Donald Trump Did Not Congratulate Abiy on His Re-Election
The Claim
Former President Donald Trump congratulates Abiy Ahmed on his second electoral win in a tweet.
News posted on
Emerging story
An image began circulating following Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s re-election inauguration. The image is of a tweet by Donald Trump congratulating Abiy and his brave leadership and saluting his change. One of the images has been shared almost 300 times.
Misbar’s Analysis
An investigation by the Misbar team found this claim is false. Donald Trump's Twitter account has been suspended since January 8, 2021, after violating Twitter Rules. Therefore, a verified Trump account can't have made the tweet in October 2021. Also, the claim was found circulating in 2018 and 2019. Yet, a search on the Trump Twitter Archive did not reveal the tweet, further indicating that even when he was active, he did not congratulate Abiy, as can be seen below.
Furthermore, a Twitter keyword search showed that the original tweet was by Habesha Network on June 21, 2018, following Abiy’s first electoral win and becoming Prime Minister.
Based on the findings, the Misbar team confirms that the claim is false and fabricated the image.
