unlikely to ever happen, unfortunately.
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