NBC and CBS Falsely Claim Trump Forced From Stage By Black Lives Matter Protesters at NC Rally (Updated)

UPDATE: A thank you from Donald Trump—

* * * * * * * *

NBC and CBS both falsely reported that leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “abruptly” ended his speech and left the stage after being repeatedly interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday night.

The reports were flat-out lies. Video of Trump’s speech shows he ended the speech on his own accord. Other videos show Trump then mingled with the crowd afterward for several minutes shaking hands and signing autographs.

Trump Raliegh Twitter
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Raleigh, NC, December 4, 2015, image via Twitter.

A total of about two dozen protesters–some protesting solo, others in groups–were forcibly removed from the rally by security as the protesters disrupted Trump ten times over the course of his 50:35 speech. Many of the protesters were Black Lives Matter supporters.


Compilation video by NBC News of Trump protesters at Raleigh, NC campaign rally, December 4, 2015.

A capacity crowd of 7,800 attended the rally held at the Dorton Arena. About one hundred more protesters gathered outside the arena. WRAL-TV reported the protesters “at times blocked gates at the event” trying to prevent Trump supporters from attending the rally. A protester reported on Twitter that state troopers started preventing them from blocking the entrances. That protester also claimed there were about forty protesters inside the arena.

One false news report was made by NBC reporter Katy Tur, who is assigned to cover the Trump campaign. Tur posted to Twitter from the rally:

“Now 10. Trump ends speech abruptly and leaves stage.”

Tur’s report was immediately picked up by MSNBC’s top-rated Rachel Maddow Show.

The other false report was by CBS’ Trump campaign reporter Sopan Deb and was headlined, Black Lives Matter protesters cut off Donald Trump in North Carolina

Deb’s article was written with an opinion slant to embarrass Trump over his criticism of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for allowing Black Lives Matter protesters to take over his stage and microphone at a rally last summer.

“GOP frontrunner Donald Trump abruptly ended his rally in his first visit to the state after his speech was interrupted at least 10 times by protesters – many of them chanting “Black Lives Matter!” as they were escorted out.”

…”But it was Trump who ended the speech early, which was striking, given his comments at an August press conference about fellow presidential candidate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who himself cut a rally short in Seattle as a result of Black Lives Matter protesters.

“I thought that was disgusting,” Trump said at the time. “That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women — the microphone. They just took the whole place over.”

“The protesters overshadowed Trump’s escalation of some of his rhetoric on foreign policy during his speech…”

When the first protester spoke out, Trump used the interruption to criticize the media covering his campaign:

“You know the shame is, that it’s one, it’s one person and the dishonest media–they are dishonest–you don’t believe how dishonest. They are the most, they are the most dishonest people. I mean a big percentage of them, they are so dishonest. They are so dishonest. They will make that one person into the headline. ‘Trump has’…they can’t even use the plural. They can’t put the ‘s’ but they’ll figure it out. But they’ll say, “Trump has protesterrr.””

Trump turned out to be wrong about the number of protesters he would end up dealing with Friday night but was dead right about the dishonest media.

Rachel Maddow did a segment on her show Friday night about the Trump rally. The headline and description at MSNBC reads:

Donald Trump ends speech after 10 protest interruptions

“Rachel Maddow shows Republican front-runner Donald Trump being interrupted repeatedly while speaking at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, abruptly ending the speech after the tenth interruption. Duration: 2:13”

Maddow mocked Trump for initially saying the ‘dishonest media’ would highlight the one protester when it turned out to be ten protests during his speech. Maddow noted one of those “dishonest reports” was at the rally and counted the number of protests. Maddow ended her report stating, “At the end of the tenth interruption, Mr. Trump ended his speech and walked off the stage.”

Video of Trump’s speech shows that after “the last question” (as stated by the Trump staffer with the crowd mic) from the crowd was posed at the 49:45 mark, Trump spent a minute answering. He then pivoted and went into his closing remarks.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentleman, this has been such an honor. When you…remember this, remember this…(Protester shouts) I think he came back, I think he came back. Don’t worry about him, we’ll do this quickly…One pe…So, that’s okay. Good job. Good job. Individual people, but they’re all friends they all want to make havoc.”

Trump then resumed his closing remarks with a profound observation on the groundswell in the country.

“We are sitting on something that’s bigger than any of us understands or knows. I always say, “Make our country great again.” And I’ve been say been saying for the last three weeks–because I’ve really gotten to know the people. We are going to make our country great again. Greater than ever before! I love you! Thank you very much! We’re gonna make it greater than ever before! Thank you everybody! Thank you! (Audio cut, Trump speaks one more sentence.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_m1u3RQh8

(Go to 49:45)

Trump began his closing remarks before the last protest. He then spoke for thirty seconds after that final protester interruption. Trump built his closing statement to a crescendo and ended with several ‘thank yous’. There was nothing abrupt or forced about the end of the speech.

And far from “leaving the stage” due to the protesters, Trump mingled with the audience after the speech. He spent several minutes shaking hands, signing autographs and posing for pictures with supporters as he has done at other rallies.

According to the YouTube video, Trump spoke for about 50:35, putting the speech in the ballpark range of his other campaign speeches. Trump’s voice was weak and scratchy throughout the speech.

NBC’s Tur also incorrectly reported the length of the speech, putting it at 49 minutes.

NBC’s Ali Vitali also posted a report, to NBC, in which he too made it seem the protesters forced Trump to cut short his appearance.

Trump Interrupted Ten Times at North Carolina Rally

…”The first interruption came mere minutes into Trump’s remarks to a full house of nearly 8,000, and they continued periodically until Trump’s abrupt exit from the stage.”

…”The candidate, whose usual bellow was replaced by a rasp that sounded like the start of a cold, ended his rally-turned-town-hall suddenly and earlier than usual. The full event lasted less than an hour, a rarity for a candidate who usually stumps for at least an hour and who spoke and took questions for almost two hours a few nights earlier in Manassas, Virginia.”

Senior Trump adviser Daniel Scavino, Jr. went on a Twitter tear Friday night after the media lied about what happened at the rally. Scavino posted screen grabs of other Trump rally videos with the length of the rallies. He also posted several short videos taken from the stage of Trump working the crowd after the speech. (Note Scavino had the speech length at 55 minutes–4:25 longer than the speech was but that is still a normal speech time for Trump.)

https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/673032101470576640

Scavino also posted a 4:06 Periscope video of Trump working the crowd to reinforce the point that he did not ‘abruptly’ leave the stage due to protesters.

Scavino solely went after NBC. Apparently he was not aware of CBS telling the same false story.

The fairest report on the Trump rally in Raleigh was written by Jeff Tiberii for WUNC-FM, a public radio station.

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Kristinn Taylor has contributed to The Gateway Pundit for over ten years. Mr. Taylor previously wrote for Breitbart, worked for Judicial Watch and was co-leader of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com. He studied journalism in high school, visited the Newseum and once met David Brinkley.

You can email Kristinn Taylor here, and read more of Kristinn Taylor's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!