Donald Trump just shared a tweet with a fake quote from Ronald Reagan praising him

President Donald Trump shared a photo of him and former President Ronald Reagan with a quote praising him falsely attributed to Reagan on Monday, calling it “cute!” on Twitter. 

The tweet he shared was posted in 2017 by a now inactive account called “@reaganbattalion,” which appears to be an impersonation of a larger, verified conservative account called “@ReaganBattalion.”

The meme included a photo of Reagan and Trump shaking hands in the 1980s with the quote, falsely attributed to Reagan, saying, “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 a president.”

The fact-checking site PolitiFact was able to confirm the authenticity of the photo, dated back to 1987, but thoroughly debunked the supposed Reagan quote as a “pants-on-fire” level lie, verifying with an official from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute that Reagan never uttered that praise of the president. 

Shortly after Trump quote-tweeted the meme, the account that posted it was suspended from Twitter.

After the meme with the false Reagan quote spread around Facebook earlier this year, it was flagged on the site as misinformation. 

While Reagan himself died in 2004, long before Trump became president, Reagan’s son Michael Reagan predicted his father would be “confused” by Trump and “wouldn’t be appreciative of the demeaning style of Donald Trump.”

Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis has sharply criticized Trump in interviews and written several op-eds denouncing Trump’s policies in The Washington Post.

In a March interview with Yahoo News, Davis guessed that her father would be “horrified” by the Trump presidency and accused Trump of “endangering” American democracy, and the GOP of “sitting by the sidelines” and letting it happen.

[Business Insider]

Trump says his poll numbers are higher than Lincoln’s – but polling didn’t exist then

President Trump on Sunday claimed his poll numbers are higher than “Honest Abe Lincoln” despite the fact that presidential polling didn’t begin until 1936.

“Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan,” Trump posted on his Twitter account. “There must be something wrong, please recheck that poll!”

It’s unclear which survey he was referring to, but Gallup became the first company to poll a presidential election in 1936.

In a survey released last month, it found Trump’s approval rate was at 42 percent and his disapproval rate at 54 percent.

Comparing Ronald Reagan’s numbers at the same point in his presidency, Gallup found Reagan’s approval rating also at 42 percent.

Among other Republican presidents in July of their second year, George W. Bush had a 72 percent approval rating and George H.W. Bush had a 62 percent approval mark.

But Republicans gave Trump an 88 percent approval rating, compared to 9 percent among Democrats.

[New York Post]

Trump repeats inaccurate claim that Reagan didn’t win Wisconsin

President Trump repeated on Thursday his inaccurate claim that former President Ronald Reagan didn’t win the state of Wisconsin during his presidential elections.

“Take Wisconsin, I just left Wisconsin,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Montana.

“Reagan had his big win. He won every state except one, the great state of Wisconsin,” Trump said. “I won Wisconsin, first time since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.”

Reagan won the state in both 1980 and 1984. Minnesota was the only state that Reagan did not win in the 1984 election.

Eisenhower also won the state in his reelection in 1956. Former President Richard Nixon also won the state multiple times between Eisenhower’s and Trump’s elections.

Wisconsin is traditionally a blue state, but Trump narrowly picked it up in the 2016 election.

Hillary Clinton‘s lack of campaigning in Wisconsin has been widely cited as to why she lost the state.

Trump made a similar remark during an event in Wisconsin last week.

“And I won Wisconsin. And I like Wisconsin a lot but we won Wisconsin. And Ronald Reagan, remember, Wisconsin was the state that Ronald Reagan did not win,” Trump said at the time.

[The Hill]

Trump: I’m a ‘very stable genius’

President Donald Trump slammed reports questioning his mental stability in a series of tweets Saturday morning, writing he’s a “very stable genius” after the publication of an exposé about his first year as President put the White House into damage-control mode.

“Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence … ” Trump wrote, referring to questions raised about the mental fitness of the former President, who disclosed in 1994 that he had Alzheimer’s disease.

“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” the President continued. “Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star … to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius … and a very stable genius at that!”

After his tweets Saturday morning, Trump told reporters at Camp David that Wolff is a “fraud” who doesn’t know him.

“I went to the best colleges, or college,” he told reporters. “I had a situation where I was a very excellent student, came out and made billions and billions of dollars, became one of the top business people, went to television and for 10 years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard, ran for President one time and won. Then I hear this guy that doesn’t know me at all, by the way, didn’t interview me, said he interviewed me for three hours in the White House. Didn’t exist, it’s in his imagination.”

Trump continued: “I never interviewed with him in the White House at all; he was never in the Oval Office.”

Wolff told “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie on Friday that he “absolutely spoke to the President” while working on “Fire and Fury.”

“Whether he realized it was an interview or not, I don’t know, but it certainly was not off the record,” Wolff said. “I’ve spent about three hours with the President over the course of the campaign, and in the White House. So, my window into Donald Trump is pretty significant.”

The remarkable spectacle of Trump defending his mental stability comes after the President and some of his top officials spent the last few days countering claims in author Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury,” about Trump’s mental fitness to serve as President. The book, which went on sale Friday, also paints the picture of a President who neither knows nor cares about policy and doesn’t seem to perceive the vast responsibilities of his role.

CNN has not independently confirmed all of Wolff’s assertions.

Trump’s tweets also come after reports surfaced that a dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate received a briefing from Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee on Capitol Hill in early December about Trump’s fitness to be president.

“Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, the President’s dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses on the nation,” Lee told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, “They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really depends on Republicans, they said. Some knew of Republicans that were concerned, maybe equally concerned, but whether they would act on those concerns was their worry.”

The briefing was previously reported by Politico. Lee, confirming the December 5 and 6 meeting to CNN, said that the group was evenly mixed, with House and Senate lawmakers, and included at least one Republican — a senator, whom she would not name.

[CNN]

Let’s Make America Great Again

Trump, Make America Great Again

Donal Trump made the claim he invented the slogan “Make America Great Again”.

“The line of ‘Make America great again,’ the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody’s now using it, they are all loving it.”

“I don’t know, I guess I should copyright it.”

“Maybe I have copyrighted it.”

Reality

As many news agencies have pointed out:

Reagan “Let’s make America great again” Poster

Donald Trump has indeed trademarked the phrase, but apparently the filing overlooked clothing, such as t-shirts and hats.

Links

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/donald-trump-is-americas-stupidest-person-has-never-heard-of-google-20150325

http://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2016/03/make-america-great-again-but-only-for-trump/