At long last, Donald Trump’s Twitter account has acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Twitter had to do it for him, though.
A new update to some of the social media company’s election labels, which are appended to tweets that bolster Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, now explicitly acknowledge Biden as the winner. And since Trump tweets misinfo as easily as most people breathe, that warning has already appeared on some of his posts.
“Election officials have certified Joe Biden as the winner of the U.S. Presidential election,” the warning text reads. It’s not clear when the change went into effect, but it’s almost certainly tied to Monday’s formal Electoral College vote, in which all the states certified their results as electors cast their constitutionally mandated votes ahead of the Senate’s affirmation of the results on Jan. 6.
Clicking the warning link takes you to a Twitter Moment connected to the Electoral College vote.
In any other presidential election year, this kind of public affirmation of the vote’s winner wouldn’t be controversial, especially more than a month after polls closed. But 2020 isn’t any other year and Trump isn’t any other president.
The dangerously unhinged failed reality TV star has gone out of his way throughout the year to sow doubts about election security. Despite 2020 being viewed by most of the reality-accepted world as one of the most secure in U.S. history, Trump has so far refused to concede or acknowledge Biden as anything other than an election-stealer. Which is of course provably false.
In that context, Twitter’s latest update represents a big moment for Trump’s Twitter account. Now, whether he likes it or not, the president’s preferred method of communication with the public is overtly telling all visitors exactly who won in 2020. It’s not likely to alter Trump’s behavior but it does serve to immediately undermine the lies peppered throughout his timeline.