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  • 2016-07-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight (en)
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  • On 19 July 2016, actor Scott Baio (best known in political circles for his portrayal of Fonzie's cousin Chachi in the 1970s TV sitcom Happy Days) engaged in a contentious debate on MSNBC with NBC national correspondent Tamron Hall, during which Baio asserted (in the video above) that President Obama had once said if they bring a knife to an argument, you bring a gun. The exchange in question occurred during a debate over civility, and Hall challenged Baio over both his own comments as well as comments made by Donald Trump: Hall seemed perplexed by the claim and unaware othat President Obama had stated any such thing (for which Baio provided no context). But Baio wasn't the first to ascribe the quote to the President in 2016, as shown in an Fox Business News segment (at the end of the video above) that featured a longer version of the quote and dated it as having been uttered on 13 June 2008: Many social media users were skeptical that the quote was legitimate, and Baio's manner of describing it didn't make it easier for viewers to pin down the circumstances under which President Obama might have said such a thing. That was likely due in part to the passage of time (more than eight years had gone by since the date appended to the on-screen transcription), although some people suggested all evidence of the comment had been scrubbed from the Internet. The quote itself was commonly cited as having been sourced from the mob film The Untouchables and also frequently referenced by hip-hop artists. One such instance is the track Takeover by Jay-Z, of whom the President is a noted fan. As it turned out, the comment was indeed made by then-Senator Obama at a fundraising event in the City of Brotherly Love, and it was not ignored by mainstream media outlets at the time. The New York Times, reported on 14 June 2008 that: On the same date, Reuters published an item that stated, in part: The Wall Street Journal provided a sliver of additional context to the statement: We were unable to locate any video of President Obama's knife to a gun fight remarks, but the comments were well documented in contemporaneous news reports. (en)
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