Ven Johnson Law has filed suit against Donald Trump, his campaign and a conservative Kansas city social-media personality alleging emotional distress and humiliation following the president’s re-post of manipulated footage of their young children.
The complaint — filed Thursday in New York Supreme Court — is on behalf of Michael Cisneros and Alex Hanson, parents of a 3-year-old child, and Daniel and Erica McKenna, parents of another 3-year-old.
Those children — one white and one Black — were initially featured prominently last year in a widely-shared clip that shows them running toward one another to embrace before taking off down the street together.
Initially, the moment was shared by outlets who highlighted its heartwarming nature, but it took on new life this summer after being edited and re-shared by pro-Trump meme maker Logan Cook, according to the suit.
Cook, who went by the Twitter handle @carpedonktum before the social media platform froze his account, describes himself as a "Sarcastic Memesmith specializing in the creation of memes to support President Donald J. Trump" on Instagram, where his account remains active.
In the manipulated version, only the final nine seconds of the original footage is seen, depicting the two boys running above a fake (and misspelled) CNN headline: "Terrified todler runs from racist baby." Later, the caption changes to, "Racist baby probably a Trump voter."
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