Image of President Trump’s Letter to Biden is Fake
The Claim
The final letter from former President Trump left for his successor, Joe Biden, contains the words “Joe, you know I won.”
News posted on
Emerging story
An image of a letter from Donald Trump to President Biden has been shared thousands of times on social media containing one sentence that states “Joe, you know I won.”
Misbar’s Analysis
Leaving behind a letter from a departing U.S. president to the incoming one has long been a tradition of U.S. presidential inaugurations, stretching back to 1989 when Ronald Reagan wrote a letter to George H.W. Bush. It is one of the traditions that Trump participated in before departing the White House on inauguration day, January 20, 2021. However, there are indications that the image of the letter circulating online is not real and was instead photoshopped.
Shortly after his inauguration, Biden reported that a letter was left for him in the Oval Office by Trump. Biden stated that “the president left a very generous letter.” He continued to say, however, that “because it was private, I will not talk about it until I talk to him.” The contents of the letter are as such yet to be publicly disclosed.
Comparing the image of the letter circulating on social media to previous letters written by Trump reveals that the format is quite different. A letter written from Trump to Turkey’s Erdogan in 2019, obtained from Reuters, shows that the crest used in an official letter is gold, whilst the one used in the doctored image has multiple colours.
Further, the alleged letter contains the White House address, which does not appear in other official mailings. It also uses a different font for Trump’s name and the letter’s date and text, which is another irregularity.
As such, the Misbar team has found that the image circulating online is fake.
