On Wednesday, July 14, former President Donald Trump released a statement via email in which he heaped praise on a new book by Fox News host Jesse Watters titled, How I Saved the World.
As screenshots of Trump's statement started doing the rounds on social media, some users noticed that the paragraph was verbatim copied from the book's own description. Here are some of the tweets:
We can confirm that this is true. Trump did, in fact, lift the paragraph word-to-word from a description of the book from Amazon.com and other booksellers' websites.
Trump's Statement
Here's the text of Trump's full statement. We have highlighted in bold the portion that was lifted directly from the book's description:
"Great new book out by Jesse Watters, How I Saved the World. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep state—all while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Get your copy today, congratulations Jesse!," Trump wrote in his statement.
As pointed out by fact-checking website Snopes, the former President's statement did not contain any punctuation to indicate that it was a quote nor were copy-pasted lines preceded by any indication that it was a quote from the book's promotional page. As it was written, it appeared that Trump was giving a personal review of Watters' book, but that is clearly not the case.
Trump's wife, Melania Trump, has also faced accusations of plagiarism. In 2016, she was accused of copying parts of that year's RNC speech from former First Lady Michelle Obama's 2008 address at the DNC. She was also caught using parts from her own RNC speech in her statement on the Jan. 6. U.S. Capitol insurrection, as previously reported.
Trump's social media accounts were banned in the wake of the deadly Capitol riot as companies like Twitter and Facebook feared that the former President might incite more violence by pushing false claims about his election loss on their platforms. Without social media, Trump has started issuing statements via email which are then reposted on the platforms that he is banned on by journalists and his supporters.
Therefore, social media users often question the authenticity of these statements posted on Twitter and Facebook but we can confirm that Trump did release a statement praising Watters' book containing a verbatim copy of a paragraph from the book's own description.
