PBS Slaps a Jawdropping Warning Label On Trump Speech: ‘Inflammatory Rhetoric’ Can Prompt ‘Acts of Violence’

PBS executives were so concerned about airing former President Donald Trump’s post-indictment speech that they slapped a warning label on the screen for viewers to read.

Like CNN and MSNBC, PBS opted not to broadcast Trump’s address from his Bedminster golf course, and instead, they opted to stream it live on YouTube. The speech was filled with falsities, partisan accusations, and threats to eventually persecute his political opponents if elected for a second term. Normal stuff, for Trump, oddly. But it was newsworthy as what he said is admissible in a court of law.

But in a concerning next step in the infantilization of television YouTube stream viewers, PBS dropped a stunning warning label that read: “EXPERTS WARN THAT INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC FROM ELECTED OFFICIALS OR PEOPLE IN POWER CAN PROMPT INDIVIDUAL ACTORS TO COMMIT ACTS OF VIOLENCE.”

To be fair, they also added many other contextual lower thirds, that in fairness, corrected the record of Trump’s bullshittery. ButAs Noah Blum noted on Twitter, PBS was so concerned with Trump’s rhetoric that “they left his fundraising number conveniently visible on screen.”

After the events of January 6th, there should be some legitimate concern that rabble is easily roused by rabble-rousers. Sure.

But it’s very difficult to imagine that the Venn diagram of Jan. 6 rioters and PBS viewers overlap at all.  So the “context” warning label placed under Trump’s speech by PBS seems more designed to signal the virtue of the PBS viewers watching the former president speak than to serve any legitimate purpose.

This post has been updated since its original publishing to correctly reflect the warning was placed on the streaming version of the speech and not PBS broadcast.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.