On Sunday morning, Donald Trump greeted the general public by taking to Twitter to claim that he is now both immune to the novel coronavirus and unable to give it to others. With more than 200,000 Americans dead (as well as more than 1 million lives lost worldwide), Trump tweeted that he received “A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday.” In his words, he “can't get it (immune), and can't give it.” Wrapping up this mind-numbing tweet, he expressed that this is “Very nice to know!!!”
Twitter has since flagged the tweet. On Twitter, a “flag” means that while the tweet is still available on the website (it has not been deleted or removed), it’s hidden behind a message. In this case, the message warns viewers that the tweet is in violation of the platform’s rules about “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19.”
Here is that tweet.
In May, Twitter announced it would flag coronavirus-related tweets containing misinformation, including from world leaders. As Daily Kos has covered in the past, Twitter has flagged a number of Trump’s tweets on a number of topics. Most of the flags relate to voting and the presidential election, including attack mailboxes and, most recently, where Trump encouraged his supporters in North Carolina to try to vote twice. He also received a flag over his particularly horrifying tweet for glorifying violence regarding protests back in May, when he wrote: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Earlier this Sunday, as covered by Daily Kos, Trump’s son, Eric Trump, appeared on ABC’s This Week where he repeatedly mistakenly claimed his father took a “vaccine” for the novel coronavirus; when pressed by host Jon Karl, he corrected himself that he was referring to the “medicines” at Walter Reed during the president’s hospital stay. In that same segment, Karl claimed they tried to get infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as others, on the show, but that the White House stopped them from joining.
Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we simply don’t have enough information when it comes to talking about whether people can get the virus twice or not. We have also received opaque and inconsistent information when it comes to Trump’s health. The public deserves honest, transparent communication from our government and the Trump administration proves again and again that trust is a bottom of the barrel priority.
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