Trump Retweets Literal Fake News Site The Babylon Bee

President Donald Trump, who has made rallying against alleged fake news a central point of his presidency, retweeted literal fake news website The Babylon Bee this morning, looking to the world like he'd been fooled by a satire website.

Yesterday, Twitter was briefly down while the New York Post's controversial report on Hunter Biden was a trending topic on the platform, and The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire site, mashed the two stories together, writing, Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News.

The site, which literally bills itself as "Fake News You Can Trust" on Twitter, caught the attention of the President, who tweeted, "Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T."

Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News https://t.co/JPmjOrKPcr via @TheBabylonBee Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020

While there is of course a chance that Trump was simply rolling with the joke or was perhaps consciously using the headline to spread disinformation to his followers, to most onlookers, it appeared as though the President had been duped.

Trump thought the Babylon Bee story was real. Stop deluding yourselves.

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) October 16, 2020

I am so tired pic.twitter.com/ckAgA840z3

— Washington Post TikTok Guy 🎃 (@davejorgenson) October 16, 2020

pic.twitter.com/L1wPvALX5j

— Nathan Allebach (@nathanallebach) October 16, 2020

The Babylon Bee, naturally, jumped on the free and powerful publicity and quickly pushed out another story.

President Trump Declares The Babylon Bee His Most-Trusted News Source https://t.co/oObdxaH3w6

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 16, 2020