49er on altered video: ‘Can they do this?’

When Brandon Aiyuk texted his agent Monday night a tweet with a video of President Donald Trump’s head superimposed over his own head, the 49ers’ rookie wide receiver wanted to know one thing.

“His simple question was, ‘ Can they do this?’ ” said Ryan Williams, Aiyuk’s agent. “And I went on the attack.”

Within 30 minutes, Williams said, Twitter took the video down because of copyright infringement – but only after the video had gone viral.

On a spectacular play in the 49ers’ game against the Eagles on Sunday, Aiyuk caught a pass, bolted downfield and hurdled Philadelphia safety Marcus Epps to reach the end zone for a 38-yard touchdown. Team Trump, the official Twitter account for the campaign, posted the video with the president’s head superimposed over Aiyuk, who sat for the national anthem before the game, and an illustration from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing COVID-19’s structure superimposed on Epps’ head.

This happened on the same evening Trump returned to the White House after a three-day stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after testing positive for the coronavirus.

“It’s interesting to me that for someone who at one point referred to football players as ‘sons of bitches,’ him and his campaign sure do like to use football when it’s convenient for them,” said Williams.

During a speech in 2017, Trump referred to NFL players protesting during the national anthem when he said, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ”

It turns out Williams wasn’t the only one who had called Twitter to have the video taken down.

“Our contact at Twitter told us the NFL was also working to get it taken down for copyright (infringement),” he said. “So it was taken down.”

The NFL and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.