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Clinton gives Trump a presidential 'filter'

As Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton pivots toward the general election, her social media team is having some fun at Donald Trump’s expense.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during her primary night gathering at the Philadelphia Convention Center on April 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty)
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during her primary night gathering at the Philadelphia Convention Center on April 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pa.

As Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton pivots toward the general election, her social media team is having some fun at Donald Trump’s expense. 

Clinton’s latest Snapchat posts use the platform's "face swap" filter (in which a user can take selfies using another image superimposed on their face), giving the Republican front-runner Trump the faces of a series of different past Republican presidents. The ploy is both a clever way to address Trump's attempts to be more presidential and his most controversial policies.

“If he tries to be presidential like honest Abe Lincoln,” Clinton's Snapchat post begins, showing a portrait of the president who ended slavery, before adding Lincoln’s face to a Trump news clip where he refuses to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. 

“Remember the time he refused to disavow the KKK…” text says, before cycling through Dwight Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, offering up Trump positions that the Clinton posts suggest the past presidents would have disagreed with.

“If he tries to be presidential like George W. Bush,” the story continues, posting Bush’s face on Trump in clips of him vowing to ban Muslims from the country and saying Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals during his presidential announcement. “Remember he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Or the time he insulted Mexican immigrants,” overlaid text adds.

Bush publicly spoke out against Islamaphobia after the September 11 attacks and sought to reform the country’s immigration system, giving the first-ever prime-time address on the U.S. immigration system and speaking sympathetically of immigrants. 

“We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws," he said. "We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways."

The Snapchat story ends with a reference to Netflix’s “House of Cards” show.

“Trump can try and be 'presidential.' It won’t mask his offensive/dangerous words. Unless…” the story finishes showing a photo of the show’s famously cunning and violent Frank Underwood. “Maybe this is what Trump meant by 'presidential?'”