Trump Accidentally Retweets Post Mocking Him And Fox News
When President Donald Trump retweeted a Monday evening post of a Fox News clip featuring him, he may not have realized the post wasn’t intended to be flattering or supportive. In fact, the account he retweeted is one of his more vocal critics on social media, and responded to the retweet with some pretty harsh insults. It also looks like the president’s retweet may have accidentally boosted the popularity of an account that is perpetually critical of him.

On Monday, Trump announced that he’d been taking hydroxychloroquine, despite medical warnings about the drug. Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto actually cut away from the live feed to warn viewers of the dangers of the drug. Since Fox‘s Laura Ingraham recently suggested that there was no reason not to try the drug, some viewers called out the contradiction.
A Twitter account called ‘The Hoarse Whisperer’ tweeted the clip of Cavuto’s warning, with commentary mocking the apparent contradictory reporting.
Fox News on hydroxychloroquine in the last two days:
Neil Cavuto: It’ll kill you!!!
Laura Ingraham: Take it! Take it! Take it!
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 18, 2020
This part is no surprise — media loyalty has become highly partisan, and Trump’s detractors frequently mock how Fox covers his administration. The surprising part is that Trump then shared the post.

Trump may have not realized the post was intended to mock Ingraham’s support of the medication, rather than Cavuto’s dire warning, or maybe he just shared the clip based on the chyron (“President Trump: I’ve taken hydroxychloroquine for about a week-and-a-half now”), without watching it and realizing that Cavuto wasn’t praising his words. Trump later retweeted a post deriding Cavuto for the criticism, adding, “Fox News is no longer the same….you have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before.”
.@FoxNews is no longer the same. We miss the great Roger Ailes. You have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before. Looking for a new outlet! https://t.co/jXxsF0flUM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
However, he didn’t delete the previous post.
Across social media, people who are familiar with Hoarse Whisperer’s posting, or who read the post in question, expressed shock.
How did trump accidentally retweet @HoarseWisperer?
— Molly Jong-Fast? (@MollyJongFast) May 19, 2020
The President is not well, guys. https://t.co/HrgOAZSQ7i
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) May 19, 2020
The briefest click through to the original poster’s feed would tell any reader that this was no Trump fan.
Any cardiologists want to weigh in on an overweight, 73-year old man with a high saturated fat diet combining Adderall with a drug known to cause fatal arrhythmias?
I suspect that might be… unrecommended.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 19, 2020
However, Trump’s moment of attention seems to have equaled a lot of moments of attention from his following. It’s not certain how many of The Hoarse Whisperer’s new followers are from Trump’s retweet, but an archive of the account from two weeks ago shows 249k followers, compared to the current 266.4k — an increase of more than seventeen thousand new followers.
Meanwhile, the Hoarse Whisperer took advantage of the moment to send a harsh message back to the president and his fans.
Hi, @realDonaldTrump.
While I have your attention…https://t.co/iFVwy0A2yE
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 19, 2020
To the 10,000 Trump followers who just followed me because he retweeted me.
You know not what you’ve done.
Welcome to the Thunderdome. pic.twitter.com/doJ6YFhFZ7
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 19, 2020
Trump often retweets clips of himself from news networks that tend to be supportive of him, including Fox. He clearly realized at some point that Cavuto was cautioning viewers against following Trump’s example in taking an unproven medication with risky side effects, since he later tweeted to complain about Cavuto being ‘anti-Trump.’ However, at the time of tweeting, it appears he may not have recognized that neither Cavuto nor The Hoarse Whisperer was praising the president.