Actress Debra Messing used a deceptive clip about vice president Mike Pence — that aired on left-wing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC show on Thursday — to claim that the Trump administration is “conning the American people.”
“THIS says it all,” said Messing on Friday. “Trump & his cronies are all in with LIES, COVERING UP their inaction & negligence, CONNING the American [people], and FAILING our 1st responders.”
Attached to her tweet, the Will & Grace actress shared a deceptive video clip from another Twitter account falsely claiming that the vice president had delivered empty boxes of PPE [personal protective equipment] to first responders.
The clip was previously promulgated by Jimmy Kimmel, who aired the deceptively edited video implying that Pence was faking his recent effort to help a healthcare facility — a move that even journalists at NBC News and BuzzFeed News called Kimmel out for, adding that the original C-SPAN footage disproves the late-night TV host’s claim.
“Well, can I carry the empty ones? Just for the camera?” Kimmel said after playing his edited version of the video. The television host later admitted to his deceptiveness, but offered a backhanded apology.
“[I]t would appear that [the vice president] was joking about carrying empty boxes for a staged publicity stunt,” said Kimmel. “The full video reveals that he was carrying full boxes for a staged publicity stunt.”
“My apologies,” he added. “I know how dearly this administration values truth.”
Debra Messing is starting to make promoting fake news a habit. Earlier this week, the It Could Be Worse actress tweeted and the deleted a tweet linking to a article smearing Tara Reade, the woman who has accused presumptive Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault. But Messing’s tweet linked to a post by anti-Trump activists who were permanently banned from Twitter for setting up fake accounts.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.