Washington Post Parody Paper Claiming Trump Has Fled Handed Out in Front of White House
On Wednesday, activists were seen handing parody versions of The Washington Post with “UNPRESIDENTED” splashed on the front page, alleging President Donald Trump “abandoned the White House and abdicated his role as president.”
Happening now: activists hand out satire newspapers in front of the White House, predicting a near-future in which Trump leaves the presidency. #ByeBye45 pic.twitter.com/NBvbCb3hUi
— Sara Pearl (@skenigsberg) January 16, 2019
We just saw a staffer take one of these into the White House pic.twitter.com/HmWLWo1Jqt
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) January 16, 2019
A6 gets meta. pic.twitter.com/1ig3y2mkLS
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 16, 2019
The main story is about Trump suddenly leaving the White House without warning, with only a napkin found in Oval Office that had “Blame Crooked Hillary & Hfior & the Fake News Media” written on it:
Flight-tracking databases show the departure of a private, luxury helicopter — a Bell 429 MAGnificent — from the immediate vicinity of the White House at 3:15 am on May 1. Tracking shows that same helicopter eventually landed in the Crimean resort city of Yalta.
“This is unprecedented,” said Tanisha Jones, Distinguished Professor of American History at Columbia University. “No other president in history has fled the White House like this.” Jones also remarked that the massive women-led protests that paralyzed cities around the country last weekend are similarly unprecedented, in both their size and the speed with which they came together. “It’s hard to imagine that these two things — Americans rising up to demand Trump’s resignation and Trump disappearing — are unrelated.”
Whomever was behind the satirical paper has even set up a website for the fake newspaper, which has other full “stories” on “Celebrations break out worldwide as Trump era ends” and “Pres. Pence begins ‘clipped duck’ term.”
The actual Washington Post said it was aware of the fake papers:
There are fake print editions of The Washington Post being distributed around downtown DC, and we are aware of a website attempting to mimic The Post’s. They are not Post products, and we are looking into this.
— Washington Post PR (@WashPostPR) January 16, 2019
Update: the original version of this story incorrectly identified MoveOn as being responsible for this parody. They have since denied involvement and we have updated the story accordingly:
While we love the headline, we didn’t produce today’s satirical Washington Post.
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) January 16, 2019
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