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Best-Selling Author Dan Lyons Creates Fake News Story To Humiliate Jim Jordan, Get on Twitter Trending List

 By Joe Setyon  July 30, 2019 at 9:11am
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A popular author spread some certified fake news Monday in an attempt to humiliate Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, and plenty of liberals were too happy to eat it up.

First, some background. Speaking to 9/11 first responders on Monday, President Donald Trump recalled the aftermath of the terror attacks.

“I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder,” Trump said, as CNN noted. “But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.”

Do you think Lyons should face consequences from Twitter for spreading fake news?

Tech writer Dan Lyons then decided to make up a quote from Jordan defending Trump’s remarks.

“GOP rallies around Trump 9/11 role,” Lyons, who’s also a best-selling author, tweeted.

Then the fake Jordan quote: “While Obama and Biden were cowering in fear on Air Force 1, Mr. Trump was on the ground with first responders searching for survivors and pulling people to safety,” Lyons claimed Jordan said.

“I remember seeing him on TV, running toward the danger,” Lyons added, again referencing the fake Jordan quote.

@realdanlyons / Twitter screen shot

Jordan, of course, said no such thing.

And the fact that former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, weren’t even in office on 9/11 should have been a dead giveaway that this quote was fabricated.

But plenty of people on Twitter bought it anyway and proceeded to dunk on Jordan.

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Lyons later admitted he had simply pulled a “prank,” albeit one that caused the term “Obama and Biden” to trend on Twitter.

“It’s a joke about how the GOP and its media helpers (Fox et al) rewrite history and invent their own reality,” Lyons told The Western Journal when asked to comment on his original post.

In a way, I’m not sure what’s more depressing: the fact that Lyons thought spreading this sort of fake news was funny, or that liberals on Twitter were so eager to believe Jordan had said something that ridiculous.

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Joe Setyon
Deputy Managing Editor, Editorial
Joe Setyon was a deputy managing editor for The Western Journal who had spent his entire professional career in editing and reporting. He previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine.
Joe Setyon was deputy managing editor for The Western Journal with several years of copy editing and reporting experience. He graduated with a degree in communication studies from Grove City College, where he served as managing editor of the student-run newspaper. Joe previously worked as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication in Washington, D.C., where he covered politics and wrote about government waste and abuse.
Birthplace
Brooklyn, New York
Topics of Expertise
Sports, Politics




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