PresidentDonald Trumpwas criticized on Twitter this week after sharing a flattering but fake quote from former PresidentRonald Reaganabout meeting him.
Trump, 73,on Monday retweeted a postfrom an account which appeared to be impersonating the well-known conservative outlet“The Reagan Battalion.”
The tweet featured an image of Trump and the late President Reagan shaking hands along with the made-up quote from Regan: “For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president.”
The tweet captioned the photo and quote with, “Dear weak Conservatives, never forget that you are no match for ‘we the people,’ and our president.”
When he shared the post, Trump wrote, “Cute!” But corrections quickly followed.
Accordingto CNN, the fake pro-Trump tweet has been circulating in his supporter’s Facebook groups since 2016. Joanne Drake, chief administrative officer of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, confirmed toPolitiFactin February that “e did not ever say that about Donald Trump.”
According to Drake, the photo of Trump and Reagan was taken on Nov. 3, 1987, in a reception in the White House Blue Room for the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies nonprofit.
Twitter users also responded to Trump for spreading a well-known lie. (Snopesdebunked the quoteback in 2016.)
“You attacked Bette Midler over a fake quote but you are sharing a proven fake quote ?” one userreplied. “Cute indeed.”
“Reagan never said this,”wroteone user, and adding the PolitiFact article that proves the Reagan quote was never said, while another user replied with the article fromSnopes, which reported that the fake tweet was first thrown into circulation in July 2016, on the “Trump Train” pro-Trump Facebook page.
Archives from the late president showed that he and Trump “weren’t very close” at the time of their 1987 meeting, according to Snopes. Trump was then a New York real estate developer, author and media gadfly.
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Trump is no stranger to false claims on Twitter. In 2017,he sharedan incendiary video from a far-right British group that falsely purported to show a Muslim boy attacking a Dutch boy.
source: people.com
