Did Republican Congressman Jim Jordan say that Barack Obama and Joe Biden "were cowering in fear" while Donald Trump was "on the ground with first responders searching for survivors and pulling people to safety" after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on America? No, that's not true: It was a quote made up and tweeted by comedy writer Dan Lyons. The "Silicon Valley" writer later acknowledged it was fake, but only after it spread virally on social media and was believed by many.
The fake quote originated in a tweet posted by @realdanlyons on July 30, 2019 (archived here) which read:
"GOP rallies around Trump 9/11 role. "While Obama and Biden were cowering in fear on Air Force 1, Mr. Trump was on the ground with first responders searching for survivors and pulling people to safety," Jim Jordan says. "I remember seeing him on TV, running toward the danger.""
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Dan Lyons on Twitter
"GOP rallies around Trump 9/11 role. "While Obama and Biden were cowering in fear on Air Force 1, Mr. Trump was on the ground with first responders searching for survivors and pulling people to safety," Jim Jordan says. "I remember seeing him on TV, running toward the danger.""
After hours of Twitter going crazy over the quote, Lyons eventually conceded it was fake and he apologized -- sort of -- in another tweet:
Hey according to Newsweek that Jim Jordan quote is not real. My apologies.https://t.co/gTmYLzSdZa
-- Dan Lyons (@realdanlyons) July 30, 2019
Lyons apparently tweeted the fake quote as a joke, playing on a story about a Trump supporter who blamed Obama for the 9/11 attack and Trump's recent statement that he was on the ground after the attack.
Trumper~~Barack Obama has a big part in 9/11
-- 🌊🌼Sheila🌼🌊 (@sdr_medco) July 27, 2019
Trumper~~He was never in the office. Always on vacation
Reporter~~ Why fo you think Obama wasn't in the office during 9/11
Trumper~ I don't know. I would like to get to the bottom of that
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/bWLKlU0Ezs
Of course, Obama was a state senator in Illinois in 2001 and would not have been aboard Air Force One with Joe Biden.
Another clue about Lyon's motivation for making up the quote and sharing it to his 38-thousand twitter followers may be in this earlier tweet from him:
Now @LindseyGrahamSC says the president was being modest about his role in 9/11. "I think most people know the truth which is that Mr Trump was in fact a first responder on 9/11," Graham says. "He's a hero." pic.twitter.com/DbrlGESSLK
-- Dan Lyons (@realdanlyons) July 29, 2019
We wrote about twitter.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Proof Of Life: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Confirms She's "Very Much Alive," Disproving QAnon Conspiracy Theory
- Fake News: Crayola Does NOT Rename Crayon Color in Honor Of Late Rapper Nipsey Hussle
- Fake News: Warren Buffett Did NOT Tweet That Quote About Continuing To Suffer
- Fake News: It Is NOT So Hot in Montgomery County That Corn Is Popping In The Field
- Fake News: Rashida Tlaib Did NOT Tweet "Americans have spent decades raping and pillaging my people. What goes around comes around. #FridayFeeling"
