White House social media director Dan Scavino tweeted out fake news about Hurricane Irma on Sunday as the Category 4 storm swept through parts of Florida.
Scavino, tasked with pushing information out to the public as Hurricane Irma made landfall in the United States, shared a short video showing massive flooding in airport Miami International airport, only it wasn’t actually the Miami airport.
“Sharing #HurricaneIrma on social media with President @realDonaldTrump & @VP Pence hourly. Here is Miami International Airport. STAY SAFE!!” he tweeted.
Miami International Airport: 1
Trump’s Director of Social Media: 0 pic.twitter.com/sZMyLjPZU3— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) September 10, 2017
Miami International was quick to debunk Scavino’s tweet, informing him that the video was not actually taken in Miami.
“This video is not from Miami International Airport,” the airport’s official Twitter account shot back in response.
This video is not from Miami International Airport.
— Miami Int’l Airport (@iflymia) September 10, 2017
Scavino thanked the airport for the information and promptly deleted the video. Scavino is a longtime Trump loyalist who climbed his way up to the social media director position after starting out as a caddy in one of Trump’s golf courses decades ago.
“Thank you. It was among 100s of videos/pics I am receiving re: Irma from public. In trying to notify all, I shared – have deleted. Be safe!” Scavino said on Twitter.
Thank you. It was among 100s of videos/pics I am receiving re: Irma from public. In trying to notify all, I shared – have deleted. Be safe!
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) September 10, 2017
The footage retweeted by Scavino actually showed flooding at Mexico City’s airport from several weeks ago, Slate reported.
While Miami International Airport thanked Scavino for taking down the tweet, the public was less forgiving.
“You would hope that the “White House Director of Social Media” would know better about authenticating videos before sharing them with POTUS,” Twitter user @JesseRodriguez said.
You would hope that the “White House Director of Social Media” would know better about authenticating videos before sharing them with POTUS pic.twitter.com/TTourdnZuO
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) September 10, 2017
“You have a duty to ‘verify’ before sharing. Literally your job. Your improperly punctuated Tweet skips over that. Not okay,” tweeted cincity631.
You have a duty to ‘verify’ before sharing. Literally your job. Your improperly punctuated Tweet skips over that. Not okay.
— CindyWheeler (@cincity631) September 11, 2017
“Might I suggest @MSNBC or @CNN for, you know, ACTUAL REAL NEWS. K? Thx! Xox,” tweeted @govierbill.
Might I suggest @MSNBC or @CNN for, you know, ACTUAL REAL NEWS. K? Thx! xox
— -Bill- (@govierbill) September 10, 2017
“Yeah, who would want to verify information was accurate before passing it on to the President?” wrote @johnmaddening.
Yeah, who would want to verify information was accurate before passing it on to the President?
— John Maddening (@johnmaddening) September 10, 2017
