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Fake News: Embarrassing (Completely Inaccurate) Stories About Trump Go Viral Over the Weekend

As the saying goes, a lie goes halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. This happened quite literally two times over the weekend. President Donald Trump is currently on a trip to Asia, and over the weekend a few amusing--and completely inaccurate--stories about his antics went viral.

First, a story broke that Trump told a group of Japanese businessmen to build their cars in the United States instead of "shipping them over" from Japan. This was reported by a whole host of sources. Many were laughing at how "ignorant" Trump was at seemingly not knowing that Japanese automakers already make their cars in America.

Of course, this wasn't the case at all. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post shared the full context of the quote, which changed the narrative entirely. Prior to asking Japanese automakers to "try building cars in the United States," he thanked the businessmen in the room for creating jobs in the United States. Additionally, he thanked Toyota and Mazda for building a new plant that would create 4,000 jobs. 

Oh, whoops?

Up next was a more amusing, but fake, story that tried to paint Trump as a bratty child. While visiting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the two leaders fed some koi fish. In a now-deleted tweet, reporter Yashar Ali said that Trump got "impatient" and dumped the entire box of food into the pond rather than spoon it to the fish. 

Hilarity ensued as again Trump was mocked for his seemingly inappropriate behavior. 

As before, it turned out that Trump did not break protocol. He followed Abe's lead and dumped out the box of food after the Japanese leader did. (Also, it's koi fish. There are, so to speak, bigger fish to fry out there.) 

Here's a clearer view of what happened: 

(At least we got a bunch of good "Abe dumped first" jokes out of this.) 

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, right?

While one would hope that these embarrassing misreports would cause the media to take a look in the mirror to see just why they're so quick to embarrass Trump, this probably won't happen. Trust in the mainstream media is eroding, and they have no one to blame but themselves.