HACKER Q&A
📣 mhh__

Did the White house edit Trump coughing out of this video?


This is technical rather than political question: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1312525833505058816 is the video - the question is after 1:01 when he says "the therapeutics, which I'm taking right now [facial movement, cough?]?

I thought no, but if you watch the US flag on the left the pattern suddenly jumps from frame to frame (ignoring the motion of his face, which is unnatural, but he is ill)

Compression artefact or what? I'm not knowledgeable in neither video editing nor compression algorithms.


  👤 anigbrowl Accepted Answer ✓
I think it's a compression artefact, if you cover/ignore the figure of Trump you can see the flag changes every few seconds. I believe the odd moment after Trumps ays 'therapeutics' is just just an involuntary spasm, like a suppressed cough or belch.

I have worked as a pro video editor and cut a few feature films; not an expert editor but definitely competent. I watched the video when it came out but didn't go over it in great detail, partly because Twitter's video compression is pretty rough to the source material so it doesn't seem worth trying to do forensic analysis.