The Person Behind Trump's CNN-Punching GIF Is Now Apologizing

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Time


Madeline Farber
7:53 AM ET


The Reddit user who claimed credit for creating the animated GIF showing President Donald Trump body slamming CNN's logo is apologizing for racist and anti-Semitic comments he reportedly made in the past.

"I would like to apologize to the members of the Reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened," wrote the user, who goes by "HanA--holeSolo" on the site. "I am in no way this kind of person. I love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so my entire life."

The original post has been deleted, but not before screenshots of the message were posted online.

Trump posted a version of the CNN video on July 2. "HanA--holeSolo," the Reddit user, claimed credit for creating it soon thereafter. That led reporters to analyze his or her history on the site. In June, the user posted a graphic critical of Jewish staffers at CNN. On Sunday, the user wrote "F--- ISLAM." A comment about a photo of crowd of refugees read "there's a MOAB (Mother of All Bomb's) for that."

Read more: http://time.com/4844908/reddit-user-trump-cnn-video-racist-post-apology/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fswampland+%28TIME%3A+Politics%29

[Achilleaze]

1. Meanwhile, the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief is laughing at

all the people he has suckered over the course of his life as a republican-style casino sharpie.

[noneof_theabove]

2. Apology.....

Getting really tired of this elephant tears bullshit.

I live by a top level rule:
There is no such thing as an accident, only a momentary lapse of stupid.
[a few cases are the result of another party but did you do 100% do mitigate that issue]


So you said it, did it, allowed it, etc. then you own it 100%.

Affluenza applies big time here, money does not negate and reset what you did.

Neither does going to some gold leaf covered statue on sundays and doing the same goddamn thing on monday, wash, rinse and repeat.

[Tarc]

3. He's apologizing because he got outed, not because of remorse

This is the only real weapon you have against pseudonymous trolls is to unmask their identities. Whether it's a WalMart, a management position, sales, o self-employed, nothing sinks a career swifter than having a name linked to antisemitic or racist comments made online.

Ask Michael Brutsch about that; http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web

[Judi Lynn]

5. So this is what he dreamed of becoming when he was a small troll.

Hard to believe someone could spend his life like this.

I hope fate isn't finished with him, yet. Hope he'll be receiving all those kicks-in-the-pants he ordered.

[Blue Idaho]

11. "I'm sorry...

I got caught" is not an apology.

[Tarc]

21. alt-right, Free Republic talking points are not welcome here

CNN investigated the source of a violence-inciting meme that our Cheeto-in-Chief re-tweeted, and found the source was a man who also likes to post racist and antisemitic screeds on the internet.

Freedom of Speech does not equal Freedom of Consequence, my FRiend.

[Hieronymus]

4. Good, but he's sick.

[Paladin]

6. Apology NOT accepted.

Eat shit and die, HanAsshole.

[ResistantAmerican17]

7. Scared The Tables Are Turned On HIM now that he has lost his anonymous internet invincibility shield

Apology my ass. He's sorry he got caught. I about spewed my coffee this morning when Alison Camarada fawned over his "APOLOGY." I hope CNN isn't going to cower to these assholes.

[Shell_Seas]

8. This is the reason #CNNBlackmail is trending on Twitter...

Personally, though, I think all racists, anti-Semitic, xenophobes, misogynists, and bigots should all be completely exposed and ostracized in society. Who cares about their embarrassment and what their neighbors and coworkers think. They aught to know what horrible people they think they can be while hiding behind a keyboard.

[ResistantAmerican17]

10. I second that

Hopefully someone will publish the cockroach's name! And CNN said Reddit scrubbed his apology!

[Gothmog]

9. Apology not accepted

[Sunlei]

12. A fast change in attitude. IMO,this person is connected to trump-gang by more then just reedit post

one of the sons? kellyanne-social media 'business'?

[IronLionZion]

13. Only if he's genuine and knows why it was wrong and has turned a new leaf

then we should encourage people to be reformed and come clean after past mistakes.

But if this is BS and he keeps doing it, then he should be shown no quarter. Whatever that means. Not sure what he wants? Some people worry about what others think of them.

[inwiththenew]

14. Looks like they stirred the hornets nest

I just went to twitter and it is flooded with Trump beating up CNN and other gifs mocking CNN.

[keithbvadu2]

15. Did Jared know his place and keep quiet about the Jew pictures?

[janterry]

16. I really dislike when

people say this is not who I am..........when it is exactly how they behave.

I'm glad he doesn't want to be an angry guy that promotes attacking people.......but he IS an angry guy that incites violence.

[Honeycombe8]

17. Have you ever seen the sub-group for Trump on Reddit?

I did once, out of curiosity. I believe it's been "restricted," now, so that you have to be approved to join to see it.

I didn't have the stomach to read it again. I'm no prude, and I've been around a while and seen some things, but I was shocked, horrified, and disgusted by what I saw.

The people that were posting there were openly hate-filled, unrepentently racist and misogynistic. I don't mean like normal people. These were posters in delighting in the freedom to say every gross and criminal thing you can think of about any group other than their own.

I wish I had copied some of those posts to paste here. It really was shocking. Every horrible thing you can imagine being said, was being said. The sub-group got in trouble for a line of posts...I forget what for and by whom. It was after that that the sub-group closed itself to casual readers and you had to be approved to join.

It is suspected that this is one of the groups that Russia focused on, becoming participants. It has over 380,000 members.

Fivethirtyeight.com said of the sub-group:

"The subreddit, where posters refer to President Trump as the “God Emperor” and “daddy,” is arguably the epicenter of Trump fervor on the internet. Its membership has grown steadily since the 2016 presidential election, though its members were especially active during the campaign. They mobilized to comb through the hacked Democratic National Committee emails published on WikiLeaks and played a large role in spreading information and theories about those emails. More broadly, they waged the “Great Meme War”: an effort to get Trump elected by bombarding the internet with social-media-ready content promoting Trump or bashing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. " And, "others involved an emerging pro-Trump iconography centered around images of Pepe the Frog — a cartoon character with a convoluted history that gained especial prominence after it was co-opted by white nationalists as a sort of unofficial mascot. Members of r/The_Donald like to say they “shitposted” Donald Trump into office;"

I think it was the Pepe the Frog thing that got the group in trouble.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/

Anyone who belongs to such a group is of this ilk. Anyone who uses anything that comes from this group knows very well the kind of person who created it.

[Sunlei]

22. IMO-was Trump,his family and his (R)W 'trusted' friends. nazi frog was often in trumps campaign

Fuck you Republican party for backing that sick man for president!!

[oberliner]

18. The apology sounds like more trolling

Lays it on a bit too thick.

[itcfish]

19. Don't know if it is related

But I read that 8chan.com (I think) posted the names, addresses and telephone numbers of a list of CNN news journalists.