‘This is full-fledged illusion creation’

ABC News aired these images of what it called a Turkish slaughter of Kurdish civilians in Syria on Oct.13 and 14, 2019, but then admitted the video was from a weapons demonstration in Kentucky in previous years.

PALM BEACH, Florida — ABC News is coming under heavy fire after airing footage it claimed showed a ferocious attack by Turkish military forces bombing Kurdish civilians in Syria. There’s only one problem: the video was actually from a nighttime weapons demonstration at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky.

“We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight Sunday’ and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” a spokesman told the Washington Examiner. “ABC News regrets the error.”

On Sunday, ABC News anchor Tom Llamas aired the “shocking”images, with a caption that blared in all capital letters: “SLAUGHTER IN SYRIA.”

“The situation rapidly spiraling out of control in northern Syria. One week since President Trump ordered U.S. forces out of that region, effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against [the Islamic State],” he said.

“This video right here appearing to show Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town,” Llamas breathlessly continued. “The Kurds, who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS. Now, horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters on those very allies.”

“We are still investigating,” a representative for the gun range told the Washington Examiner, saying the images aired by ABC “looks to be” from the Kentucky location. “As of right now, it seems to be our footage.”

Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh wasted no time blasting ABC News during his national broadcast Monday.

“They got caught!” Limbaugh exclaimed, as he rhetorically asked the network, “How did it get past your editing process in the first place? … You people weren’t even suspicious?”

“They don’t need any sources anymore. They don’t need any identifiable sources. They don’t even need any proof. They just need somebody to be the fall guy that they can lay it all off on as the anonymous source,” Limbaugh continued.

“This is full-fledged illusion creation. This is lying to news customers.”

“So ABC News uses video from 2017 and then tries to pass it off as Turkey bombing the Kurds in Syria. Now, why would they do this? They do it for one reason. They’re trying to nail Donald Trump. They’re trying to say that mass murder is occurring, and it’s Trump’s fault — and this is not anything new. Faking video, editing video, editing 9-1-1 calls.”

Limbaugh concluded: “Your gut, knee-jerk reaction to anything to you see in the Drive-By Media that doesn’t make sense is to chalk it up to the ongoing illusion they are creating that there is massive criminality, massive wrongdoing, massive incompetence, massive misconduct, leading everybody to believe that Trump has got to go.”

Footage from Knob Creek, Kentucky:

Becket Adams of the Washington Examiner noted: “It is astonishing that ABC appears to have aired Kentucky gun range footage during primetime news segments on the clashes in Syria and that no one at the network – not a producer, not a fact-checker, and certainly not an on-air personality – caught the errors before they aired.”