As right-wing groups clashed with counter-protesters at pro-Trump demonstrations over the weekend, Ivanka Trump, the senior White House adviser and daughter of outgoing President Donald Trump, condemned the media on Twitter for "near total silence" over alleged assaults on conservatives. The tweet came as selectively edited video wrongly portraying Trump supporters as victims of violence circulated online in right-wing circles.
"The media's near total silence about the physical violence being perpetrated against conservatives is shameful & dangerous. Just image the outrage and indignation if this went the other way," Ivanka tweeted. "Violence is never the answer and instigators must be condemned and prosecuted."
Donald Trump Jr. one-upped his sister's allegation an hour later by claiming, without evidence, that the media was "complicit." He also suggested that "they might as well" put Trump supporters on a non-existent Gulag list controlled by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
"The media's silence on the violence against Trump supporters is deafening. After four years of calling them Nazis, at this point they might as well just dox them all or add the[m] to AOC's lists for the Gulags," Don Jr. baselessly tweeted. "They are complicit in the violence. They are the worst of the worst."
Trump supporters and right-wing groups marched in several cities on Saturday in protest of the president's recent electoral loss to President-elect Joe Biden. The demonstrators echoed the president's evidence-free allegations of a stolen election.
Many of these groups were met by counter-protests, and violence broke out in some instances. The most serious of these incidents took place in Washington, where Proud Boys and other right-wing groups and militia members clashed with counter-protesters, according to multiple reports. Contrary to the Trump family's assertions, conservatives were filmed launching attacks.
It was not the first time Ivanka had misleadingly tweeted about political violence. In a tweet referencing "inner city communities," the first daughter cited the wrong number of people killed and wounded in the wrong location ("near a playground") over the course of a weekend in Chicago in August 2019.
In his first debate with Biden, President Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back, and stand by." Unlike his offspring, the president outwardly applauded Saturday's violence in the streets.
"ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump Rally, because those people aggressively fought back," he tweeted.
The president also shared a selectively edited video posted by Andy Ngo, a right-wing sympathizer with a history of wrongly framing left-wing groups. The clip showed a man getting knocked out by a counter-protester after being attacked from behind.
"A close-up angle of BLM rioters knocking a man unconscious who was leaving the #MillionMAGAMarch in DC earlier today," Ngo wrote. "They also steal his phone when he's on the ground."
"Human Radical Left garbage did this," the president added, quoting Ngo's original tweet. "Being arrested now!"
But an extended clip appears to shows the man was with a group of Trump supporters who earlier attacked a counter-protester holding a bullhorn by pushing him down to the street and stepping on his head.
D.C. police on Sunday said they had arrested nearly two dozen people, many of them on gun charges, according to The Washington Post. One person was stabbed, and four officers were injured.
Police Chief Peter Newsham told The Post that groups on both sides had descended on the city "intent on clashing," and "the police department was put directly in the middle of it."
In Sacramento, Calif., a group of Proud Boys met counter-protesters with bear spray, according to the Bay Area's ABC7 News. Police broke up the incident.
President Trump urged police to use force on counter-protesters, tweeting: "Antifa waited until tonight, when 99% were gone, to attack innocent #MAGA People. DC Police, get going — do your job and don't hold back!!!"
There is no evidence to support the protesters' accusations of widespread electoral fraud in the presidential election. Courts have summarily dismissed the vast majority of the Trump campaign's lawsuits.
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