Washington State coach Mike Leach retweeted a video Sunday that was edited to misrepresent comments made by President Barack Obama during a 2014 speech in Belgium.
Leach, in a tweet that was later deleted, wrote: "Listen to this. Text your thoughts. There is a lot of disagreement on government, so I think that an open discussion is always in order. Tweet your thoughts. Maybe we can all learn something."
The tweet also included a link to a YouTube video of excerpts from Obama's speech. The 19-second video clip includes the headline, "Obama speech given at Bilderberg Group," and had over 47,000 views as of Monday afternoon. The video has been edited to combine non-sequential comments made by Obama about the role of government in a sovereign state.
Multiple commenters informed Leach that the video had been edited and also pointed out that the speech was not made to the Bilderberg Group; the comments were from Obama's address at the European Union in March 2014.
After deleting the tweet Monday, Leach sent a follow-up tweet acknowledging that "the video was incomplete," along with a link to the complete transcript of Obama's speech.
This is the complete speech. I agree that the video was incomplete. However, I believe discussion on how much or how little power that our Gov should have is important......Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth: https://t.co/BnNzxyivyN
— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) June 18, 2018
Washington State spokesman Phil Weiler also addressed Leach's original tweet in a statement to several media outlets.
"As a private citizen, Mike Leach is entitled to his personal opinions," Weiler said in his statement. "Coach Leach's political views do not necessarily reflect the views of Washington State University students, faculty and staff."
Leach, 57, is set to enter his seventh season at Washington State and has coached the Cougars to three consecutive bowl appearances. He has a 122-81 career record in 16 seasons at Washington State and Texas Tech.