How PragerU Lies to You: Charlottesville

hello everyone this is a video responding to a recent prageru video titled the charlottesville lie that video is discussing the media's response to president trump's controversial comments in the wake of the unite the right rally in charlottesville back in 2017 and the description to that video on the prageru website reads did president trump call neo-nazis very fine people during a famous press conference following the charlottesville riots of 2017. the major media reported that he did but what if their reporting is wrong worse what if their reporting is wrong and they know it's wrong a straight exploration of the facts should reveal the truth that's what cnn political analyst steve cortez does in this critically important video as always i would suggest you watch that video first it is only five minutes long also i'm not going to be going through the events of the unite the right rally in detail here as i've already done that in my video titled charlotte's phil the true alt-right so if you need a refresher i'd advise you also go and watch that first it's only the 53 minutes long right so then prageru's main argument is that the mainstream media lied about trump's comments with regards to the unite the right rally by omitting that he distinguished between the neo-nazis and white supremacists at the rally and those apparently there to merely protest the removal of confederate statues by apparently omitting this information various media outlets were then free to allegedly claim that trump was calling the nazis fine people in typical prageru fashion however they provide absolutely no evidence of their main claim they just tell you that it's true and expect you to take their word on the matter now instead of citing any actual news articles to back up their claims they instead show this cartoon newspaper that they made up remember which says trump describes neo-nazis as very fine people and then they argue with that so we have to ask why no actual non-cartoon sources here they elsewhere cite an actual new york times article when attempting to back up a different claim so i don't believe that this refusal to cite articles as evidence is a stylistic choice there must be another reason why they don't want to show you the evidence now prageru don't cite any specific articles but they do mention several news networks and newspapers as being the ones that supposedly spread the lie here where they say plainly put abc cbs nbc npr the new york times the washington post and others spread a malicious lie that has poisoned our national dialogue so we have our list of culprits here these are the vile organizations that neglected to mention trump differentiator between the groups of protesters and that he condemned the nazis how allegedly manipulative of them only here's the thing and you had people and i'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally but you had many people in that group other than neo-nazis and white nationalists okay that's abc news there reposting the clip of trump condemning neo-nazis to their twitter feed and linking to a story in which they say he went on to question why the statue of civil war general robert e lee was being removed which prompted the protest you had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of to them a very important statue and the naming of apart from robert e lee to another name he said so abc didn't spread the lie there they spread trump's condemnation of neo-nazis and made clear that trump thought some people were there simply to protest the removal of the statue so prager you got that one wrong how about cbs i've condemned neo-nazis i've condemned many different groups but not all of those people were neo-nazis believe me that's cbs showing a clip of trump condemning neo-nazis above a news story which also contains quotes showing that trump distinguished between the groups of protesters nbc put out an article that quotes trump as saying trump defended the protest that led to the violence and contended that some of the individuals carrying tortures at the white nationalist rally did not have bad intentions you had many people in that group other than neo-nazis and white nationalists and the press has treated them absolutely unfairly trump said trump repeatedly stressed that the rally started over the potential removal of a statue of confederate general robert e lee next up npr he ultimately did criticize as neo-nazis as and klansmen and and white supremacists but he said that description didn't fit everyone who was taking part in these demonstrations not all of those people were neo-nazis believe me not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch he went on to say that some of the demonstrators were there to protest the taking down of a statute of robert e lee that's a clip of npr taken from the same day as trump's comments there so that's them off the hook as well next up is the new york times they put out an article that says mr trump defended those gathered in a charlottesville park to protest the removal of a statue of robert e lee i've condemned neo-nazis i've condemned many different groups he said not all of those people were neo-nazis believe me and so on there's one more thing to be said about this singling out of the new york times by prageru here elsewhere in the video they say the following lest you have any doubts that good people were in charlottesville to protest the removal of the robert e lee statue the new york times confirmed it in a story they published the next day august 16th and then they quote someone who says well i was there and i'm not a nazi so you know now the thing to note here is that prageru cite the new york times as their only evidence that some good people were at the unite the right rally then later criticized the new york times for lying about the unite the right rally i mean if the new york times were apparently so dedicated to pushing this anti-trump lie why would they release an article that contradicts it you know can we trust the new york times or not prageru just when they agree with what you're saying i guess probably that yeah lastly the washington post trump emphasized repeatedly that he believed many of the unite the right rally participants were not members of hate groups and were there to protest the pending removal by the city of a statue of the confederate general robert e lee every single news organization that prageru names as having participated in the so-called charlottesville lie reported exactly what prageru claims they didn't they all made clear in their reporting following the press conference that trump distinguished between the groups of protesters prageru is lying about these news organizations they all reported exactly what donald trump said and i will leave links to these news stories below if you'd like to check them out so what happened here then well the media did criticize trump for his fine people on both sides statements but this was not because they were lying about what he said they actually criticized trump for two different valid reasons the first reason was because of his previous comments on the matter which prageru omit from their narrative here they present an incorrect version of the timeline of events you see the press conference at which president trump made those statements was not as prager you implied the first time that trump addressed violence at the rally he'd actually made prior statements to the press about the incident and let's use prageru's little calendar here so we have the rally on the 11th and the 12th there their little cartoon trump on august 15th here might give you the impression that he didn't say anything on the matter until that point but that's not true trump's first comments to the press came on august 12th shortly after the rally when he said we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred bigotry and violence on many sides so trump is drawing a moral equivalence there much like his later fine people on both sides comment only here on august 12th trump did not distinguish between groups of unite the right attendees nor did he name or condemn the white supremacists or neo-nazis in fact he specifically ignored journalists asking him questions on the matter and just wanders off mr president do you want the support of these white nationalist groups who say they support you mr president have you have you denounced them strongly enough a car platinum would you call that terrorism sir now this refusal to condemn the white supremacists and trump very harsh criticism from various places not just the liberal news organizations that prageru doesn't like mind but also from the republican party senator corey gardner said mr president we must call evil by its name these were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism marco rubio said very important for the nation to hear the president describe events in charlottesville for what they are a terror attack by white supremacists senator orrin hatch's office tweeted his statement my brother didn't give his life fighting hitler for nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home and john mccain also gave a statement specifically calling out white supremacists and neo-nazis and all of this was much reported in the press so what's the takeaway from this well trump's refusal to condemn neo-nazis was already a huge news story before his comments on august 15th and he had not at that point made clear that he was distinguishing between different groups of unite the right attendees prager you act like this controversy started on august 15th but it actually started three days earlier on august 12th they are lying by a mission here now two days later on august 14th trump was forced by the negative reaction in the press and his own political party to back down and condemn racism finally he read a prepared statement to the press saying that the kkk and neo-nazis etc are bad so well done to president trump there for eventually clearing that incredibly low bar now this brings us to trump's comments on august 15th at the press conference that prageru is concerned with his comments here actually reignited the controversy which already existed because trump defends his first comments on the matter when he's asked about them by saying things like yes i think there's blame on both sides so this press conference was seen as a back pedal by trump first he refused to condemn white supremacy and then he was forced to read a prepared statement doing so but then here off script again he's back to saying this both sides rubbish this is the first reason for trump being criticized here he defended his earlier decision to both spread the blame and decline to mention or condemn the white supremacists and nazis the second reason that trump was criticized after this press conference is that the claim that there were some fine people at the unite the right rally peacefully protesting the removal of the statue is ridiculous and incorrect there were not fine people at the rally it was explicitly organized as a white supremacist neo-nazi rally nazi iconography was everywhere the listed speakers were white supremacists and neo-nazis it was organized by white supremacists and neo-nazis there was absolutely no confusion about who these people are or what they believed [Applause] and here's something else that prager you leave out of the narrative here when trump says there were people at the rally to quietly protest the removal of the statue he lets us know exactly who he's talking about trump at one point says but they were there to protest excuse me if you take a look the night before they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of robert e lee and then later he says no no there were people in that rally and i looked the night before if you look there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of robert e lee i'm sure in that group there were some bad ones the following day it looked like they had some rough bad people neo-nazis white nationalists whatever you want to call them so trump is saying that on august 12th there were some rough bad people but the night before at the august 11th torch rally that was the quiet protest against the removal of the statue which contained the fine people as well as some bad ones this graphic that prageru uses in their video to show the president condemning the white nationalists at the torch rally is therefore a ridiculous lie because it was exactly this group that he was saying was a mix of good and bad people so let's take a look at that torture alley very briefly and we'll see if we can spot the difference between the fine people and the bad ones this is the reason that trump was criticized his distinguishing between the good and bad people here is a lie all these people are neo-nazis they were all chanting jews will not replace us and blood and soil which is a nazi slogan if trump meant any of these people when he said there were some fine people at the rally he was calling neo-nazis fine people the trick prager prageru are attempting to pull is this the president was criticized for his reluctance to condemn neo-nazis and white supremacists he at first refused to do so only backing down after first waiting multiple days and being criticized by his own political party then the next day he backpedaled to his initial claim that there were some good people at the explicitly neo-nazi organized torch rally despite the clearly available counter-evidence to that this true version of events is indefensible so prageru simply pretend that something different happened they pretend that the president openly and eagerly condemned white supremacists and that the media reported that he did not this did not happen the media reported trump's comments in full including his condemnation of the neo-nazis the charlottesville lie is itself a lie i actually suspect this video title is a work in progress title that they forgot to change later like snakes on a plane or something lying about a neo-nazi rally and pretending some good people were there in order to attack various news organizations they don't like is awful and dangerous and prageru should be ashamed thanks a lot for watching everyone it's just a short video this one that i wanted to get out as quickly as possible i thought it was better to interrupt my work on my next very long video in order to get this one out promptly and such is my haste here that i'm not even doing the credits properly so thank you to all my patrons everyone who has signed up to the credits tier over on patreon will be in the credits of my next video i hope you understand why i'm rushing with this one so apologies to my patrons for that and for all you non-patrons out there there is a link to my patreon below if you'd like to be party to future disappointments uh that's all from me today folks and i'll see you next time

Channel: Shaun

Views: 782,809

Rating: 4.7801876 out of 5

Keywords: prageru, charlottesville, unite the right, shaun

Id: 4T45Sbkndjc

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/pvanr]

The problem with prageru is that they lie so boldly that if you don´t know who they are and what they are talking about you´d probably believe them. Short video with cartoons, it´s set up like the news or info programs. I even watched back the interview of trump and I was like ´yeah he did say that´, but without context you don´t know why they misrepresent the truth

[u/cakesarelies]

Is it just me or does Shaun sound more furious than he ever has?

[u/Acowname]

You are allowed to report the video PragerU made on Charlottesville for hate speech. There's nothing illegal or wrong with doing so. :)

[u/xSMUFFINx]

Shaun is a good dude

[u/ThrowAway111222555]

He got this video out real quick. Here is him tweeting about the video two days ago

And here he is starting the project yesterday in a fit of concentrated fury

[u/Lafie-Safie]

I saw this subreddit 20 seconds ago, & thought immediately of Shaun when reading the description. Then I see this. He’s a really good youtuber.

[u/Arkanim94]

oh shit.

they angered him.

[u/[deleted]]

Damn, Shaun got this out really fast. He was tweeting about starting this video like yesterday. And he sounds kinda pissed, or at least very annoyed.

[u/luftpirat]

The Video wasn't even out for 30 minutes and there were already chuds in the comments. Impressive.