Donald Trump has shared a made-up quote suggesting that Ronald Regan once knew, upon shaking a younger Mr Trump’s hand, that he would one day become president.
Mr Trump shared the quote, which was posted in 2017 by a pro-Reagan Twitter account, on Monday, calling the political meme “Cute!”
“For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with a president,” the meme is captioned, alongside a photo of Mr Trump shaking hands with Reagan, falsely attributing the statement to Regan. The tweet, from the account account "@reaganbattalion" has since been deleted.
Regan never said such a thing about Mr Trump, according to fact checks from PolitiFact and Snopes. PolitiFact gave the meme its “pants on fire” designation.
The image has been shared previously as well, including earlier this year on Facebook, when it was flagged by the social media company as a part of the company’s effort to stop the spread of false information.
Mr Trump continued on Monday to retweet several posts from the Twitter account that had shared the meme, including several touting his Fourth of July speech last week.
The president is expected to hold a social media summit at the White House later in the week, with the purpose of addressing alleged bias against conservatives on social media platforms.
