President Trump drunk in a kindergarten? Nope, just a comedy skit
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A clip showing President Donald Trump bouncing around on a rubber space hopper toy in a kindergarten before being dragged away by his security was shared on a pro-Palestine Facebook page... And some Facebook users thought it was the real thing. The video is actually part of a five-minute sketch from American TV channel Comedy Central.
The video was uploaded to Comedy Central’s YouTube channel on May 11, 2017. On December 7, the day that the president of the United States announced that the United States would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a grainy segment of the video was uploaded to the pro-Palestine Facebook page ‘Campaign for the support of the mosque al-Aqsa’. The al-Aqsa mosque is an Islamic holy site in Jerusalem.
The caption for the video posted on the Facebook page says that it shows the American president drunk when visiting a kindergarten, and his security aides have to intervene to get him out of the kindergarten by force. In fact, in the comedy sketch, the character of Trump is supposed to be enjoying himself so much playing with the children on the bouncy balls that an actor playing Vice President Mike Pence has to drag him away.
The video has been shared over 94,000 times, and viewed over 1.6 million times. The fact-checking website Verify-Sy posted an article debunking the video and reminding readers that it was, in fact, a comedy sketch and not something that really happened.
Some Facebook users were shocked by the footage, which was described as “a scandal in America”. One person wrote, “Seriously??? Disgraceful”; another, “Lol this is the man governing America?”
This commenter wrote: “Silly and ignorant, I don’t know how he was chosen to be president of a big country, but they deserve it if they don’t stand against him.”
Others saw through the lie straight away. One commenter wrote, “The administrator of this page is harming the al-Aqsa mosque and the Palestinian cause by sharing fake news. They’re taking advantage of people’s anger just in order to get more followers and ‘likes’ on the page, and they’re also posting old content.”
This commenter says that the admin of the Facebook page is harming the Palestinian cause by sharing false information.
You can see the Comedy Channel sketch in full here: