Facebook users are circulating an image of a fake tweet attributed to President Donald Trump that states he spoke with George Floyd’s family and they were “honored” to hear from him.
The faux tweet is rife with grammatical errors. It reads:
“I spoke with George Floyd’s family. There voices told me they were honored to hear from me. I told them I didn’t want to see another black man die by a knee to the neck. It looked to painful. There’s better ways to die. No way is good, but that was very bad.”
This is not a legitimate tweet by the president.
It doesn’t appear anywhere on Trump’s Twitter timeline on May 29, the date the screenshot shows it was supposedly posted.
ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization, maintains a database of tweets deleted by politicians called Politwoops. The alleged post is not captured in the database, and we found no evidence that shows the tweet ever existed on the platform.
Websites allow anyone to generate real-looking, but ultimately fake tweets using tweet generators.
Trump did say on May 29 that he spoke with members of Floyd’s family. He described them as “terrific people” and said he reached out to them to express his sorrow.
As for the fictitious tweet, we rate it Pants on Fire!
Truth-o-meter Ruling
IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
-
Trump never wrote the tweet. It was fabricated.
Statement
Context
a Facebook postSpeaker/Target
Statement Date
Our Sources
Facebook post, May 31, 2020
Twitter, @RealDonaldTrump, Accessed June 2, 2020
ProPublica, Politiwoops deleted tweets database, Accessed June 2, 2020
Reuters, Fact check: Trump did not tweet that George Floyd’s family were honored to hear from him, June 1, 2020
NBC, Trump says he spoke with George Floyd's family: 'I just expressed my sorrow', May 29, 2020
Translations
Language: en