Fact Check: Woody Allen Did NOT Say 'New York Should Disown Trump'

Fact Check

  • by: Anne Brown
Fact Check: Woody Allen Did NOT Say 'New York Should Disown Trump' Trolling

Did Woody Allen urge New Yorkers to "disown" President Trump? No, that's not true: This is a parody from a website stating it is "satire for flat earthers, Trumpsters and Y'all Qaeda."

The article originated on a web site called Daily World Update on March 29, 2020, titled "Woody Allen: 'New York Should Disown Trump'" (archived here) which opened:

As America's current crisis churns on, it seems that every cable news and television station has turned to a host of Hollywood celebrities for their opinions and viewpoints. From Bill Gates on CNN to Whoopi Goldberg on the View, to even pop music phenom Taylor Swift on the stage at the Grand 'Ol Opry calling the President a modern day "Outbreak monkey", most have not been kind to our beleaguered leader. Now, celebrated writer, director, and New York social activist Woody Allen has joined in the fray.

In a taped interview with MSNBC's Sandra Batt to be aired this coming Tuesday, the controversial Empire State native remarked that the governor and people should: "Officially and adamantly disown Trump as a son, as he's proved to be nothing but a traitorous and uncaring embarrassment." Allen made the statement during a half-hour long liberal hatefest worthy of Chris Rock at a Merle Haggard comcert:

"As far as New York goes, Donald Trump has never been exactly...anything less than a criminal figurehead, so to speak. He screwed the citizens out of millions of dollars of tax revenue, took it upon himself to criticize the justice department, and now, he's refusing to work with the Governor to save actual lives because his ego is as fragile and inflated as Soon-Yi's breast implants. I tell you, sometimes you should just trust the deli to make the dumplings. Don't quote me on that, that's going in my next script."

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

The post contains a couple of photos with obviously fake descriptions, including one of Taylor Swift with the caption: "Swift has already begun pretending that she dated Trump in order to write a hit song about what a dick he was sometime next year."

It is true that Woody Allen is back in the news because he recently penned a controversial memoir. And it is also true the controversial film director and actor is no fan of Trump, according to this snippet from a 2017 BBC radio interview, as reported by Screen Daily:

Right now we're in chaos. We have chaos in the capital. The administration isn't running properly; it isn't functioning well."

But Allen did not say any of the quotes attributed to him in the satirical story. Among other untruths in the story: Taylor Swift did not call President Trump an "outbreak monkey" and MSNBC does not have an anchor named Sandra Batt.

NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes dailyworldupdate.us as:

A news site that publishes false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news. The site is part of a network run by hoax perpetrator Christopher Blair.

According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.

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  Anne Brown

Anne Brown, a staff writer and fact-checker for Lead Stories, is the former Senior Director of Special Events at CNN. Over the course of her 30-plus year career in television news based at CNN’s world headquarters in Atlanta, she covered major events both domestic and international, winning Emmy and Peabody awards along the way.  Brown led on-location production and logistics teams through events ranging from long-standing political events to breaking news, and everything in between: Royal weddings, state funerals, POTUS overseas trips, summits, inaugurations, trials, hurricanes, Super Bowls and many debates. She has a Journalism degree from Northeastern University and a passion for finding trails to the truth.

 

Read more about or contact Anne Brown

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