New York City public housing tenants spotlighted in a video at the Republican National Convention spoke out to the New York Times to say they were misled about the purpose of the video.

The video starts with the message “President Trump promised to deliver real change for the residents of our nation’s cities. He kept that promise.”

The video features Judy Smith, Manuel Martinez, Claudia Perez, and Carmen Quiñones criticizing how Bill de Blasio has dealt with public housing residents and what the Trump administration has done to help “shine a light on what’s going on.”

The New York Times reports that the interviews were arranged and conducted by HUD official Lynne Patton. But despite the serious criticisms of the Democratic mayor, they’re apparently not exactly big Trump supporters:

They were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, three of the tenants said in interviews on Friday.

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

Perez, the Times says, stood by all the criticisms featured in the video but “was furious about being tricked into appearing in the video.”

Patton denied they were misled and claimed to the Times that she spoke all of them Friday and they were “upset with the way The Times was ‘twisting their words.'” But per the Times:

In a separate interview, Ms. Quiñones said she talked to Ms. Patton on Friday afternoon and was comfortable with how she was being portrayed by The Times. She said she was disappointed that her words were twisted to support President Trump.

Ms. Perez and a third tenant, Manny Martinez, said they had not spoken with Ms. Patton on Friday and did not know what she was talking about.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2YN0Fu2