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As President Donald Trump continues to spread lies about the election outcome, his campaign spokesperson posted a fake Twitter cover page on Sunday suggesting the media incorrectly named former Vice President Al Gore the winner of the 2000 presidential election.
In the tweet, which has since been deleted, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh shared photos of the front page of a Washington Times newspaper made up with the headline “President Gore.”
In his tweet, Murtaugh wrote: “Hi @TeamTrump HQ staff this morning, a reminder that the media is not picking the president.”
Trump’s staff had apparently printed the front page and stuck it all over their office kitchen as a form of motivation to continue fighting Joe Biden’s media project winning the Electoral College.
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There was just one problem: the first page was a complete fabrication.
The Washington Times then responded to Murtaugh’s tweet, saying the image was “tampered with” and the newspaper “never made ‘President Gore’ headlines.”
“We also wish to add that Mr. Murtaugh was officially notified by email of this error,” the Times added.
Murtaugh and the Times did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News requests for comment.
The bogus front page, which includes the actual story text printed by the Washington Times on November 8, 2000 (which said George W. Bush defeated Gore), appears to have been originally published in 2010 on the DeviantArt website. com.
During what was a chaotic election night in 2000, major news networks initially named Gore the projected Florida state winner, but then retracted that call and projected that Bush had won the state and the Presidency. But after it became clear the race was too close to call, the networks again retracted their projection. Bush ultimately won Florida and the presidency after a Supreme Court ruling ended a recount in the state.
Unlike 20 years ago, networks and media outlets did not project a winner on election night this year. Instead, due to an unprecedented number of voters voting by mail, they waited until Saturday morning to declare Joe Biden the winner after determining that Trump could not overcome the widening of the Democratic candidate’s margin in the State of Pennsylvania, which, with its 20 electoral votes, pushed it above the threshold of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Since polling day and even after Biden was named the winner, Trump has falsely claimed victory and alleged a widespread plot to steal the election from him, as part of a months-long effort to undermine elections and democracy. Although it takes weeks to certify the results of an election (and Biden will not technically be declared the winner until the Electoral College votes on December 14), the vote tally released by election officials is clear: Biden will be the next president of the United States.
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Earlier Sunday, former President Bush issued a statement saying he called both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to congratulate them, adding that the election results were “clear.”
“No matter how you vote, your vote counts,” said Bush, adding that Trump has “the right to demand recounts and pursue legal proceedings, and any unresolved issues will be properly adjudicated.”
Yet, he said, “the American people can be confident that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be maintained and its outcome is clear.”
In another now deleted tweet, Republican Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona who has supported Trump’s lies about the election, called Bush an “election theft expert”.
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