On Thursday, the "platform of the alt-right" Breitbart.com mistakenly published a tweet it believed was from President Donald Trump -- but which was actually from a parody account, said Think Progress on Friday.
In a story about three U.S. Green Berets who were killed when a joint U.S.-Niger patrol was ambushed in southwest Niger on Wednesday," wrote Aaron Rupar, "Breitbart included a tweet from a Trump parody Twitter account, citing it as an actual statement from President Trump.
Breitbart writer John Hayward included the quote, "Saddened by the loss of our three U.S. Green Beret soldiers in Niger. Our thoughts are with the families during this very difficult time” in his essay's final paragraph, attributing it to the president.
As Rupar noted, the quote was actually produced by the parody account "@MatureTrumpTwts," which bills itself as an "alternative parody account of how a mature, more presidential Trump should tweet.”
@MatureTrumpTwts responded with amusement that the message was taken as an actual presidential tweet and suggested that Breitbart wishes that Trump would "use the medium as I do."
The humiliating error took place on the same day that BuzzFeed published an explosive cache of documents purloined from disgraced "alt-right" figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos. The documents detailed the delicate dance Breitbart.com performed in its flirtation with neo-Nazis and white supremacists as it sought to push those ideas into the mainstream.
