Rep. Mike Lawler is drawing fire from conservatives after promoting what critics are calling the media’s latest manufactured Trump controversy, breaking ranks with the GOP base and echoing outrage first pushed by Democrats and legacy media.
The New York Republican weighed in after President Donald Trump shared a 62-second video on Truth Social centered on claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Critics seized on a fleeting animated image that appeared for just a couple of seconds at the tail end of the clip as it transitioned into another meme.
Rather than focus on the substance of the video, Lawler rushed to condemn the post.
“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered,” Lawler wrote on X.
The reaction put Lawler squarely alongside media critics who have accused Trump of wrongdoing based on the brief animation, despite its clear placement at the very end of a fast-moving meme sequence common on Instagram Reels and other short-form platforms.
The White House dismissed the backlash as contrived outrage.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NewsNation.
Lawler’s comments followed a similar response from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who also condemned the video after it began circulating online.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” Scott wrote on X.
Scott’s statement was widely criticized by Trump allies, who argued it amplified a narrative driven by opponents of the president while ignoring the broader context of the video, which focused overwhelmingly on election integrity.
Supporters of Trump noted the disputed animation appeared only for a blink-and-you-miss-it moment as the clip transitioned, not as a focal point or message. They accused Lawler of validating a storyline pushed by the press rather than defending a president of his own party.
The controversy comes as renewed scrutiny surrounds the 2020 election, with the Department of Justice recently seizing voting rolls from a Fulton County, Georgia, election office and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office reportedly reviewing voting machines used in Puerto Rico.
For many conservatives, Lawler’s response reinforced concerns about so-called RINOs they say are too eager to side with media outrage instead of pushing back against what they view as another Trump hoax.
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