President Donald Trump promoted a debunked conspiracy theory Sunday suggesting that former President Barack Obama has collected $40 million in taxpayer money since 2010 for “royalties linked to Obamacare,” Obama’s signature domestic policy.
“Wow!” Trump wrote, sharing an image of a social media post on X detailing the conspiracy theory.
Promoted by X user “The Patriot Oasis,” who has amassed more than 333,000 followers and frequently shares pro-Trump content, the conspiracy theory has been debunked numerous times over the past few months, and actually originates from a satirical social media page, “America’s Last Line of Defense,” which intentionally publishes fictional stories.
Several prominent right-wing social media influencers have since taken the satirical post and promoted it as truth, drawing hundreds of thousands of views, which as of Sunday now includes the president himself.
According to the debunked claim, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, halted the federal government’s payments to Obama, a component of the theory that suggests Trump is not briefed on major cuts instituted by the very government agency he created.
According to several law professors who spoke with AFP, the idea that Obama could have even registered a trademark in relation to Obamacare was unfeasible, given that the ownership of a government program would, in fact, be the government itself.
"[Trump] created the Space Force. And the name Space Force is a trademark pending that's owned by the US military," said Erik Pelton, an intellectual property lawyer and professor at Georgetown University, speaking with AFP. "Because it's a governmental program, that's who would own the name."
AFP had also conducted a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database and found no such registered trademarks for Obamacare.