US president promoted fictional claim from satirical website that has been debunked repeatedly since 2017
Donald Trumppromoted the false claim thatBarack Obamahas earned $40m in “royalties linked to Obamacare” in apostto his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday.
The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunkedsince at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.
The updated version of the claim shared by Trump on Sunday fooledmany of his supportersin February, when it wasposted on Facebookby America’s Last Line of Defense, andon the Dunning-Kruger-Times, a satirical site run by the same man,Christopher Blair, the Maine-based “godfather of fake news”.
On Sunday morning, Trump posted a screenshot of an earlier post with an image of Obama and the text: “BREAKING: DOGE halted a yearly payment of $2.5 million toBarack Obamafor ‘royalties linked to Obamacare.’ He’s been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars.”
The president, who spent much of the weekend when he wasnot golfingderiding Obamacare on social media, as Senate Democrats pushed to extendtax credits for Americanswho rely on the Affordable Care Act, shared the screenshot with just one word of comment: “WOW!”
A White House spokesperson refused to answer questions about whether the president was aware that the report he shared was fictional, or was concerned about misleading his followers, replying instead with a broadside against Obama that did not address the questions.
Blair, the owner of the network of satirical website and social media accounts the claim came from,told the Guardianin 2023 thatGreg Abbott, the Texas governor, was among the “dumbest people in the country” after Abbott shared a fake article about his own state from the Dunning-Kruger-Times.
Sumber: www.theguardian.com
