RNC ‘Biden’s America’ Video Included Riot Footage From Protests Outside US

The Republican National Convention is coming under fire for a video aired on the first night that was meant to portray a Joe Biden led America fraught with riots and protests after one of the featured scenes of violence was revealed to have been from a protest and riot that didn’t occur in the United States.

The video, which features sisters and small business owners Cataline and Madeline Lauf, starts off with the two discussing their support for President Trump and his policies for small business owners. It then goes to decry Democratic policies and lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi and Pete Buttigieg, before the sisters then state that they think a Joe Biden led America would be dangerous for business owners.

Following that, images of protests and riots, which have taken the United States by storm since George Floyd’s death in May and experienced a new resurgence after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In those scenes which play out, a large group is seen marching along a street, before three separate scenes play out featuring fires burning from protests.

As those play out the sisters are heard stating that this is a “Biden America.”

“I’ve seen a lot of moderates, a lot of people now changing over because of everything that’s been happening. This is a taste of Biden’s America,” they say. “I mean this, the rioting, the crime, freedom is at stake now and this is going to be the most important election of our lifetime.”

However, Buzzfeed reports that the final image, which shows the most destruction, actually wasn’t from a riot in the United States-but was from an October 2019 protest in Barcelona that occurred after Spanish courts sentenced Catalan separatist activists to prison.

Naturally, the video has faced some criticism, not only because of the wrong footage but because of the claim that the footage was a taste of a Biden presidency—when all of the events have happened during the President’s term.

Others commented on Buzzfeed’s report to also criticize the misrepresented footage, stating that they needed to use footage from elsewhere because they had nothing they could use from the time when Barack Obama was President and Joe Biden was his Vice-President.

“They had to use fake riots because there were no Obama/Biden riots,” the person wrote. “Unless you count Tea baggers with their racist signs or occupy Wall Street.”