It’s no secret that President Donald Trump clearly has reached CNN’s last nerve, zinging the network Tuesday with a tweet about three network employees resigning after being forced to retract a story.

Trump might have hit CNN while it was down, but little did he know the Washington Post was standing ready to tag in and deliver this stunning death blow: it turns out that Trump has been promoting fake news for who knows how long — by displaying those novelty magazine covers at some of his golf clubs.

Whoa.

Trending

For real though, the story comes to us courtesy of David A. Fahrenthold, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his “dogged reporting of Trump’s philanthropy.” Call it a hunch, but we’re guessing the committee will likely overlook this scoop on the fake Time cover, framed and hung “in at least four of President Trump’s golf clubs”:

The Time cover is a fake.

There was no March 1, 2009, issue of Time Magazine. And there was no issue at all in 2009 that had Trump on the cover.

In fact, the cover on display at Trump’s clubs, observed recently by a reporter visiting one of the properties, contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The Trump cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top.

But … the World’s Greatest Dad T-Shirt the kids handed over last Father’s Day is real … right?

Not to give Rosie O’Donnell any ideas, but just suppose a Hillary supporter had wandered though the building last year, glanced over the fake Time cover, and decided to change his vote — there’d really be no option but to render the election null and void and make everyone vote again.

* * *

Update:

Farenthold’s exhaustive and award-winning tracking of Donald Trump’s charitable donations didn’t manage to derail the president’s campaign, but the fake magazine cover piece has already produced results.

* * *

Related:

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Tags: David FarentholdDonald Trumpfake newsgolf clubmagazine covertime