WaPo Reporter Dave Weigel Deleted Bogus Trump Rally Photo After White House Called Him Out Saturday Morning

The White House called out Washington Post politics reporter Dave Weigel early Saturday morning on his lying tweet mocking President Donald Trump about the size of the crowd at Trump’s rally in Pensacola, Florida Friday night, prompting Weigel to delete the tweet within minutes. Later Saturday, Trump went after Weigel on Twitter demanding an apology which Weigel gave. Trump later demanded the Post fire Weigel. Inexplicably, Weigel in his apology credited Daily Mail reporter David Martosko with informing him of his “mistake” and not the Trump White House.

Weigel was mocking a tweet by Trump posted at 7:41 a.m. EST about the rally crowd being “packed to the rafters”.

Principal Deputy White House Press Secretary Raj Shah tweeted to Weigel at 8:08 a.m., “Actually that photo was taken hours before rally began”. Shah included a tweet by Daily Mail reporter David Martosko from Friday night that featured 360 degree video taken while Trump spoke at the Pensacola Bay Center rally that showed a full house.

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/939332294124425216

The time of Shah’s correction to Weigel indicates that Weigel jumped ugly on Trump with the bogus photo within 27 minutes of Trump’s tweet.

https://twitter.com/RajShah45/status/939481897616445441

Weigel replied to Shah at 8:25 a.m. that he was deleting the bogus tweet, but insisted he saw Trump in the photo, “Ah, I saw the image of him in the lower right and thought it was later. I’ll delete.”

Image via @alimhaider/Twitter

Weigel replied at 8:36 a.m. to a civilian who pointed him to the Martosko video, “Yes, David was right! I’ve deleted it.”

Weigel also replied to a thread about his posting of the bogus photo, writing, “I was (full of shit). It was a stupid mistake that explains why I should not tweet before 9 am on a weekend.”

With regard to Weigel’s claim he saw Trump in the photo, there are two issues that a decent reporter would notice: One, the man in question is walking virtually alone with no Secret Service or aides in front and behind him. Second that the man in question is wearing a black tie where as Trump wore a bright red tie at the rally.

The later Twitter exchange between Trump and Weigel:

Martosko tweeted his confusion over Weigel mentioning him.

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/939621522179751936

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/939633674064224258

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier Saturday, liberals online, including the site Raw Story, were spreading a photo of the rally taken well before Trump took the stage at the Pensacola Bay Center that showed many empty sections of seats. It was falsely claimed that Trump could be seen entering the rally in the photo. Several reporters took to Twitter to debunk the false claims, posting photos and videos from the rally while Trump was actually on stage.

https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/939494292363661312

Raw Stories tweet is still up, but the story it linked to has been corrected and almost completely rewritten, including the title which claimed that Trump spoke to a “Mostly Empty Arena.”

“Editor’s note: An earlier photo showed the Trump rally as the seats were filling up. Videos below show blocks of empty seats in the upper deck with only a few rally attendees standing at the rails.”

“UPDATE [12:45 PM Eastern, December 9, 2017]: The initial version of this story included two Tweets that have since been deleted by their authors. One picture included a green arrow that claimed to point to President Trump. Further video evidence show that it was not.

Additionally, we must clarify that further video evidence shows a larger crowd, though no photos have yet emerged showing a “packed” crowd.”…

This is why President Trump is always imploring the media to ‘turn the cameras around’ and show the crowd.

Photo of author
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!