The bit about Ellison and Schultz was fake, it's already been fact-checked. I'm not surprised that the lying conservative media is trying to drum up a controversy over this.
Democrats Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Nancy Pelosi refused to stand and clap for Navy SEAL widow Carryn Owens during a presidential speech.
RATING
false
ORIGIN
On 28 February 2017, President Donald Trump appeared before Congress to deliver a speech similar to a State of the Union address, taking several minutes of that time to honor and thank Carryn Owens, the widow of U.S. Navy Special Operator Senior Chief William Owens. Owens died in a raid in Yemen, the first American combatant to die during the presidency of Donald Trump:
Among the reactions to President Trump’s speech, and that particular portion of it, were claims that prominent Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Keith Ellison “refused to stand” to honor Mrs. Owens. Former Democrat candidate and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders was also accused of not standing for the round of applause: Johnson later stated:
A Daily Wire item headline “AWFUL: Top Democrats Refuse to Stand, Clap for Navy SEAL Widow Honored ny Trump”
asserted that:
Democrats initially stood for the widow. But then they sat.
Trump didn’t.
As his widow wept and mouthed to heaven, “I love you, baby,” Trump led a round of applause that lasted two minutes.
And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) apparently sat there and didn’t cheer as the incredible moment progressed, along with Senator Bernie Sanders and others — see this video at approximately three minutes in, as the cameras pan the crowd. Look at the right hand side of this screenshot[.]
The Daily Wire article included an embed of an NBC News video, specifically cut down to encompass only the
segment of the speech featuring the tribute to Mrs. Owens. But the only politician mentioned in the article who was visible in the embedded clip was Bernie Sanders, who could clearly be seen standing and clapping:
We watched the Owens segment numerous times, from approximately 53:48 to 57:50 in the clip below, and at no point did we discern Keith Ellison or Debbie Wasserman Schultz being shown among the persons in camera range, either sitting or standing. The still image below it may have captured Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s having sat down just a moment before Mrs. Owens herself did at the tail end of the segment:
We could not find in either NBC News or Fox News video footage a scene of Wasserman Schultz and Ellison seated and unmoved, as depicted in the Daily Wire article’s header image. We did find a matching still for that image, but it came from a portion of the speech that took place more than half an hour earlier (just after the nine-minute mark), while President Trump was speaking about inner cities:
Unless Ellison kept his hands tented throughout most or all of the event, it appears an image taken from a completely unrelated portion of the speech was used to bolster the claim that he and Schultz “sat” during Owens’ standing ovation. For the vast majority of the footage, cameras remained trained on Mrs. Owens, and few attendees outside her immediate vicinity were recognizable in the segment.
Video
published on the White House’s web site definitively resolved the claim.
At the clip’s 49:03 mark, Wasserman Schultz and Ellison can be seen clearly standing and clapping at the very lowest left-hand corner of the frame:
Feedback Sources
Filed Under:
bernie sanders carryn owens daily wire +6 more
Fact Checker:
Kim LaCapria
Published: Mar 1st, 2017
Sources:
NBC News. “Trump Honors Widow of Fallen Navy SEAL William ‘Ryan’ Owens in Address to Congress.”
28 February 2017.
