In case you wondered how closely President Donald Trump follows his public image, here’s a confirmation that he’s obsessed. This Wednesday, he unveiled a seemingly completely baseless claim that the mainstream media had photoshopped pictures of First Lady Melania Trump in order to make her look less like herself and then imply that the Trump team used a body double for the often private Melania.
He wrote on Twitter:
‘The Fake News photoshopped pictures of Melania, then propelled conspiracy theories that it’s actually not her by my side in Alabama and other places. They are only getting more deranged with time!’
To be clear, besides there being no evidence that anyone in the mainstream media photoshopped pictures of the Trumps visiting Alabama recently after the rounds of deadly tornadoes that rocked the area, it’s a gross mischaracterization for the president to suggest that they “propelled conspiracy theories” that there’s a “#FakeMelania” out there.
In fact, the concept is much more of an internet talking point that’s trended on Twitter and attracted conversation — including no doubt some on cable news somewhere out there — but again, to suggest that the idea is a mainstream media conspiracy theory is an outlandish suggestion on any level. They did not photoshop images and they have not adopted the talking point that the Trump team uses body doubles. Melania just wasn’t looking like herself during the first family’s recent trip to Alabama, and the internet ran with that — as they do. This case is like that meme drawn from the Simpsons featuring a newspaper headline “Old Man Yells At Cloud.” In this case, the cloud is the internet, whose basic functioning Trump is apparently unfamiliar with.
The incident is strongly reminiscent of the recent meltdowns Trump has had over scrutiny of his reference to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple.” On Twitter, he claimed that ” long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words.”
In other words, he employed the same logic as the widely shared moment from The Office in which a character offers:
‘So me think: why waste time say lot word, when few word do trick?’
Check out Twitter’s response…
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
