The parents of the two toddlers are suing President Trump after he tweeted an altered version of a video in which they appeared, The Hill reports
After the video—which was titled "Terrified toddler [sic] runs from racist baby" and included a CNN banner stamped on the bottom—was removed for violating Twitter's policies, the parents of the toddlers filed a lawsuit with the New York Supreme Court, arguing that Trump, his campaign, and meme-maker Logan Cook acted in a way that was “extreme, shocking and outrageous” and “beyond the bounds of decency” when creating and posting the video. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany attempted to explain the tweet during a June presser, after CNN's Jim Acosta asked her about the video.
“Last night, the president tweeted out some fake videos, one of which was labeled ‘manipulated media’ by Twitter,” Acosta said. “Why is the president sharing fake videos on Twitter about two toddlers who are obviously showing a lot of love for one another? It seems as though he is exploiting children to make some sort of point.”
“He was making a point about CNN specifically,” McEnany replied. “A point that CNN has regularly taken him out of context."
The original video, unsullied by political propaganda, depicted the two best friend toddlers running to hug each other when they saw one another down a sidewalk. The video went viral, with many referencing it as a pure glimpse of compassion between two children, and used it as an example that no one is born hating someone else based on their skin tone; they are taught how to.
The doctored version of the video only features a small portion of the original, where the black toddler is running away from the white toddler.
