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Late night host Jimmy Kimmel falsely claimed on Thursday that Vice President Mike Pence engaged in a publicity stunt by delivering supposedly empty boxes of medical equipment to a healthcare facility, an assertion that was widely shared by reporters from major news outlets. In the full video of the event, Pence can be seen delivering …
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel falsely claimed on Thursday that Vice President Mike Pence engaged in a publicity stunt by delivering supposedly empty boxes of medical equipment to a healthcare facility, an assertion that was widely shared by reporters from major news outlets.
In the full video of the event, Pence can be seen delivering multiple boxes of personal protective equipment to the Woodbine Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Va.
After being told that all the PPE has been unloaded and that the boxes remaining in the van are empty, Pence jokingly says, “Should I carry the empty ones? Just for the camera?”
Pence closed the doors to the van immediately after making the remark, which drew laughter from his staff.
This made me curious, so I watched the unedited C-SPAN video. Pence makes multiple trips from van to the doors of the center delivering full boxes of PPE. Pence’s comment about empties for the camera is a joke – he shuts the doors right after he says it.https://t.co/JMMz7nEVit https://t.co/VNw4aqJ3jN
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) May 8, 2020
Democratic consultant Matt McDermott spread a video of the joke, claiming that it was evidence that Pence was supposedly pretending to deliver the equipment. The claim was then repeated by Kimmel.
“Mike Pence pretending to carry empty boxes of PPE’s into a hospital is the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he’s doing: a big box of nothing, delivering another box of nothing,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel’s segment gained over a million views on Twitter, and was shared by numerous reporters. Kimmel has since deleted his original tweet.
A small sampling of media people and Democrats pushing Jimmy Kimmel’s deceptively edited video of Mike Pence delivering PPE. pic.twitter.com/GGUTL8JkyV
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) May 8, 2020
“What can we say? Fake photo op?” wrote CBS’s Andrea Mitchell. Kimmel’s video was retweeted by New York Times columnist Jamie Bouie and Vox cofounder Matt Yglesias.
“This is a metaphor for so much of their botched response [to coronavirus],” commented Joe Biden’s director of rapid response Joe Bates.
Neither Pence nor President Trump have commented on the incident.
