Donald Trump tweeted, then deleted, a cartoon image of a train running over a CNN reporter, BBC News is reporting . What’s more, it appears Mr. Trump also re-tweeted a post from a critic, failing to notice the words “he’s a fascist” in the original tweet he shared.
At about 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday morning, Trump shared the cartoon, showing a red, white and blue train, labeled “Trump,” running over a a person with the CNN logo covering their face. The image was captioned “Fake News Can’t Stop The Trump Train.” It was left up for just a few minutes before being deleted.
However, considering that tens of millions of people follow Trump on Twitter, several observers were able to take screen shots of the tweet.
The timing of the tweet is unfortunate, according to the New York Times , considering that just three days earlier a woman was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters at an alt-right rally.
According to a White House official, Trump tweeted the image “accidentally.” However, as the Times notes that tweeting requires two actions, meaning that Trump had at least one second chance to change his mind before tweeting the image.
@BBCNews To be fair the pic shows a CNN reporter trying to STOP the Trump train, not get run over by it @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/JEQrP6aBRM
— dave (@dhammond939) August 15, 2017
Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted his own response, calling on members of Congress to condemn Trump’s tweet.
Every Member of Congress must condemn POTUS for posting pic of a vehicle striking a reporter after terrorists used a vehicle to kill a woman pic.twitter.com/ryI1xMc4Nt
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) August 15, 2017
It was not the first time Trump had shared media depicting violence against CNN. In June, Trump tweeted a video of himself appearing at a pro wrestling match years ago. The face of the person Trump was “wrestling” was covered with a CNN logo.
Trump’s CNN tweet has us asking why the news media, and other wrestling neophytes, call everything a body slam https://t.co/1l1khqwk11 pic.twitter.com/XdFYSZGYs5
— Paste Magazine (@PasteMagazine) July 10, 2017
Meanwhile, in another apparent Trump Twitter blunder Tuesday morning, Trump re-tweeted, then deleted, a post from a critic who called Trump a “fascist.”
Twitter user @MikeHolden tweeted his condemnation of a Fox News report claiming that Trump would likely pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted in June of illegally racially profiling Latinos. In the tweet, Holden said, of Trump, “He’s a fascist.” Why Trump re-tweeted a tweet critical of him remains unclear.
Holden, for his part, has updated his Twitter bio to read “Officially Endorsed by the President of the United States. I wish that were a good thing.”
[Featured Image by Alex Brandon/AP]
