U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has spoken out against voter suppression, but a recent video circulating social media appears to show her putting a thumb on the election scales.
“Allowing Republicans to vote could threaten the integrity of an election and the safety of the electorate,” Warren appears to say in the video. “Since Republicans have a history of promoting policies that undermine the public’s trust in the government, allowing them to vote could lead to an outcome that doesn’t accurately reflect the will of the people.”
“How Elizabeth Warren thinks, allowing Republicans to vote is a bad thing,” read one tweet sharing the video.
But this video isn’t authentic.
It was altered using a Dec. 14 interview Warren did with MSNBC. The chyron, the text that appears at the bottom of the screen, is the same in the original interview and in the manipulated video. It says: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the Biden success story.” In the original interview, however, Warren doesn’t make the remarks that can be heard in the social media post videos.
She said Republicans were maligning government, and argued that Democrats have shown that government can be on the side of the people, but she doesn’t say Republicans shouldn’t vote.
Here’s what she actually said: “For so long, Republicans have run on the notion that government’s bad, government’s terrible, at best government is inept, at worst, it’s really actually doing harm. We’re out there demonstrating exactly the opposite, we are showing that government can be on your side.”
Claims that Warren said “allowing Republicans to vote could threaten the integrity of an election” are wrong. We rate them False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.
