During the first night of the Republican National Convention, a video utilized footage from riots in Spain to depict "a taste of Biden's America."
The clip in question was presented by Catalina and Madeline Lauf, who both suggested that a Joe Biden victory this November would be the downfall of society as we know it. "The rioting, the crime. Freedom is at stake now and this is going to be the most important election of our lifetime," one of the sisters says in a voiceover. The footage of said riots, however, isn't even from America at all.
The Catalonian Public Broadcaster CCMA reported that four clips or images used in the video were taken from footage of Oct. 2019 protests in Barcelona. The demonstrations were provoked after Catalan separatist activists were sentenced to prison, with BuzzFeed News confirming one of the Barcelona streets featured can even be viewed using Google Street View.
The clips from Spain were interspersed with footage from a march in Brooklyn, a tree on fire in New York, and a car on fire in Chicago. It appears that the Spanish protest videos were taken from Shutterstock, with the clip in question titled, "Young rebel riot revolutionary anarchist." Considering those are all very scary words to republicans, it's not hard to see how the clip made its way into the segment.
Check out reactions to the disingenuous usage of the footage below.
