Fact Checker: Did Hillary Clinton ‘shame’ women who made sexual allegations against her husband?

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee June 29

“So who is all for women until she isn’t? When Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault, Mrs. Clinton tweeted, ‘Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be believed.’ But when another Bill (Clinton) was accused of sexual assault? Not so much. … She savaged their dignity and shamed them. (Shows a video clip of Clinton saying) ‘Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for.’”

–Voiceover and video clip in political ad by pro-Donald Trump group Rebuilding America Now

This political ad by a pro-Trump super PAC attacks Hillary Clinton over her response to women who made sexual allegations against her husband. The ad begins with a reference to a post on Twitter by the Hillary Clinton campaign, noting it was published “when Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault.” The ad goes on to say that she reacted differently to allegations about her husband.

“She savaged their dignity and shamed them,” the narrator says, as the following text appears on screen: “The Clinton effort used words like ‘floozy,’ ‘bimbo’ and ‘stalker.’” Then a video clip airs of Clinton saying, “Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for,” and gives the impression that she was making those comments in response to the women who had made sexual allegations against her husband.

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The Pinocchio Test

This ad employs sound, video and text editing to create quite a misleading impression to the viewers. First, the narrator says that “When Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault, Mrs. Clinton tweeted, ‘Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be believed.’” Yet the tweet did not mention Cosby. It includes a link to her plan to address campus sexual assaults, and apparently coincided the airing of a documentary on the issue.

Later in the ad, the narrator says Hillary Clinton “savaged their dignity and shamed them,” and immediately shows a clip of Clinton saying, “Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for,” implying Clinton was referring to the women. But in the context of the full interview, that’s not exactly clear; Clinton appears to be blaming political opponents of her husband.

We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios. As regular readers know, editing jobs in political ads that risk misleading the public almost automatically qualify for Two Pinocchios under our standards. The group says it’s “fair to assume” that Clinton would have known that her tweet would read as a commentary on the larger issue of sexual assault, and that it’s “fair to interpret” that her claim in the Today Show interview was a “threat that she was going to exploit” the women. We find that a stretch, and admakers deliberately made assumptions and interpretations to arrange audio, text and video in a way that misleads viewers. That tips it to Three Pinocchios.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/06/29/pro-trump-groups-ad-misrepresents-hillary-clintons-comments-about-women/?wpisrc=nl_fact&wpmm=1