Fake Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tweet Goes Viral

Several prominent conservatives shared a doctored tweet purportedly by New York congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that encourages people to support government-mandated shutdowns to hurt President Donald Trump's reelection campaign.

The tweets went viral yesterday in part because prominent conservatives, such as actor James Woods and radio host Mark Levin shared the image. Both deleted their posts.

"AOC Let the cat out of the bag!" tweets Mark Levin, the host of The Mark Levin Show. "The Democrats seek to destroy our economy, your jobs, and your businesses, hoping Trump will be blamed by the voters."

"Keep in mind, AOC speaks for Biden. She's an official part of Biden's campaign."

Later that day, Levin tweeted that the post "was only up for a short while" before adding, "You have to admit, it sounds like Marxist AOC."

Actor James Woods also shared the tweet as if it were authentic, before deleting the post shortly after.

Pro-Trump actor RealJamesWoods</a> posts an obviously fake Facebook claiming <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">AOC called for more coronavirus restrictions to sabotage Trump. Woods just deleted it, but not before it got more than 5K retweets. pic.twitter.com/50PLVV75TZ

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) June 23, 2020

A member of the REOPEN NJ Facebook group shared the version of the tweet that's currently spreading around the internet. REOPEN NJ is a pro-Trump conservative group focused on fighting the lockdowns used to slow the coronavirus. The tweet claims to be from May 20th, 2020, and was shared 25,000 times before "being deleted."

Several independent fact-checkers, including PolitiFact and Snopes have rated the tweet as "false." Facebook has flagged the image, overlaying a warning on the image before group members can see it.

PolitiFact, who rated the tweet "Pants on Fire," noted that archives of Representative Ocasio-Cortez's deleted tweets did not feature the tweet. They wrote:

ProPublica, which keeps an archive of deleted tweets, does not have it in its collection of deleted tweets from either of Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter accounts. We also didn’t find the tweet searching those accounts on Twitter.

The fake tweet, however, continues to spread. Yesterday afternoon, Flordia congressional candidate Jessi Melton shared the image with her 28,000 followers, adding the disclaimer: "We don’t know for sure if she really tweeted it. But we do know for sure it’s how she really feels."

The coronavirus has killed more than 130,000 people in the United States and 477,000 worldwide.