Donald Trump has been called out after he shared a photograph on Twitter of a front lawn covered with his campaign placards which is actually from four years ago.
On Saturday the president shared a picture of a lawn in an unnamed location that was full of dozens of Trump 'Make America Great Again' campaign signs which he thought was great.
However, Trump didn't do any research into the picture as he would have soon discovered that this isn't from the current election campaign but his first one in 2016.
How do we know this? Because the photographer who took the picture called the president out over it. Alex MacGillis, who works for ProPublica, firstly complained that he hadn't been credited by Trump but then shared the original image which was taken in West Carrolton, Ohio in March, 2016 before being eventually published in November of that year.
1) This picture is from four years ago. 2) I took the photo. Where's my credit?? https://t.co/LZLkV4d5F9— Alec MacGillis (@Alec MacGillis) 1599955913
Here it is: March 2016. Nice try, @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/rTkMyv4L0K— Alec MacGillis (@Alec MacGillis) 1599956403
And here is the article on the rise of Trump and the politics of Dayton, Ohio that I was reporting in March 2016 wh… https://t.co/JBy5RglfYF— Alec MacGillis (@Alec MacGillis) 1599967213
Once people were aware of this, MacGillis wasn't the only one calling out Trump.
@realDonaldTrump ⚠️PROPAGANDA DISINFORMATION ALERT Trump tweeted this OLD photo implying it's a brand new one taken… https://t.co/F2FyX2SAGC— Save American Democracy⚖️14th Am Sec 3 (@Save American Democracy⚖️14th Am Sec 3) 1599959525
@realDonaldTrump This is a photo taken by @AlecMacGillis in March 2016. He should make a copyright claim against Tr… https://t.co/bqXSg3hOeM— MURRAY 🇺🇸🇦🇺 (@MURRAY 🇺🇸🇦🇺) 1599953852
@realDonaldTrump We know you’re not much of a one for detail Don, but you might notice the large sign on the right… https://t.co/f1C9cTmcLH— Larry the Cat (@Larry the Cat) 1599955997
@realDonaldTrump Hey genius, that was from 2016 😂 https://t.co/HqtCbAqV6i— RuralLiberal (@RuralLiberal) 1599954657
In the 2016 article, MacGillis describe the scene pictured above. The signs had been created by a professional sign maker who was helping to distribute them from his front yard, with the help of a married couple, which included a 43-year-old woman who claimed to have never voted before. This comes from the ProPublica article:
In March, I was driving along a road that led from Dayton, Ohio, into its formerly middle-class, now decidedly working-class southwestern suburbs, when I came upon an arresting sight. I was looking for a professional sign-maker who had turned his West Carrollton ranch house into a distribution point for Trump yard signs, in high demand just days prior to the Ohio Republican primary. Instead of piling the signs in the driveway, he had arrayed them in his yard along the road. There they were, dozens and dozens of them, lined up in rows like the uniform gravestones in a military cemetery.
The sign man wasn’t home, but he had left a married couple in charge of the distribution. I got talking to the woman, Contessa Hammel. She was 43 and worked at the convenience store at a local Speedway gas station after four years in the military. And this was the first time she was voting in 25 years of eligibility.
As some have pointed out though the yard sign sale appears to be free yet the placards don't seem to be going anywhere fast, at least at that time anyway.
Computer...enhance [squints] so aside from this photo being from 2016, this person appears to be attempting to gi… https://t.co/J7MlFT0Tx5— Hayes Brown (@Hayes Brown) 1599958489
It's not entirely obvious how Trump saw this picture from four years and decided to share it but it would be worrying from his standpoint that he couldn't find a similar image from this year. At the time of writing, most major polls still put Joe Biden as the favourite for November's election.