FACT CHECK: Viral Meme Supposedly Shows Liberty University Students Misspelling Trump’s Name

April 30th, 2019
US President Donald Trump gestures during a Make America Great Again rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, April 27, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

An image shared by the Facebook page Sh*t Bootlickers Say shows five students at Liberty University posing for a photo, each wearing one letter of President Donald Trump’s last name on their shirts. The picture shows the Trump supporters lining up out of order, misspelling his name.

 

Verdict: False

This image was doctored; in the original photo, the students stand in the correct order, spelling Trump’s name properly.

Fact Check:

Trump, then a candidate vying to become president, spoke at Liberty University in January 2016. At that event, the five students posed for photos with the press. One of the images, posted to Facebook by CBC News photographer Meagan Fitzpatrick, shows the students standing in the correct order.

 

“A group of Liberty University students dressed for the occasion when Donald Trump spoke at their school on Jan. 18, 2016. They said they like that Trump is not afraid to offend people,” the photo caption reads on the CBC website.

How do we know the students didn’t pose in a different order moments earlier? The student posing in the middle of the group photo wearing white sneakers has an “M” on his shirt in the meme, but a “U” in the original photo.

Other photos taken at the event show the letters in the right order as well. Whoever created the meme appears to have photoshopped the letters from one student to another.

One of the students featured in the image, Austin Miller, shared the same doctored photograph, this time posted by the Occupy Democrats Facebook page in March 2016, with the caption, “Totally photoshopped but still kinda humorous. Haters gonna hate. Go Trump!”

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Aryssa Damron

Fact Check Reporter