A tweet shared by President Donald Trump that made false claims about a COVID-19 late Monday was "no longer available" Tuesday morning after the social media company removed the post due to it violating the company's COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Trump retweeted the post from @stella_immanuel that said: "Covid has cure. America wake up."
The tweet was removed shortly thereafter and replaced with a gray box that states: "This Tweet is no longer available."
While there have been promising results from several vaccine trials over the last few months, there is no cure for COVID-19, even as researchers continue to develop a range of treatments.
Trump also retweeted several other tweets that promoted the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, including one that accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, of lying to the public about the efficacy of the drug.
Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pushed back against claims that hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating patients with COVID-19 during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
"I have not been misleading the public under any circumstances," Fauci told George Stephanopoulos Tuesday morning after he was asked for his reaction to Trump's retweets.
Fauci pointed to evidence from clinical trials that have looked at whether hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating patients with COVID-19 and found it is "not effective."
“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci. “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
This isn't the first time Twitter has censored or removed the president's tweets. In May, the social media company added a fact-check label to Trump's tweet that claimed there was "NO WAY" an election with mail-in voting would be legitimate. Twitter also labeled one tweet by Trump that said the president had violated its rules against glorifying violence after he tweeted about protests over the death of George Floyd.
In June, Facebook and Twitter removed a video posted to Trump's social media accounts of a "racist baby" after one of the children's parents filed a copyright claim. Twitter said the video was "manipulated media."
On July 18th, Twitter removed a video Trump retweeted that used Linkin Park's hit "In The End" after the band sent a copyright complaint to Twitter. The video used clips from Trump's inauguration speech set to the band's hit song.
“Linkin Park did not and does not endorse Trump, nor authorize his organization to use any of our music,” the band tweeted. “A cease and desist has been issued.”
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