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White House Says Trump ‘Strongly Condemns’ Violent Video Attacking Media Violent Video Was Product of Right-Wing Provocateurs and Trump Allies
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday said President Trump “strongly condemns” a gruesome fake video that depicts him shooting members of the news media and political rivals, which was shown at his Florida resort. WASHINGTON — The creator of a gruesome video that showed a fake President Trump killing journalists and political opponents and that was played at a meeting of a pro-Trump group over the weekend is part of a loose network of right-wing provocateurs with a direct line to the White House.
But, aides said, he had not seen it and planned to view it “shortly.” The unidentified creator of the video operates under the name of “The GeekzTeam” and has proclaimed on Twitter to be a “red blooded American with ZERO tolerance for the liberal agenda.” Like many in the online group, the person specializes in creating pro-Trump internet content, often by remixing the president’s image into clips from popular movies and television shows.
“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,” the White House spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a Twitter post on Monday morning. Another of the provocateurs, Logan Cook, who often has posted the videos on MemeWorld, his website, participated in a social media summit at the White House in July and took his children to meet the president in the Oval Office, accompanied by Dan Scavino, the White House social media director.
Mr. Trump, who has been posting on Twitter about other topics Monday — including wishing his former press secretary good luck on his appearance on Monday evening on “Dancing with the Stars” — has not mentioned or condemned the video himself. The connections underscore how the president’s escalating war on what he calls the “fake news” media has elevated people from the far-right fringe into allies who defend Mr. Trump with extreme language and images.
The video was played at a conference for Mr. Trump’s supporters at Trump National Doral Miami last week. The New York Times on Sunday obtained footage of the video, which the event organizer, American Priority, said was part of a “meme exhibit.” The group said the video was not “approved, seen or sanctioned” by the conference organizers, and it criticized The Times for focusing on the video and not on any of the other events, “including our panel conversation LITERALLY condemning political violence.” The president did not mention the video on Monday in the blizzard of Tweets he sent out wishing his former press secretary good luck on “Dancing with the Stars,” defending his recent decisions on Syria and attacking Democrats for their impeachment inquiry. But Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump condemned the video. It was shown at a meeting of American Priority, a pro-Trump group, celebrating free speech at Trump National Doral Miami, which he owns.
Mr. Trump regularly lashes out at the news media and dismisses coverage critical of his policies as “fake news.” Many of the Trump supporters who attended — including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son — said they did not condone the violence portrayed in the video and were not aware that it had played on a loop in a conference room next to the Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the resort.
While Mr. Trump did not address the video specifically on Monday morning, he did take aim at one of his favorite political targets who was among those featured in the video — Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Schiff is one of three committee chairmen overseeing an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump. The goal of the online community that makes and shares grisly videos like this is to use what are known as “spicy memes” to fire up the president’s base online, stir outrage among his opponents and provoke coverage by the mainstream media, which often helps amplify the messages.
The video appears to be adapted from a 2014 dark comedy, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” and portrays the inside of the “Church of Fake News.” A character with a superimposed image of Mr. Trump’s head on a body opens fire in the church. The parishioners have the faces of his critics or the logos of media organizations. Some of these meme-makers make money from their creations by soliciting donations or running ads on YouTube. (Data from SocialBlade, a website that tracks social media statistics, estimates that TheGeekzTeam has earned less than $2,000 from his or her channel over the past year.) Others do it purely for the notoriety — or, best of all, an approving retweet from the president.
One of the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., was at the conference, where he spoke on Sunday about social media companies and asserted that the companies censor him and his father. His spokesman said he had not seen the video and condemned violence of any kind. TheGeekzTeam has been a prolific meme-maker for several years, posting videos with titles like “Captain MAGA” and “Trump: The Punisher” to YouTube and to r/the_donald, a large pro-Trump forum on Reddit. The video shown at the American Priority meeting was first posted on YouTube in July 2018.
“Regardless of political party, we should all reject any and all violence in our politics, whether it’s directed towards members of the media, politicians, the family members of politicians or political activists,” the spokesman, Andrew Surabian, said Monday. Earlier this year, the account began contributing to MemeWorld, a centralized meme repository organized by Mr. Cook, who goes by the name “Carpe Donktum” online.
President Trump’s former spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also spoke at the conference. Ms. Sanders on Sunday said she was not aware of the video and was at the conference to speak about unity. She, too, condemned violence. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spoke at the conference as well, and his spokeswoman said the governor had not seen the video and does not condone violence. Mr. Cook’s website acts as a clearinghouse for offensive memes and videos, allowing users to post homemade videos that often depict Mr. Trump as a crusader or superhero who uses violence to suppress news outlets, individual journalists and political opponents.
Midday on Monday, someone identifying as Carpe Donktum, owner of “MemeWorld,” a website of pro-Trump memes, said one of the site’s contributors, TheGeekzTeam, created the video. TheGeekzTeam describes itself as “a red blooded American with ZERO tolerance for the liberal agenda. Trump 2020!!!” On Monday, Mr. Cook’s site posted a statement disavowing political violence while defending TheGeekzTeam, saying that the video showing Mr. Trump shooting, stabbing and punching his foes was “clearly satirical.”
Carpe Donktum defended the video as “CLEARLY satirical.” Mr. Cook’s own videos, as well as his one-stop shop of a website, have become a go-to resource for Mr. Scavino, who often shares the video with Mr. Trump. In April, Mr. Cook landed in the center of a controversy over a doctored version of a video in which former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. addressed his interactions with women.
“No reasonable person would believe that this video was a call to action, or an endorsement of violence towards the media,” Carpe Donktum wrote in a statement. In the doctored video, a cartoon version of Mr. Biden appears to be nuzzling the back of his head. Mr. Trump shared the video with his 60 million followers on Twitter at the time.
Among Carpe Donktum’s Twitter followers are Donald Trump Jr.; Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and avid supporter of the president; Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump 2020; and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director. The Twitter account was suspended on Monday afternoon. “Trolls in the White House,” Mr. Cook wrote in a photo he shared to his personal Instagram account on July 11, of his family greeting Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.
In 2017, Mr. Trump shared on Twitter a less violent fake video of himself wrestling and punching a figure whose head was replaced with the CNN logo. At the White House social media meeting, which honored pro-Trump meme-makers and other members of the far-right ecosystem, Mr. Trump praised a room full of content creators as people who had worked with Mr. Scavino on ideas that ultimately saved him money on advertising.
As the impeachment inquiry has moved forward and House Democrats have interviewed witnesses, Mr. Trump has stepped up his public lashings of news organizations, calling the news media the “enemy of the people.” “He’ll come up with ideas, and you’ll come up with ideas,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Scavino and the attendees. “And he’ll run into my office. He said, ‘You got to see this.’”
News executives have cautioned Mr. Trump against directing violent language at journalists. In 2018, one of the president’s supporters, Cesar A. Sayoc Jr., was arrested and charged with mailing package bombs to some of the president’s Democratic critics ahead of the midterm elections. Mr. Sayoc’s van was covered with pro-Trump and anti-news media stickers. Addressing the group, Mr. Trump added, “Some of you are extraordinary. I can’t say everybody, but some of you are extraordinary. The crap you think of is unbelievable.”
Mr. Trump, at the time, called the mailings “terrorizing acts,” and said they were “despicable and have no place in our country.” But later at a rally, the president accused the news media of trying to use Mr. Sayoc’s support of Mr. Trump “to score political points against me and the Republican Party.”
Earlier this year, Mr. Sayoc pleaded guilty to 65 felonies. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about why Mr. Cook was invited to participate in the White House social media meeting in the first place.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting. Tracing the origins of the video shown over the weekend illustrates the often-complicated origins of “spicy memes.” The video was taken from the 2014 movie “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” and showed the actor Colin Firth in a gory church massacre scene. In the movie, the people killed are members of a fundamentalist church.
In an earlier online iteration the target was just one news organization: CNN. Mr. Trump’s head, Mr. Trump’s head was superimposed on Mr. Firth’s body but all the people punched, shot, and stabbed had CNN logos covering their faces.
“You are fake news,” Mr. Trump said as he pointed a gun at a woman with the logo The creator of that original video, Andres Hughes, said online that he made the video and submitted it to a meme contest run by the right-wing website Infowars three years ago, hoping to win a $20,000 prize.
But in July 2018, the doctored film clip was further altered to include new targets. Other news organizations, like PBS, NPR, Politico and The Washington Post, were added to the mix.
Mr. Trump was also depicted killing and maiming political enemies like Representative Maxine Waters of California, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as Hillary Clinton and others.
The video, which had fewer than 1,000 views on YouTube as of Sunday night, had clocked nearly 200,000 views by midday Monday. On Sunday, TheGeekzTeam appeared to celebrate the video’s success, posting a new video on Twitter that showed CNN’s logo exploding after coming into contact with the phrase “Trump memes.”
An email to an address listed on the creator’s YouTube channel was not immediately returned. American Priority denounced the video shown at its event as not “approved, seen or sanctioned” by the organizers and denounced violence of any kind. But the group’s founder, Alex Phillips, has his own longstanding relationship with Mr. Cook, and in the past has supported his work online.
In a video posted to Facebook in June, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Cook played down the idea that such content can foment hate and violence. “As far as I’m concerned, hate speech is a made-up word,” Mr. Cook says in the video. “You can’t cause violence with words.”
Mr. Phillips said he agreed. “The truth hurts sometimes,” he responds. “Deal with it.”
Annie Karnie and Katie Rogers reported from Washington, and Kevin Roose from New York. Jeremy Peters and Kitty Bennett contributed reporting from Washington.