Earlier this week, we posted a clip of right-wing commentator Josh Bernstein suggesting that David Hogg, a student who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last month and who has since become a leading activist for gun reform, “had something to do with the Stoneman shooting” and was possibly even “affiliated in some way” with the shooter, Nikolas Cruz.
Following our post, Bernstein removed his original video, only to replace it with a version where his comments suggesting that Hogg was somehow involved in the shooting had been removed and which featured a message claiming that he never said such a thing:
Recently #MarchForOurLives supporters have attacked me for saying that I said #DavidHogg had something to do with the shooting. Let me clarify this. I did not say that. I said I thought it was very odd that David would be interviewing anybody while an active shooter was on campus. Of course I do not believe he had something to do with the planning and execution of the shooting. But I think the REAL question must be answered by David himself. "Was he in fact even on campus during the shooting? He has given 2 VERSIONS of HIS story. First he said, "I was in a science class when I heard the shots and was saved by a janitor." Then he said in a separate interview, "When I heard about the shooting I grabbed my camera, jumped on my bike, and went to the school?" Well, WHICH IS IT DAVID? Where [sic] you there or not?
Bernstein's claim that Hogg gave two version of his story is false, but he also posted a copy of the same edited video on a second YouTube channel, accompanied by a message accusing us of taking his original comments "out of context" and attacking him for something he never said, though that video has also been removed:
Recently my loyal fans at #RightWingWatch took something I said out of context and attacked me for saying something I did not say. I never said Hogg was complicit in the shooting. I said my gut tells me he likely new [sic] the shooter more than he is letting on. I also said it was "strange" and "very odd" that Hogg was interviewing students who were all anti gun and very calm while there was an active shooter on campus? But of course that is not as sexy as a headline.
We put together a clip from Bernstein's edited version of the video in which he removed the segment where he said the very things about Hogg that he now claims he never said, and combined that with the clip from his original video in which he explicitly said that he suspected that Hogg "had something to do with the Stoneman shooting" and "was either warned beforehand—knew he wasn’t going to be shot, knew he wasn’t going to be targeted—or was affiliated in some way with Nikolas Cruz."
