White House officials barely managed to stop President Trump from tweeting about a widely circulated internet hoax after a printout of the hoax was left on his desk by his deputy national security adviser, Politico reports. Trump had believed the printout was real and that it highlighted the media's hypocrisy; the hoax depicted two Time magazine covers, a recent one warning about the dangers of global warming and a seemingly contradictory, but fake, cover from 1977 warning about the coming ice age:
Yet the incident is only the most recent in a flood of near-misses stemming from staffers intentionally leaving dubious articles that fuel their own agendas on the president's desk in the hopes of swaying his opinion and policies. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus recently asked staff to follow the often-ignored laws that require a proper catalog of what lands on the president's desk: "They have this system in place to get things on his desk now," a White House official said. "I'm not sure anyone follows it."
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.
In another instance, the president received a news printout claiming without evidence that Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh was behind the White House leaks, prompting Trump to begin inquiries. And in another case, Trump was slipped a New York Times op-ed by four of his former economic advisers and after reading it, Trump immediately demanded their proposal be his official tax plan.
Ultimately, it was. "I've probably written 1,000 op-eds on my life but that might have been the most impactful," marveled one of the authors, Stephen Moore.
-
What does the fall in net migration mean for the UK?Today’s Big Question With Labour and the Tories trying to ‘claim credit’ for lower figures, the ‘underlying picture is far less clear-cut’
-
Has Putin launched the second nuclear arms race?In Depth Historian Serhii Plokhy explains why the Kremlin’s nuclear proliferation has begun a dangerous new era of mutually assured destruction
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
-
Judge halts Trump’s DC Guard deploymentSpeed Read The Trump administration has ‘infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself,’ the judge ruled
-
Trump accuses Democrats of sedition meriting ‘death’Speed Read The president called for Democratic lawmakers to be arrested for urging the military to refuse illegal orders
-
Court strikes down Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read The Texas congressional map ordered by Trump is likely an illegal racial gerrymander, the court ruled
-
Trump defends Saudi prince, shrugs off Khashoggi murderSpeed Read The president rebuked an ABC News reporter for asking Mohammed bin Salman about the death of a Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Consulate in 2018
-
Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein filesSpeed Read The Justice Department will release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation
-
Trump says he will sell F-35 jets to Saudi ArabiaSpeed Read The president plans to make several deals with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week
-
Judge blasts ‘profound’ errors in Comey caseSpeed Read ‘Government misconduct’ may necessitate dismissing the charges against the former FBI director altogether
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
