Washington Nationals pitcher and most valuable player of the World Series 2019 Stephen Strasburg has returned to his long-dormant Twitter account in order to comment on a viral video where it looks like he refused to shake hands with US President Donald Trump during the Nationals' recent visit to the White House. The athlete reposted the video, simply adding the hashtag #FakeNews.
#FakeNews https://t.co/ovDuHyRUTb
— Stephen Strasburg (@stras37) November 4, 2019
What was fake about the footage? While Strasburg was of few words in his comment, he was apparently referring to a post published by sports observer Rudy Gersten containing the edited viral video along with the words "Strasburg left Trump hanging". The footage was skilfully edited and only shows how the athlete turned to hug his team's manager, Dave Martinez, appearing to ignore Trump's handshake offer. The video, however, failed to show Strasburg later turning back to shake hands with both the US president and the first lady.
The rest of the story. pic.twitter.com/OUQK6mmi8r
— The Red-Headed Libertarian™️ (@TRHLofficial) November 5, 2019
Netizens mostly applauded Strasburg for taking the time to label the doctored video as "fake news".
Guy cuts video to promote phony narrative, gets called out by Nats MVP. Fantastic. pic.twitter.com/BW1aR1iK0e
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 5, 2019
The World Series champ MVP who hasn’t tweeted in 2 years called out a WaPo FakeNews dude who posted an edited video trying to shame Trump saying that MVP dissed him. He didn’t.
— Pam (@olystubbies44) November 5, 2019
Some blasted the authors of the video for resorting to any means to sow division in society.
Sadly Stephen the haters will use anyone in any way to drive a wedge and expand their hate
— Greg (@gdrazman) November 5, 2019
However, not all twitterians valued Strasburg's efforts.
Your good ball player but a classless Man.
— steve (@steve95477697) November 4, 2019
POTUS' Negative Reception at World Series Game
On their way to the first World Series victory in almost a century for a DC-based team, the Washington Nationals played at the Nationals Park stadium on 27 October with the US president attending the match. The latter, however, was met with boos and chants of "lock him up!" coming from the bleachers, despite delivering the news that Daesh* leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed in a US raid earlier the same day.
The stadium was reportedly mostly filled with Washington Nationals fans, one of whom called POTUS an "a**hole in the White House" when providing a comment to a national broadcaster.
