The Obama administration censored a video released on Friday of French President Francois Hollande saying that "Islamic terrorism" was at the "root of terrorism."
Hollande made the comment Thursday at a press event at the White House featuring President Barack Obama and members of his national security team. The French president was in the United States for the Nuclear Security Summit, which ended Friday.
The White House briefly pulled video of the press event,
MRC TV reports, but when it reappeared on WhiteHouse.gov and YouTube, the audio of Hollande's translator goes silent — starting with the words "Islamic terrorism" and resuming with "and we note … ."
The official transcript of the remarks posted on
WhiteHouse.gov shows that Hollande's translator would speak these words at that point in the video: " … Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we're doing within the framework of the coalition. …"
The White House provided this explanation for the gap under the YouTube video:
"A technical issue with the audio during the recording of President Hollande's remarks led to a brief drop in the audio recording of the English interpretation. As soon as this was brought to our attention, we posted an updated video with the complete audio
here and on
WhiteHouse.gov, which is consistent with the written transcript we released yesterday."