People in office are held to a higher standard than other individuals of the general public. As a result, those who have a public forum should think twice about how they use it.

President Donald Trump has shared more than a few claims about individuals which turned out be inaccurate or taken out of context. For example, the exaggeration of the size of the inauguration crowd, the speeding up of the Jim Acosta press incident, verbal attacks on Hillary Clinton and, the most recent example, an edited video he posted April 12 to Twitter of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.

{{tncms-inline account=”Donald J. Trump” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WE WILL NEVER FORGET! <a href="https://t.co/VxrGFRFeJM">pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM</a></p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1116817144006750209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2019</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1116817144006750209″ type=”twitter”}}

In the video, the speech Omar was giving about the role of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was taken out of context. Trump‘s post made it seem like Omar was unpatriotic and painted her in a bad light by using video editing techniques.

If one watched the unedited footage, it shows she was explaining how the council came to be and its role in the community. Although Omar mentioned the wrong date the council was founded, she had no malicious intent and was advocating for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

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When spreading information, it is important to research and consider presumed backlash or unexpected hate from the audience reading the false claim.

“I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life — many directly referencing or replying to [Trump’s] video,” Omar tweeted April 14.

People make mistakes and learn from them; it’s human decency to apologize when we realize our mistakes. However, when the same mistakes are made by someone in power and there is no apology given, it reflects poorly on the leader. The image Trump is displaying by posting hateful speech is not that of a good leader.

When asked about regrets or second thoughts about the April 12 Tweet and the way it was put together, Trump replied, “No, not at all,” according to an April 16 Vox article.

Trump tweeted the video to cause a stir, knowing it would affect someone’s life. Someone who can consistently do this should not be a leader as it demonstrates a clear lack of respect. True leadership is when someone can own up to their mistakes by making the necessary corrections and preventing them from happening again.

“If you are voicing your opinion and its causing the receiving end to receive death threats, then it’s important to take a step back and reevaluate your priorities,” Ibrahim Ziden, junior rehabilitation and disability services major, said. “I don’t think anyone takes death threats lightly.”