‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling went on a long rant from her social media account deriding the president for supposedly snubbing a child in a wheelchair who just wanted to shake his hand. It's been going around social media, but there's a problem with it.
It's a complete lie.
Here's a version of the video she retweeted from YouTube - the original has been deleted:
She posted it with the quote, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them," from Maya Angelou, to her 11.3 million followers.
And then she went on a prolonged Twitter rant about it.
"Trump imitated a disabled reporter. Now he pretends not to see a child in a wheelchair, as though frightened he might catch his condition," she began.
"This monster of narcissism values only himself and his pale reflections," she continued. "The disabled, minorities, transgender people, the poor, women (unless related to him by ties of blood, and therefore his creations) are treated with contempt, because they do not resemble Trump."
My mother used a wheelchair. I witnessed people uncomfortable around her disability, but if they had a shred of decency they got over it. 1/
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 28, 2017
So, yes, that clip of Trump looking deliberately over a disabled child's head, ignoring his outstretched hand, has touched me on the raw. /2
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling)July 28, 2017
That man occupies the most powerful office in the free world and his daily outrages against civilised norms are having a corrosive effect /3
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 28, 2017
"How stunning, and how horrible, that Trump cannot bring himself to shake the hand of a small boy who only wanted to touch the President," she concluded.
But the video was deceptively edited.
In a longer version, President Trump clearly pays attention to the child first and for a prolonged period of time.
So @jk_rowling is on a tirade about how Trump ignored a kid in a wheelchair, but she conveniently left out the clip from the beginning: pic.twitter.com/v3tBXI8WY9
— エリック (@scratch_point) July 28, 2017
Rowling has not addressed the video, even though she was clearly tagged in the tweet. The "Harry Potter" author has been a vocal and vehement critic of the president.
[Ed. Note: This post has been updated with an alternate video since the original was deleted.]