Sarcasm is dead, but irony is still alive and kicking.
President Trump started an active day of tweeting Sunday by wishing first lady Melania Trump a happy 50th birthday, and he ended it by agreeing with himself.
In between, Trump retweeted a bunch of attacks on various Democrats (plus Karen Pence's birthday wishes for his wife), accurately noted he did not call the coronavirus itself a "hoax," insisted he isn't firing Health Secretary Alex Azar, misspelled hamburger in a tweet about his work schedule, said he wants a more pro-Trump alternative to Fox News, and went on a rant about reporters and their "Noble Prizes." He deleted the "hamberger" tweet and the Noble Prize thread.
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.
Some observers assumed Trump had mixed up the Nobel Prize — which does not have a journalism category — and the Pulitzer Prize, and others predicted he would claim he was just being sarcastic, as he had after speculating about injecting disinfectant and "powerful" light into human bodies to kill a virus. Both groups were probably right.
Trump, apparently irked by a report on his TV-heavy schedule, actually left the White House several times in March — rallies in three states, Mar-a-Lago, FEMA headquarters — though maybe it felt like "many months."
On Saturday, Trump blamed the media for ruining his nightly coronavirus briefings. In reality, Trump "was convinced to pause the daily coronavirus briefings because advisers concluded his performances were damaging," The Washington Post's Philip Rucker tweeted. "But instead of adjusting his pandemic messaging, he's still praising himself, attacking reporters, and airing grievances — just all on Twitter."
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting voteSpeed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts
