"I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th," Trump tweeted on September 11, 2013, a day generally reserved for solemnly remembering the nearly 3,000 people killed in the tragic terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania in 2001.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2013
The account's manual retweet of the message – also sent on September 11, 2013 – remained live Friday morning.
"The tweet is from several years ago," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Politico.
This year, Trump took the nastiness out of his message, tweeting Friday morning: "Let's all take a moment to remember all of the heroes from a very tragic day that we cannot let happen again!"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2015
As Ashley Feinberg of Gawker pointed out, Trump has a history of extending well wishes to "haters and losers" on American days of note, including:
Veteran's Day
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2013
Thanksgiving
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2013
Father's Day
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2014
Independence Day
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2014
New Year's Day
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2014
Easter
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2015
According to Yael Garuer at Forbes: "Trump's attempt to erase words that could lose him votes is a reminder Twitter now makes the deleted tweets of would-be and current leaders much harder to find."
The Politwoops websites, which archive tweets of politicians in more than 30 countries, had their access to Twitter's API revoked on August 21.
"Trump's tweet shows us why we need a service like Politwoops, not just in the US but in the 32 countries around the world," Deji Olukotun, of Access, an international human rights group dedicated to an open and free Internet, said in an email to Forbes.
"Politicians make decisions for all of us every day. We can't depend on how they spin them later."
Fortunately, Trump only moonlights as a politician – for now, at least. Just imagine the tweets coming from the Oval Office with Trump behind the Resolute desk.
