The arbiter of “fake news” himself has gotten duped.
On Sunday, president Donald Trump posted an image claiming that his predecessor Barack Obama had been collecting millions in taxpayer dollars from “royalties linked to Obamacare.” Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the post further averred, had heroically intervened to halt the yearly payments of $2.5 million, which totaled to $40 million since 2010.
“WOW!” Trump wrote in the post, receiving nearly 18,000 likes and over 8,000 “ReTruths” on his social network Truth Social.
But these claims weren’t just false — they’re so outrageously fake that their actual origin was mocking anyone credulous enough to fall for them.
As many outlets quickly noted, the bogus item originates from a website called — we kid you not — the “Dunning-Kruger Times.” The name, of course, is a reference to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the well-observed tendency of particularly stupid people to vastly overestimate their abilities or intelligence. The name couldn’t be more on the nose if it was called “Website For Gullible Dopes Who Believe Anything They Hear.”
“Everything on this website is fiction,” the satirical site’s “About Us” page reads. “If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.”
Per coverage from The Guardian, a White House spokesperson refused to directly answer questions on whether Trump knew that the claims he shared were satire, and instead, via Forbes, unleashed a missive about how Obama “rapidly became a multi-millionaire” after leaving office, while Trump is supposedly the only president in history “to have actually lost money in office.” (On that note, may we direct you to some of Trump’s extremely suspicious crypto deals that have made his family billions of dollars?)
It remains unclear why Trump shared the obviously fake claims, which were posted seemingly apropos of nothing. The gaffe, in any case, comes amid greater scrutiny into Trump’s health and in particular what many interpret as signs of cognitive decline.
Just last week, Trump was visibly struggling to remain awake during a meeting in the Oval Office. In April, Trump’s White House physician said that the president is in “excellent cognitive and physical health,” and revealed that he had gotten a perfect score on a cognitive assessment that detects early signs of dementia. Later, Trump bragged about acing the test, which he called “very hard.”
“One of the doctors said he’s almost never seen a perfect score. I had a perfect score. I had the highest score. And that made me feel good,” Trump gloated while speaking to reporters. “There aren’t a lot of people in this room that would get every single question right, I can guarantee you.”
... continue reading