Donald Trump Jr. has a very fishy reason for not deleting his 'assassination attempt' tweet


After Donald Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service at a rally Saturday, rumors circulated that the commotion had been caused by a failed assassination attempt. Those rumors were swiftly proven false — but not before Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., came under fire for retweeting the misinformation.
"I took heat for tweeting about it when I'm sitting there not knowing what's going on — I'm following social media — and major and credible news organizations saying 'there was a gun. There was a gun.' I tweeted at the time," Trump Jr. explained on the Joyce Kaufman Show on Monday. "That was real time. They're saying I'm supposed to go back and erase things off my Twitter feed. I don't do that."
Donald Trump Jr. does happen to "do that," though. In at least one instance, Trump Jr. deleted a 2011 joke about sexually harassing women in October of this year:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The "assassination attempt" was ultimately determined to be an anti-Trump Republican man, who was trying to pull out a sign to wave at the rally.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
-
Qatar luxury jet gift clouds Trump trip to Mideast
speed read Qatar is said to be presenting Trump with a $400 million plane, which would be among the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the US government
-
Trump taps Fox News' Pirro for DC attorney post
speed read The president has named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, replacing acting US Attorney Ed Martin
-
Trump, UK's Starmer outline first post-tariff deal
speed read President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer struck a 'historic' agreement to eliminate some of the former's imposed tariffs
-
Fed leaves rates unchanged as Powell warns on tariffs
speed read The Federal Reserve says the risks of higher inflation and unemployment are increasing under Trump's tariffs
-
Denmark to grill US envoy on Greenland spying report
speed read The Trump administration ramped up spying on Greenland, says reporting by The Wall Street Journal
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'