FACT CHECK: Did Donald Trump Tweet, ‘Obama Should Wait Until He Leaves Office To Pick Another Justice’?

Dominick Porcella | Contributor

An image shared on Facebook over 1,600 times claims President Donald Trump tweeted, “Obama should wait until he leaves office to pick another Justice!”

Verdict: False

There is no record of Trump sending the tweet. It appears to be fabricated.

Fact Check:

The image shows what appears to be a screen grab of a tweet Trump allegedly sent on April 3, 2016, from his Twitter account @realDonaldTrump. The purported tweet reads, “Obama should wait until he leaves office to pick another Justice! If he doesn’t, he should be fired!”

It seems to reference the Supreme Court vacancy that occurred during former President Barack Obama’s administration when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in February 2016. Some Republican lawmakers argued then that the Senate should not confirm a replacement for Scalia until after the 2016 election, according to The New York Times(RELATED: Did Donald Trump Say, ‘If You Elect Joe Biden, There Will Be No Hand Sanitizer’?)

There is, however, no evidence Trump tweeted the statement. Searching Trump’s personal Twitter account yielded no matches, and ProPublica’s archive of his deleted tweets also doesn’t show a similar remark on April 3 or any other date in 2016. The tweet appears to be fabricated.

While there is no record of Trump making the statement attributed to him in the Facebook post, he did publicly comment on the Supreme Court vacancy at the time. During a March 16, 2016 “Good Morning America” interview, the then-presidential candidate said, “I think they should wait until the next president and let the next president pick,” according to Politico. He also made a similar comment to CNN that day, The New York Times reported.

Check Your Fact has previously debunked fabricated Trump tweets. In early September, social media users shared a fake tweet falsely claiming he called Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth “Lieutenant Nolegs.”

Dominick Porcella

Contributor

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