Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday refused to play more than five seconds of a video recently shared by President Donald Trump on Twitter, indicating that the video was offensive to the point of not airing more, Slate reports.
The video depicted Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar interspersed with footage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Trump shared the video on Friday and again on Saturday, captioning it “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
Besides merely posting and retweeting the clip, Trump pinned it to the top of his feed for a short amount of time, as well. The tweet currently remains, but it is no longer pinned.
Wallace was addressing the ensuing controversy with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who joined him on Fox News Sunday . Wallace asked Sanders why Trump was “comfortable putting out horrible images like that” and questioned whether the president was worried that his rhetoric could incite violence against Omar, or the Muslim community in general.
“Certainly nothing could be further from the truth,” Sanders replied. “The president is not trying to incite violence against anybody.” She then described Omar’s comments as “disgusting” and “abhorrent.”
The exchange took place after only a few seconds of the clip was played.
“Now, that was the only five seconds we felt comfortable showing,” Wallace said after airing a snippet of the video. “It goes on in a much worse way for about 43 seconds, of her seeming, no question about it, to minimize 9/11, and then horrible images from 9/11.”
Many have expressed concern with Trump’s sharing of the video. The clip takes out of context a clip of Omar discussing the September 11 terrorist attacks to make it appear that she was dismissive of their gravity. Omar, who was already receiving death threats prior to Trump’s promotion of the video, is now under consideration for additional security detail as a result of the increased vitriol aimed in her direction of late.
Chris Wallace Refuses to Play More Than 5 Seconds of Trump’s ‘Horrible’ Ilhan Omar Vid During Sarah Sanders Interview https://t.co/abKNIZWNof pic.twitter.com/FFD68DOmIl
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) April 14, 2019
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was quick to condemn Trump’s rhetoric against Omar and called for a security assessment.
“Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces,” the speaker said.
Sanders’s appearance on Fox News Sunday marks the first response from the White House with regards to the video, which has been widely discussed over the weekend.
