White House staff appear to be behind Donald Trump’s provocative tweet on Sunday of an altered video showing him body-slamming a man — in the original footage, World Wrestling Entertainment chief executive Vince McMahon — with a CNN logo for a head.
Trump’s Twitter tirades are long-established. Last week, he brought a firestorm of criticism with his false, insulting claims about MSNBC news presenter Mika Brzezinki — an incident soon accompanied by the allegation that the White House had told Brzezinski and her co-presenter and husband Joe Scarborough that they would block a negative story in the National Enquirer, provided the two curbed their criticism of Trump.
But, in contrast to the Brzezinski tweet, Trump’s CNN blast seems to be part of a war against the media involving advisors.
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Many of Trump’s controversial tweets are posted in the early morning, soon after he awakes alone in the White House and begins watching TV news programs. But the altered video of his bodyslam — initially filmed in 2007 during Trump’s recurring appearances on World Wrestling Entertainment — was put up just before 9:30 a.m. as Trump spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf resort.
The tweet was also distinctive in the source for the video. While Trump’s messages have featured footage, these have almost always been official clips of rallies and White House press opportunities. Sunday’s 28-second GIF was taken from the Reddit platform, from a user whose posts were filled not only with hatred for journalists but also with derogatory statements about Jews and African Americans.
So did Trump discover the video on Reddit or was it found by a staff member?
White House officials are not distancing themselves from Trump. To the contrary, they were praising the tweet as a fightback against hostile media. “The President fights back,” a “senior Trump aide” said. “It’s rich that some of you people can never take a joke.”
And amid the compliments, there was a possible clue to the man behind the initiative — a White House official said, “I thought it was funny. Glad Scavino and the president did that.”
Dan Scavino, whose Twitter feed is also rich with insults of the media, is the White House director of social media. And, as New York magazine noted in May, that job includes combing outlets such as Reddit for material, some of which has subsequently shown up in Trump’s tweets.
Whether or not Scavino was responsible for Sunday’s headline-stealing bodyslam, he was soon promoting it with a retweet.
And so — conveying the official seal of approval — was the White House’s President of the United States account.
