A series of deceptively edited videos targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have been circulating on the internet in an effort to make the congresswoman appear as if she is drunkenly stumbling through a speech. Now, her daughter is coming to her defense.
On Thursday, Christine Pelosi accused the GOP and its allies of “pumping this despicable fake meme for years!”
“Now they are caught,” she wrote, adding, “Madam Speaker doesn’t even drink alcohol!”
The tweet then linked to a Washington Post story that debunked altered footage of Pelosi’s speech at the Center for American Progress Ideas Festival in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The Washington Post noted the video had been edited to make Pelosi sound as if she was struggling to speak clearly.
The origin of the video, the Post said, remains unclear.
Christine continued speaking out against the mockery in a follow-up tweet, calling on Facebook to suspend the account of a user who sent her a message describing Pelosi as an alcoholic in need of an intervention.
“This is the cr*p I’m talking about,” Christine wrote, noting that she had reported the account.
President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was caught sharing the edited video this week in a now-deleted tweet, asking, “What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi?”
“Her speech pattern is bizarre,” he wrote.
On Friday, Giuliani tweeted a bizarre, unintelligible statement.
“ivesssapology for a video which is allegedly is a caricature of an otherwise halting speech pattern, she should first stop, and apologize for, saying the President needs an ‘intervention.’”
In a second tweet, Giuliani doubled down on his criticism of Pelosi’s Thursday remark saying Trump should have “an intervention for the good of the country.”
The video has not yet been completely removed from Facebook. There was still at least one version available on the social media platform as of Friday afternoon on a page called Politics WatchDog. It had 2.4 million views.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted a separate video which he claimed showed Pelosi stammering during a press conference. The Post reported that the clip was selectively edited, however, it remains on the president’s Twitter page.
- This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
