Twitter on Sunday flagged a video shared by House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), claiming the footage of lawyer and activist Ady Barkan was altered.
Barkan, who has ALS and speaks through voice assistance, last month spoke to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden about police reform. A clip from the NowThis News interview, published in early July, sees Barkan interrupt the former vice president to ask, “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?”
Over the weekend, Scalise tweeted a clip in which the words “for police” were pulled from earlier in the conversation and added to the end of Barkan’s question. The post, first spotted by Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel, was subsequently stamped “manipulated media” by Twitter.
“These are not my words,” Barkan wrote to Scalise, asking him to delete the edited video. “I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts. You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain. … You owe the entire disability community an apology.” Biden echoed that demand, calling the clip “a flagrant attempt to spread misinformation at the expense of a man who uses assistive technology.”
On Sunday night, Scalise said he “will honor the request of Ady Barkan and remove the portion of his interview from our video.” His original tweet—no longer labeled “manipulated media”—now features an unedited version of the conversation. In an email to The Verge, Scalise spokesperson Lauren Fine asserted that it was clear Barkan was asking if Biden is open to redirecting funding away from police.
“Obviously, for a one-minute Twitter video featuring several short clips, we condensed that to the essence of what he was asking, as is common practice for clips run on TV and social media, no matter the speaker,” the statement continued. “We paired the police portion with Barkan’s final question for clarity because we couldn’t include an entire three-minute clip in a one-minute montage.
“We believe Biden’s position and answer is clear regardless: when asked twice, he says ‘yes’ he is open to redirecting funding away from the police, and that is clear in our video,” Fine said. Contrary to the Trump administration’s claims, Biden does not support fully decapitalizing the police, but rather wants to provide more resources for initiatives to strengthen community relationships and add body cams.
