On Friday, President Donald Trump thanked his sister, Elizabeth, for support… but the original message of support didn’t actually come from his sister. The original message went up on a Twitter account that purported to belong to Elizabeth Trump Grau, but the individual behind the account has since posted a message admitting that the page is a “parody.” Before this admission, conservative commentator Wayne Dupree’s website spread the message of support as if Elizabeth Trump Grau had actually issued it, and Donald responded to a post from a Dupree-associated account when he posted his thanks. Twitter has now suspended the “parody” Elizabeth Trump Grau account.
Check out Trump’s original post thanking Elizabeth for support that she didn’t actually offer below:
The debacle illustrates that the Trump family ties might not be all-that-close behind the scenes. Why couldn’t Donald have called up his sister to speak one-on-one rather than airing his thanks in a public forum, like some kind of performance? One of Donald’s other siblings, Maryanne Trump Barry, was caught on tape deriding Donald’s behavior; among other points of contention, Maryanne denounced Donald’s “goddamned… lying.” Mary Trump — the president’s niece, who has written a recently released book exposing family secrets and tearing into her uncle’s belligerent behavior — is responsible for the recording of Maryanne’s remarks.
The original message of support for the president that set off this ridiculous chain of events read as follows:
‘This election inspired me to break my silence and speak out on behalf of my family. My brother Don won this election and will fight this to the very end. We’ve always been a family of fighters. We are all so very proud of him and the job he has done for our country. 4 MORE YEARS!’
To be clear: the premise of the original message of support, that “Don won this election,” js false. There is no meaningful evidence for the president’s team’s claims of widespread election fraud. Los Angeles Times reporter Chris Megerian captured a screenshot of the admission from the “@TheBettyTrump” account that it wasn’t really the president’s sister’s — check out that admission below:
So now we know that right-wing media circulated an unverified account purporting to be the president’s sister, and then the president himself shared the coverage rather than confirm that it was, in fact, his sister behind the tweets.
— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) November 20, 2020
