Not wanting to let a slow news day go to waste, President Donald Trump tweeted out the winners of his much anticipated "Fake News Awards." Trump had been hinting that he was going to call attention to what he feels is the most dishonest events in news media over the last year.
Almost as soon as Trump tweeted the link to the list of awards, the site's servers crashed due to the increased traffic.
Fear not, one Twitter user was able to get a screenshot of the award winners. Below is the complete list.
The big winners
With 11 awards in all, Trump managed to hit almost all major news organizations. Leading the way with 4 awards was CNN. The cable network drew the most ire from the president over the last year so it was no surprise to see them mentioned again and again.
Their biggest award came for editing a video to make Trump look like he was overfeeding the fish when he visited Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump countered that Abe lead the fish feeding proceedings and there was no overfeeding.
Coming in a close second was the New York Times. The newspaper had 2 awards for claims that Trump would ruin the economy and was hiding information on global warming.
As you can see the awards are very subjective. One has to wonder if the president wrote these down while on a bathroom break. Regardless, it is a fascinating view of what types of allegations that he takes seriously. Of all of the things that have been reported about Trump, both true and false, these are the 11 claims that he finds to be most damning to his character.
Twitter has a field day
As expected, most Twitter users gave a collective eye roll to the president's awards announcement.
Some did try to find the humor in the whole situation.
Where are Washington's priorities?
All jokes aside, there are serious issues that need to be handled in Washington. The government is on the verge of a shutdown, yet again, but somehow there is a time to promote and compile a list of who the president doesn't like? It doesn't make any sense and that part is worrying.
Misdirection has always been a major tool of oppressive dictatorships. Stunts like this are designed to create a reaction from people and to get them talking about it, even though "it" really isn't anything at all. All the meanwhile, it is what's done behind closed doors that is truly important.
Assuming the government does avoid the shutdown at the last minute like they always do, take a closer look at what is in the final bill. This is usually where certain provisions or additions get made that have nothing to do with the current spending bill, but ultimately become law just the same.