A viral Facebook post claims President Donald Trump tweeted in 2009 that he “would never let thousands of Americans die from a pandemic while in office.”

Verdict: False

There is no record of Trump ever tweeting this statement.

Fact Check:

The H1N1 influenza virus, which killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people worldwide, was first detected in the U.S. in April 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then-President Barack Obama declared a public health emergency the same month.

A viral Facebook post claims that Trump criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the pandemic, allegedly tweeting, “Obama’s handling of this whole pandemic has been terrible! As President, ALL responsibility becomes yours during a crisis like this, whether or not you’re entirely to blame. John McCain, and for that matter myself, would never let thousands of Americans die from a pandemic while in office.”

The claim comes amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed over 58,000 people in the U.S., according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The alleged tweet is a fake, however.

A search of Trump’s verified Twitter accounts – @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS – turned up no matches. Nor did the Daily Caller News Foundation find the comment in the Trump Twitter Archive, a database of Trump’s tweets dating back to May 2009.

The 289 characters in the alleged tweeted far exceed the 140-character limit Twitter had until 2017, further adding to the post’s dubiousness. (RELATED: Did Barack Obama Tweet, ‘Ask Ukraine If They Found My Birth Certificate’?)

Social media users often fabricate Trump tweets using websites such as FakeTrumpTweet.com and FakeTweetGenerator.com. Check Your Fact has debunked numerous fake tweets attributed to prominent politicians in recent months.

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