Trump Tricked Into Sharing Tweet Calling Him ‘Dumb, Sloppy, And Moist’
President Donald Trump has, more than once, retweeted criticism of himself, apparently by accident. This time, he retweeted a critic who temporarily changed his screen name so that Trump’s timeline carried some harsh insults about the president. It caused the appearance that Trump had agreed with, and shared, an assessment of himself as “dumb, sloppy, and moist.”
Politiwoops, a project from Propublica, captures any tweet that a politician deletes, saving it for posterity and the public record. According to their analysis, Trump shared the tweet around midnight, and deleted it after it had been publicly visible for an hour.
The tweet in question is innocuous enough — its a video clip of Fox News‘ Lou Dobbs, talking about Trump in a highly complimentary fashion. When sharing it, Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters For America quoted a portion of Dobbs’ words: “He is, arguably, the greatest president in our history.”
"He is, arguably, the greatest president in our history" pic.twitter.com/mVx1LEFaFr
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) May 27, 2020
The president shared the tweet, adding his own comment: “Thank you Lou!” Trump frequently retweets video clips of himself or of pundits talking flatteringly about him, as well as tweets that praise him, without apparent regard for who posted them. In this case, that backfired.
Lawrence temporarily changed his Twitter screen name to read, “Trump is dumb, sloppy, and moist.” Though Trump deleted the tweet after an hour, screenshots live forever.
🤣🤣🤣
Well played, @ndrew_lawrence pic.twitter.com/EQe7pvJJQj
— Angry Staffer (@AngrierWHStaff) May 28, 2020
The president made the mistake of quote-tweeting @ndrew_lawrence this evening (as of right now this is still on his feed) pic.twitter.com/wQgWTAsH4w
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) May 28, 2020
A gift from @mmfa’s @ndrew_lawrence. pic.twitter.com/M5RtTvYxM5
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) May 28, 2020
Trump has previously accidentally retweeted a tweet calling him a fascist, according to LiveMint, and earlier this month he retweeted one that mocked Laura Ingraham and Trump himself for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure for COVID-19. All of the president’s tweets, including deleted ones, are supposed to be stored for the National Archives. These will be a permanent part of the national record.