Donald Trump Called More Things ‘Fake’ In August Than Ever Before, Not Just ‘News’ In Record-Setting Month
Donald Trump has long used his Twitter account to declare things that he doesn’t like or that he perceives as critical to be “fake,” or some other word indicating unreality. In fact, as far back as 2012, Trump took to Twitter to declare President Barack Obama’s birth certificate to be “fake,” saying that his claim had been proven by “Israeli science.”
As he ran for the nation’s highest office, and following his unexpected election victory, Trump repeatedly posted Twitter messages decrying “fake news,” which judging by his tweets recorded by the Trump Twitter Archive, almost always referred to news reports critical of Trump himself. The archive shows that Trump has posted on Twitter about “fake news” 280 times since December 10, 2016 — most recently on Sunday when he declared on Twitter, “@Rasmussen_Poll just came out at 48% approval rate despite the constant and intense Fake News.”
But according to an analysis by NPR of Trump’s Twitter activity since his January 20, 2017, inauguration, the recently completed month of August, 2018, set a new record for Trump declaring things “fake” or “phony” or “rigged” on Twitter.
“This is part of a trend,” NPR reporter Tamara Keith wrote. “As Trump’s presidency has gone on, these kinds of tweets have increased over time, with peaks coming in months with particularly bad headlines for the president.”
August saw Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen plead guilty to eight federal crimes, implicating Trump in two of them involving “hush money” payments to women who say they had sexual relations with Trump, as the Inquisitr reported. His 2016 campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was convicted of eight federal felonies involving tax and bank fraud, and Trump posted a personal-high 46 Twitter messages in which he declared news and other things “fake,” according to the NPR analysis. That represents an average of 1.48 accusations of something being “fake” every day.
A great day in Puerto Rico yesterday. While some of the news coverage is Fake, most showed great warmth and friendship.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017
“Last month he tweeted about ‘fake books,’ ‘the fake dossier,’ ‘fake CNN,’ and he added a new claim — that Google search results are ‘RIGGED’ to mostly show only negative stories about him. He also accused NBC News’ Lester Holt of ‘fudging’ the tape of his May 2017 interview conducted shortly after Trump fired FBI director James Comey,” Keith recounted.
Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions “Justice” Department? A total joke!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2018
NPR created a graphic showing Trump’s month-by-month accusations of fakery on Twitter.
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018
The graphic shows that March, 2016, was Trump’s least-busy month for calling things “fake,” with fewer than 10 tweets in that category. But prior to August, his most recent three months all showed Trump obsessing about fake things, reaching at least 30 in each of June, July, and August.
