The president from time to time has used Twitter as a weapon against the NFL. The NFL possibly has now used Twitter as a weapon against the president.
Via USA Today, Twitter removed a video posted by the Trump campaign, which featured Sunday night’s leap by 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk over Eagles safety Marcus Epps. In the video, Donald Trump’s head was superimposed over Aiyuk’s head, and Epps’ head was replaced with a coronavirus molecule.
The video then cut to a Trump protestor’s reaction, from an ITV news clip.
Twitter removed the video, “in response to a report by the copyright owner.” As noted by USA Today, it’s unclear whether the league, one of the teams involved, or ITV made the complaint.
Apart from the irony of the Trump campaign using a video clip from a sports league that the president has periodically harangued, there’s this: The player over whose head Trump’s was superimposed doesn’t stand for the national anthem.
Also, the 49ers won that specific play, but lost the game. Under the circumstances, that makes the clip probably not the best one to be used by the Trump campaign.