In a satirical piece for the New Yorker, comedian Andy Borowitz joked that Donald Trump’s “greatest regret” as American’s commander-in-chief was not naming his children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. to the US Supreme Court, following its Monday ruling allowing New York prosecutors to obtain the former president’s tax records.
Borowitz “cited” the ex-president’s claim “on Fox News” that his three children apparently could have turned out “way better judges” than “those three clowns” he named to America’s highest court – referring to Trump’s nominees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
“Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett are the worst people who have ever worked for me. And that includes Scaramucci,” Borowitz 'quoted' Trump as saying – a remark never to be found on the Fox News.
But Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's fierce critic and one-time White House Communications Director, who was sacked in July 2017 just ten days after being appointed, apparently took the columnist’s words seriously:
“Donald Trump. Thank you Mr. President. It is an honour to be included in that esteemed group who stuck to the law and defended the Republic,” the ex-official said on Twitter, citing Trump’s alleged ‘quote’.
Scaramucci’s followers rushed to assure the entrepreneur that the article was nothing more than a satire from the Borowitz Report, which is famous for its “not news” pieces – including one claiming that Ivanka Trump has already applied for “the job” as Joe Biden’s daughter.
“It was a satire! I believed it for a while. Still plausible in real life though,” one Twitter user told Scaramucci, while many added that the joke was quite believable. Not everyone had actually managed to distinguish it from truth.
If it's from here, then it's satire, not actual quotation–although telling that it's hard to distinguish anymore with Trump! https://t.co/1bMq92PWf4
— Edgar Cancun Poe (@poedoepie) February 22, 2021
While I agree with your sentiments, it was satire. He didn't really say that. (Sad that it's totally plausible, though!)https://t.co/GadvjYvyKg
— PWiffle (@p_leifer) February 22, 2021
He quoted a satire article trump didn’t actually say that...although he probably believes it
— MinnesotaGirl (@PartyUpNorth) February 22, 2021
It’s a @BorowitzReport quote but... I had to check because it sounded real
— Terri J. Freedman (@TerriJFreedman) February 23, 2021
Borowitz’s piece followed the Supreme Court’s Monday decision to rebuff Donald Trump’s request to halt a previous ruling that subpoenaed the former president’s accounting firm Mazars USA to turn over his tax record to prosecutors in New York.
In October 2020, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a subpoena from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr to give in the materials to grand jury should be upheld. Then-president Trump opposed the Democrat attorney’s request and signalled that he would fight it to the Supreme Court – unsuccessfully, as it emerged this week.
The subpoena is a part of Vance’s over-two-year investigation into Donald Trump’s tax records and some of the payments the former president’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen made to two women - porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal – before the2016 presidential election, in a suggested move to keep them quiet about their extramarital affairs with the future POTUS.
Trump denies having been sexually involved with the women – and has dismissed Vance’s probe as "a continuation of the witch hunt — the greatest witch hunt in history".
