A mocked-up video depicting US president Donald Trump stabbing and shooting his political opponents and the media has reportedly been shown at a meeting of the president’s supporters at his Miami resort.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that the video, which has since been posted on Twitter, shows a scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service, edited to appear as though Trump is stabbing and opening fire on people and news organisations in a church.
The targets include CNN, Politico, Black Lives Matter, the BBC, the Guardian, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Hillary Clinton, the late senator John McCain, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and others inside the “Church of Fake News”.
Since his 2016 election win, Trump has frequently described media outlets reporting on him as the “fake news media” and the “enemy of the people”.
The video appears to be created by TheGeekzTeam on YouTube, a pro-Trump channel that has a long history of creating video mashups in support of the 45th president. The video in question was posted to the channel in July 2018.
According to the Times, the video was shown last week at the American Priority conference at Doral Miami resort. Speakers at the event included Donald Trump Jr and former White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
One of the event organisers, Alex Phillips told the Times that he denounced the video and was looking into how it was played at the event.
In a statement on Thursday, CNN said the video was “vile and horrific”.
“Sadly, this is not the first time that supporters of the president have promoted violence against the media in a video they apparently find entertaining – but it is by far and away the worst,” CNN said in a tweeted statement.
“The president and his family, the White House, and the Trump campaign need to denounce it immediately in the strongest possible terms. Anything less equates to a tacit endorsement of violence and should not be tolerated by anyone.”
The White House Correspondents Association said it was “horrified” by the video and “all Americans should condemn this depiction of violence directed towards journalists and his political opponents”.
“We have previously told the president his rhetoric could incite violence. Now we call on him and everybody associated with this conference to denounce this video and affirm that violence has no place in our society.”
Beto O’Rourke condemned the video on Twitter, saying: “This video isn’t funny. It will get people killed.”
A spokesperson for Trump told the Times that the video had nothing to do with Trump’s re-election campaign and the campaign does not condone violence.
