Donald Trump is infamous for labelling unfavourable reports as fake news, but it seems in the comfort of his own properties, the president never lets the truth stand in the way of a good story - especially if it is about him.
A framed cover of Time magazine featuring Trump, which reportedly hangs in at least five of his golf clubs, has been revealed to be a fake.
And Time has asked him to take them down.
The image, on a cover dated March 1, 2009, trumpets the mogul’s success on reality show The Apprentice, with the headline ‘Trump Is Hitting On All Fronts... Even TV!’. A further headline reads, ‘The Apprentice is a television smash!’.
The Washington Post revealed that there wasn’t an issue of Time on that date and that Trump did not feature on the cover of the magazine any time that year.
Not surprisingly, the internet is savaging Trump for putting out his own fake news.
The Post reporter who spotted the cover at one of the clubs reportedly noticed that the red border around the it was thinner than usual on the Trump cover.
Further analysis revealed that secondary headlines were laid out differently. They were positioned to the right of Trump, rather than above the masthead.
Time also never uses exclamation marks on the cover. The Trump headlines both featured them.
A Time cover from March 2, 2009, featured two of the same secondary headlines as the fake Trump cover - one concerned Obama and heath care, the other banks - that were on a cover Kate Winslet graced in March 2, 2009.
Amusingly, the third secondary headline on the Trump cover concerns global warming, something the President appears not to believe in. It reads: ‘Global Warming: A new age of extinction’.
Funny Or Die spoofed this particular aspect of the fraud with the following headline: “Global Warming just means more bikini babes.”
Kerri Chyka, a spokeswoman for Time Inc confirmed to the Post that the Trump cover was not real and was never published. The magazine has reportedly asked Trump’s administration to remove the covers.
The framed fake Trump cover was hanged in two prominent positions at Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Florida, and in the member’s dining room at the Trump National Golf Club near Washington DC.
It was at the same course that a plaque was unveiled overlooking the Potomac River, setting out the bloody details of a Civil War battle apparently fought on the spot. That fight, like the Trump Time cover, never actually happened.
The fake Trump Time cover also reportedly hangs at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and had previously been on the wall at his club in Doonbeg, western Ireland, according to reports.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Post: “We couldn’t comment on the decor at Trump Golf clubs one way or another”.
The Trump Organisation has not responded to questions.
The Trump Time cover embarrassment comes after the New York Times last week detailed all the lies the president has told since taking the oath of office.
One of the dozens of mistruths documented was the President’s claim of how many times he had been on the cover of Time magazine.
On January 21, the NYT said Trump claimed to have featured on the front page “14 or 15 times”.
“I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine,” it quoted him as saying.
The newspaper said Trump had, in fact, been on the cover 11 times. Richard Nixon appeared on it 55 times.